Lelio

“ 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. ”

“ As it rarely happens that two beings who hate, or wish to injure each other, however much they may endeavor to conceal their feelings, do not by some means or other finally reveal them, so the glances of Troilo and Lelio met, clashing like two enemies' swords, and the more Troilo persisted in looking sternly at Lelio, to make him, either through respect or fear, cast down his eyes, the more steadily would Lelio fix them upon him with an indescribable expression of rage. ”

“ I was bright enough to think that in those days I should not [Pg 1168] have been misjudged and hated, and that I should not have been reduced to loving a fantom of the footlights. Lelio was to me but the shadow of the Cid, the representative of that antique chivalric love now ridiculed in France. My Lelio was a fictitious being who had no existence outside the theatre. The illusions of the stage, the glare of the footlights, were a part of the being whom I loved. ”

“ To me, Lelio was indeed Rodrigue, Bajazet, Hippolyte. I hated his enemies. I trembled at his dangers; his sorrows drew from me floods of tears, and when he died I was compelled to stifle my emotions in my handkerchief.
“Between the acts I sat down at the back of my box; I was as one dead until the meagre tone of the orchestra warned me that the curtain was about to rise again. Then I sprang up, full of strength and ardor, the power to feel, to weep. How much freshness, poetry, and youth there was in that man’s talent! That whole generation must have been of ice not to have fallen at his feet. ”

“ Then, as I did not reply, she gazed earnestly at me, and said, taking my hand:
"You are sad, Lelio. What is the matter?"
Thereupon I opened my heart to her, and said that my passion for her was a misfortune to me.
"A misfortune? how so?"
"I will tell you, signora. You are the heiress of a noble and illustrious family. You have been brought up to respect your ancestors and to believe that antiquity and splendor of race are all that there is in life. I am a poor devil without a past, a nobody, who have made myself what I am. ”

“ I sank into a chair more dead than alive, for I was about to see Lelio shorn of the illusions of the stage. I closed my eyes, and inwardly bade them farewell before I reopened them.
“But how much was I surprised! Lelio was beautiful as an angel. He had not taken off his stage dress, and it was the most elegant I had ever seen him wear. His Spanish doublet was of white satin, his shoulder and garter knots of cherry ribbons, and a short cloak of the same color was thrown over his shoulder. He wore an immense ruff of English lace ”

“ In the lives of men who sleep but little, that is the decisive hour which puts an end to the hesitations conceived and nourished in the darkness, and which changes plans into resolutions. I felt a thrill of enthusiastic joy and legitimate pride at the thought that Lelio the actor had not fallen below Nello the gondolier. ”

“ Lelio, have pity upon me; do not wish to increase my sorrows, for they are already too heavy for me to bear."
"Have you felt pity for me? You have broken me like a flower that, carelessly plucked from its stalk in the garden, you scarcely smell and then throw away. Should a Christian's soul be cast aside like a withered rose? Should a heart that beats but for you be trampled upon like a stone? ”

“ For I too have known love's trials, and know also how to pity them. You, so noble, cannot have placed your affections on an unworthy object; and if upon one above you, there is no inequality which love cannot level; and you, by your high birth, your wealth, and more than all by your goodness, are deserving of an illustrious connexion. If I have any influence, I promise to exert it all to see you happy."
Meanwhile Lelio had regained his former composure; he even, all sorrow laid aside, appeared smiling, and his cheeks were rosy with the hue of youth, the springtime of life. ”

“ The Duchess, who through necessity and custom had learned to control her emotions, perceiving that she had gone further than she had intended, said, in order to distract her own thoughts and Lelio's from these events.
"Rise, Lelio, I do not wish the gift of voice which I have discovered in you to be lost: I do not want you to sing by ear, and am ready to teach you music. If you continue to improve as rapidly as you have begun, it will not be long before you will have no equal in the court of my illustrious brother Francesco. ”

“ One word more, Signor Lelio. If you want the signora to listen to you, don't tell her that the common people are as good as the people of quality. She is tainted with her nobility. Don't form a bad opinion of her on that account, for it's a family disease; all the Grimanis are like that. But that does not prevent my young mistress from being kind and charitable. It is simply an idea she has got in her head, which makes her fly into a great passion when any one thwarts her. ”

“ 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? ”

“ As she spoke she struck a chord or two on her lute, and played the first measures of an andante maestoso by Dusseck.
"That is not the thing," said Lelio, stifling the notes of the lute with Beppa's fan. "Play me rather one of those German waltzes in which Joy and Sorrow, in a voluptuous embrace, seem to turn slowly round and round, and to display in turn a pale tear-stained face and a radiant brow crowned with flowers." ”

“ My reason for refusing your hand was that I love Lelio; my reason for being here is that I am determined never to marry any man but him."
The count was so astounded by this avowal that for several minutes he was unable to reply. God forbid that I should speak slightingly of honest Nasi's friendship; but at that moment I saw plainly enough that among the nobles there is no personal friendship, no amount of devotion, or esteem, which can entirely eradicate the prejudices of the caste. ”

“ However, Signor Lelio, agree with her at first on every subject, and you will soon persuade her of whatever you choose. Oh! if you could only persuade her to marry a young count who proposed for her not long ago!"
"Her cousin, Count Hector?"
"Oh, no! he is a fool, and he bores everybody to death; even his dogs begin to yawn as soon as they see him."
As I listened to Lila's prattle, my fatherly manner having put her completely at her ease, I led her toward the rendezvous. ”

