Enrica

“ In these few and simple words Enrica had tried all her powers of persuasion. The words were addressed to the priest; but her blue eyes, filled with tears, gathered themselves upon the marchesa imploringly. Enrica awaited her fate in silence. The priest rose and gently replaced her on her chair. All the benevolence of his manly nature was called forth. He cast a searching glance at the marchesa. Nothing betrayed her feelings.
"Calm yourself, Enrica," Fra Pacifico said, soothingly. "No one seeks to hurry or to force you. But I could not for a moment sanction your entering a convent. ”

“ If Enrica goes into religion, the Guinigi race is doomed. Why should you, with your own hand, destroy the work of your life? If Enrica will not consent to renounce her engagement to Count Nobili, why should she not marry him? There is no real obstacle other than your will. ”

“ But the marchesa was not to be stopped.
"I hate Count Nobili!" she burst out. "I have had my eye upon him ever since he came to Lucca. I know him—you do not. It is possible he may change, but if he does not—"
For the second time the marchesa did not finish the sentence.
"And do you think he loves you?"
As she asked this question she seated herself, and contemplated Enrica with a cynical smile.
"Yes, he loves me. It is you who do not know him!" exclaimed Enrica. "He is so good, so generous, so true; there is no one in the world like him." ”

“ The marchesa's white face darkened as she looked at Enrica. How dared Enrica be so happy? But she repressed the reproaches that rose to her lips, though her heart swelled to bursting, and the veins in her forehead distended with rage.
"Can Enrica be of my flesh and blood?" exclaimed the marchesa in a low voice to the cavaliere who now stood at her side. "Fool! she believes in her lover! It is a horrible sacrifice! Mark my words—a horrible sacrifice!"
Nobili and Enrica had taken their places behind the notary. ”

“ There is no need for me to speak about Enrica herself; you have already judged her. You have, before my eyes, approached her with the looks and the language of passionate admiration. It is not given to all men to be so fascinating. ”

“ Enrica listened to him in painful silence; his words sounded prophetic.
"To love and to suffer; but, loving once"—again the count was speaking, and his voice enchained her by its sweetness—"to love forever. Where shall the man be found pure enough to dare to accept such love as you can bestow? By Heavens!" he added, and his voice fell to a whisper, and his black eyes seemed to penetrate into her very soul, "you love already. I read it in the depths of those heavenly eyes, in the shadow that already darkens that soft brow, in the dreamy, languid air that robs you of your youth. ”

“ Enrica's face is in shadow, but, as she raises it and sees the cavaliere seated beside her aunt, a quiet smile plays about her mouth, and a gleam of pleasure rises in her eyes.
What is it that makes youth in Italy so fresh and beautiful—so lithe, erect, and strong? What gives that lustre to the eye, that ripple to the hair, that faultless mould to the features, that mellowness to the skin—like the ruddy rind of the pomegranate—those rounded limbs that move with sovereign ease—that step, as of gods treading the earth? ”

“ The marchesa started violently and raised herself bolt upright.
"The Red count in love with a child like Enrica!"
"Only a child in your eyes, Signora Marchesa," rejoined Trenta, warmly. (He had warmed with his own convictions, his benevolent heart was deeply interested in Enrica. He had known her since she had first come to Casa Guinigi, a baby; from his soul he pitied her.) "In the eyes of the world Enrica is not only a woman, but promises to be a very lovely one. She is seventeen years old, and marriageable. Young ladies of her name and position must have fortunes, or they do not marry well. ”

“ When Nobili had done all this, impelled by mixed feelings of wounded pride, obstinacy, and defiance, he had never, let it be noted, seen Enrica. But after a meeting had been arranged by Teresa one morning at early mass in the cathedral, near a dark and unfrequented altar in the transept—an arrangement, be it observed, unknown to Enrica—all his feelings changed. From the moment he saw her he loved her with all the fervor of his ardent nature; from that moment he knew that he had never loved before. ”

“ She wrapped a large white shawl about her, that made Enrica look paler and more ghost-like than before.
"Nobody loves me like you, Pipa—nobody—dear Pipa!"
Enrica threw her soft arms around Pipa as she said this. She felt so lonely the tears came into her eyes, already swollen with excessive weeping.
"Who knows?" was Pipa's grave reply. "It is a strange world. You must not judge a man always by what he does."
Enrica gave a deep sigh. She had hurried out of her room into the sala with a headlong impulse to rush to her aunt. Now she dreaded what her aunt might have to say to her. ”

“ No, Enrica could never be his; no child of his would ever be encircled by those soft, womanly arms! With a strong effort to shake off the feeling which so deeply moved him, the count continued:
"In the boundless realms of ideal philosophy"—his noble features were at this moment lit up into the living image of that hero he so much resembled—"man grapples hand to hand with the unseen. There are no limits to his glorious aspirations. He is as God himself. He, too, becomes a Creator; and a new and purer world forms beneath his hand."
"Have you done?" asked Trenta, looking up out of the arm-chair. ”

“ She was struck by Enrica's exceeding beauty, which seemed within the last few days to have suddenly developed and matured.
"The young man appreciates you, too, I do not doubt. I am told he is a lover of beauty."
This was added with a sneer. Enrica grew crimson.
"Well, well," the marchesa went on to say, "it is too late now—the thing is done. But remember I have warned you. You chose Count Nobili, not I. Enrica, I have done my duty to you and to my own name. Now go and tell the cavaliere I want him."
The marchesa was always wanting the cavaliere; she was closeted with him for hours at a time. ”

“ No fire blazes on the hearth, but they are all there. Warm days have come, and the summer air, even now, hangs heavy with fever in the hollows of the plain.
I heard them stirring early on the morning of which I was to go away. I do not think I slept very well myself—nor very late. Never did Enrica look more beautiful—never. All her carnival robes and the sad drapery of the Friday of Crucifixion could not so adorn her beauty as that neat morning dress and that simple rosebud she wore upon her bosom. ”

“ Count Marescotti, who came last, advanced to take leave of Enrica. At this moment an olive-skinned, black-eyed girl rose out of the shadow of a neighboring wall, and, lowering a basket from her head, filled with fruit—tawny figs, ruddy peaches, purple grapes, and russet-skinned medlars, shielded from the heat by a covering of freshly-picked vine-leaves—offered it to Enrica. Our Adonis, still sulky and sore from the pinches inflicted by the mischievous fingers of the cavaliere, waved the girl rudely away.
"Fruit! Chè! Begone! our servants have better. ”

“ Sudden proposals, too, emanating from others, always nettled her; it narrowed her prerogative.
"Besides," objected the marchesa, still fencing with the real question, "who can answer for Count Marescotti? He is so capricious! Supposing he likes Enrica to-day, he may change before to-morrow. Do you really think he can care enough about Enrica to marry her? Her name would be nothing to him."
"I think he does care for her," replied Trenta, reflectively; "but that can be ascertained. Enrica is a fit consort for a far greater man than Count Marescotti. ”

“ Talking of myself in your presence, ladies!—What can we do to amuse your niece, marchesa? Lucca is horribly dull. If she is to go neither to festivals nor to balls, it will not be possible for her to exist here."
"It will be quite possible," answered the marchesa, greatly displeased at the turn the conversation was taking. "Quite possible, if I choose it. Enrica will exist where I please. You forget she has lived here for seventeen years. You see she has not died of it. She stays at home by my order, count."
Enrica cast a pleading look at her aunt, as if to say, "Can I help all this?" ”

“ Enrica's distrust of him, her silence, her tears, cut Nobili to the soul. He knows he deserves it. Ah!—with her there before him, how he curses himself for ever having doubted her! Every justification suddenly leaves him. He is utterly confounded. The gossip of the club—Count Marescotti and his miserable verses—the marchesa herself—what are they all beside the purity of those saint-like eyes? Nera, too—false, fickle, sensual Nera—a mere thing of flesh and blood—he had left her for Nera! ”