“ And the boy uttered these words in so tremulous and mournful a voice, that the Duchess put her hand to his forehead and exclaimed in a frightened tone—
"Dio mio! how it burns! Poor Lelio! I fear you are ill. Ah! you are fainting, and there is no one here to help him. Lelio! Lelio! Ah! he will die in my arms. Holy Virgin, help him!"
Lelio, his face as white as a waxen image, bathed in a cold perspiration, closed his eyes and leaned his head 36 upon Lady Isabella's bosom, while she supported him with both arms. ”

“ Beza also assigned to him (in 1567) an anonymous Explicatio (1562) of the proem of St John's Gospel, which was the work of Fausto; this error, adopted by Zanchi, has been a chief source of the misconception which treats Lelio as a heresiarch. In Franc Guinio's Defensio cath. doct. de S. Trin. (1590-1591) is an anonymous enumeratio of motives for professing the doctrine of the Trinity, by some ascribed to Lelio; by others, with somewhat more probability, to Fausto.
For the life of L. Sozini the best guide is Trechsel, Die prot. antitrin. vor F. Socin, vol. ii. (1844) ”

“ Why, Trincalo!
Trin. Here, sir.
Pan. Come, let's away for cloth of silver,
Wine, and materials for the sacrifice.
[Exeunt.
[347]
SCENE VII. Lelio, Eugenio, Cricca.
Lel. Eugenio, these words are wonders past belief.
Is your old father of so poor a judgment,
To think it in the power of man to turn
One person to another?
Eug. Lelio, his desire
T' enjoy your sister Flavia begets hope,
Which, like a waking dream, makes false appearance
Lively as truth itself.
Lel. But who's the man
That works these miracles?
Eug. An astrologer. ”

“ Don Inigo, our page, Lelio, has expressed a wish to return to the home of his aged parents, and it does not seem right in us to oppose so natural a desire. His mother, poor woman! who knows with how many prayers she recalls him, and it would seem cruelty to refuse her this consolation. She will see her son improved in every kind of accomplishment that is required in a gentleman; she will see him honorable, honest, and, above all, 89 innocent, and may he be the pride of her life. ”

“ Lelio is descended from the conqueror of Carthage, Scipio Africanus, and Giulia from the Julian stock. They are both pious Christians and vow a pilgrimage to S. James of Compostella if, in answer to the prayers of that saint, God will vouchsafe them a child. Their prayers are heard, and with a great company they set out on pilgrimage to Spain in fulfilment of their vow. ”

“ Inquisition was made immediately into the causes of Lelio's death. According to Lucrezia's account, her husband had reproved some men upon the road for singing obscene songs, whereupon they turned and murdered him. The corpse was exposed in the Church of the Servi, where multitudes of people gathered round it; and there an ancient dame of the Buonvisi house, flinging herself upon her nephew's body, vowed vengeance, after the old custom of the Vocero, against his murderers. Other members of the family indicated Massimiliano as the probable assassin ”

“ Don Inigo, you will accompany Lelio to Fermo, and say to his parents that he has always been a good and honest page, that he leaves with us the loving memory of a son, that in anything wherein my influence can aid him, it shall be my pleasure to exert it: assure his mother especially that depraved habits have no power over him, that I complain of nothing in the youth, except certain boyish faults, too bold, but which time will surely remedy, because they are boyish ones ”

“ It was not really to be wondered at, however, for Polia was the last surviving remnant of the ancient Lelia family in Rome, from whom she was descended by way of Lelius Maurus, the founder of Treviso. She was brought up under the watchful eye of an imperious and haughty father, so proud of the splendour of his race, that he would have considered the marriage of his daughter to the greatest prince in Italy as marrying below her station, and besides, it was known that the treasures that she would inherit one day could suffice for the dowry of a queen. ”

“ He gazed in silence, upon the kneeling maiden; nor was it until she rose that he made his presence audible.
"Ah, fairest!" said he, then, as he attempted to take her hand, "thou wilt not answer my letters—see me, then, at thy feet. It is thou who teachest me to kneel."
"You, prince." said Leila, agitated, and in great and evident fear. "Why harass and insult me thus? Am I not sacred as a hostage and a charge? and are name, honour, peace, and all that woman is taught to hold most dear, to be thus robbed from me under the pretext of a love dishonouring to thee and an insult to myself?" ”

“ Leila stood within this chamber, pale and breathless, with her lips apart, her hands clasped, her very soul in her ears; nor was it possible to conceive a more perfect ideal of some delicate and brilliant Peri, captured in the palace of a hostile and gloomy Genius. Her form was of the lightest shape consistent with the roundness of womanly beauty; and there was something in it of that elastic and fawnlike grace which a sculptor seeks to embody in his dreams of a being more aerial than those of earth. ”

“ Come to my arms!"
"Alas!" said Leila, obeying the instinct, and casting herself upon that rugged bosom. "I will dare, at least, not to disavow my God. Father! by that dread anathema which is on our race, which has made us homeless and powerless—outcasts and strangers in the land; by the persecution and anguish we have known, teach thy lordly heart that we are rightly punished for the persecution and the anguish we doomed to Him, whose footstep hallowed our native earth! ”

“ Her mental revolt and suffering found vent in Lélia, which it was an immense relief to her to write. Characteristic as an exhibition of feeling and of mastery of language, it is not in the least typical of her fiction. Yet, but for Lélia, and its successor Jacques, it is impossible to point to a work of hers that would ever have lastingly stamped her, in the public mind, as an expounder of dangerous theories. In Lélia, however, which is strongly imbued with Byronic colouring, she had chosen to pose somewhat as the proud angel in rebellion ”