“ Enrica Guinigi"—there was a tender inflection in Count Marescotti's voice whenever he named her, an involuntary bending of the head that was infinitely touching—"Enrica Guinigi is an exception. I could have loved her—ah! she is worthy of all love! Her soul is as rare as her person. ”

“ But Enrica shrank from compliance, with a secret sense that she had no right to do what he asked; no right to marry without her aunt's consent. Her love was her own to give. She had thought it all out for herself, pacing up and down under the cool marble arcades of the Moorish garden, the splash of the fountain in her ears—Teresa had told her the same—her love was her own to give. What had her aunt done for her, her sister's child, but feed and clothe her? Indeed, as Teresa said, the marchesa had done but little else. ”

“ An Italian girl does not fear to talk of death, and we were talking of it still as we walked back to my little parlor—my hand all the time in hers—and sat down by the blaze of my fire.
It was holy week; never had Enrica looked more sweetly than in that black dress—under that long, dark veil of the days of Lent. Upon the broad pavement of St. Peter’s—where the people, flocking by thousands, made only side groups about the altars of the vast temple—I have watched her kneeling beside her mother, her eyes bent down, her lips moving earnestly, and her whole figure tremulous with deep emotion. ”

“ And she called out—“Enrica!—Enrica! venite, subito! c’ è un forestiere.”
And the daughter came, her light-brown hair falling carelessly over her shoulders, her rich, hazel eye twinkling and full of life, the color coming and going upon her transparent cheek, and her bosom heaving with her quick step. With one hand she put back the scattered locks that had fallen over her forehead, while she laid the other gently upon the arm of her mother, and asked in that sweet music of the south—“cosa volete, mamma?” ”

“ What am I to say to the marchesa?"
His shrill voice rose into an angry cry. Altogether, it was more than he could bear. For a moment, the injury to Enrica was forgotten in his own personal sense of wrong. It was too galling to fail in an official embassy Trenta, who always acted upon mature reflection, abhorred failure.
"Tell her," answered the count, raising his voice, his eyes kindling as he spoke—"tell her I am here in Lucca on a sacred mission. I confide it to her honor. A man sworn to a mission cannot marry. ”

“ The body is just under us. Enrica crosses herself; her smile is for the moment gone. Cesare’s boy-face is grown suddenly earnest. We could see the pale youthful features of the dead man. The glaring flambeaux sent their flaunting streams of unearthly light over the wan visage of the sleeper. A thousand eyes were looking on him, but his face, careless of them all, was turned up, straight toward the stars.
Still the chant rises, and companies of priests follow the bier, like those who had gone before. Friars, in brown cloaks, and prelates and Carmelites come after—all with torches. ”

“ The sun is hot and smoking on them in the bare valleys; the sun is hot and smoking on the hill side, where we are toiling over the broken stones. I thought of little Enrica, when she said: “the spring was coming!”
Time and again we sit down together—my friend and I—upon some fragment of rock, under the broad-armed chestnuts, that fringe the lower skirts of the mountains, and talk through the hottest of the noon, of the warriors of Sylla, and of the Sabine woman—but oftener—of the pretty peasantry, and of the sweet-faced Roman girl. ”

“ From the upper one a couple of black-eyed girls are occasionally looking out, and they can almost read the title of my book, when I sit by the window. Below are three or four blooming ragazze, who are dark-eyed, and have Roman luxuriance of hair. The youngest is a friend of our Enrica, and is of course frequently looking up with all the innocence in the world, to see if Enrica may be looking out.
Night after night a bright blaze glows upon my hearth, of the alder faggots which they bring from the Albanian hills. ”

“ Enrica is beside me—looking with me upon the gaunt figures of the Judgment of Angelo. They are chanting the Miserere. The twelve candlesticks by the altar are put out one by one as the service continues. The sun has gone down, and only the red glow of twilight steals through the dusky windows. There is a pause, and a brief reading from a red-cloaked cardinal, and all kneel down. She kneels beside me, and the sweet, mournful flow of the Miserere begins again, growing in force and depth, till the whole chapel rings and the balcony of the choir trembles ”