Leoni

“ Leoni sat down at the table and burst into tears.
"This is the effect of brandy," said the marquis, calmly, putting the glass to his lips. "I warned you; it always takes hold of the nerves."
"Let me alone, brute beast!" shouted Leoni, giving the table a push which nearly overturned it on the marquis; "let me weep in peace. You don't know what love is!"
"Love!" said the marquis in a theatrical tone, mimicking Leoni; "remorse! those are very sonorous and dramatic words. When do you send Juliette to the hospital?" ”

“ I did not wish to mention Henryet's name. Leoni frowned.
"A mystery!" he said; "a mystery between us! I would never have believed you capable of it. But you know no one here! Can it be that——? If it were he, there is not blood enough in his veins to wash away his insolence! Tell me the truth, Juliette, has Chalm been here to see you? Has he persecuted you again with his vile proposals and his calumnies against me?"
"Chalm!" I exclaimed. "Is he in Milan?" And I felt a thrill of terror which must have been reflected on my face, for Leoni saw that I was ignorant of the viscount's arrival. ”

“ But I believe—and other women believed with me—that no man on earth ever felt and expressed love like Leoni. Superior to other men in evil and in good, he spoke another tongue, he had another expression, he had also another heart. I have heard an Italian woman say that a bouquet in Leoni's hand was more fragrant than in another man's, and it was so with everything. ”

“ It seems to me that I see a lake of it all about me."
"Your nerves are too delicate, Leoni; you are good for nothing."
"Canaille!" exclaimed Leoni in a tone of hatred and contempt, "but for me you would be a dead man; you retreated like a coward, and you would have been struck from behind. If I had not seen that you were lost, and if your ruin would not have involved mine, I would never have touched that man at such an hour and in such a place. But your infernal obstinacy compelled me to be your accomplice. All that I needed was to commit a murder, to be worthy of your society." ”

“ Whether it was the work of God, of Leoni, or of love, a vigorous mind developed and took possession of my feeble body. Every day I felt a world of new thoughts come to life within me. A word from Leoni gave birth to more sentiments than all the frivolous talk I had heard all my life. ”

“ You have never yet loved me as I am; you have cherished an attachment for a false Leoni, in whom you still saw some grandeur and some fascination. You hoped that he would become some day the man you loved in the beginning; you did not believe that you had held in your arms a man who was irrevocably lost. ”

“ He saw that he must make the most of that moment of hesitation and weakness, and he made haste to give me information concerning Leoni that bore the stamp of hateful truth.
"I admire," he said, "the way in which your easily persuaded and confiding heart has clung so long to such a character. It is true that nature has endowed him with irresistible fascinations, and that he is extraordinarily skilful in concealing his villainy and assuming the outward appearance of loyalty. All the cities in Europe know him for a delightful rake. ”

“ We had great pipes and daggers studded with sapphires and diamonds. My whole costume was worth at least a million.
Leoni accompanied us, dressed in a superb Turkish costume. He was so handsome and so majestic in that garb that people stood on benches to see him pass. My heart beat violently, I was filled to bursting with a pride that was almost delirium. My own costume was, as you can imagine, the last thing in my mind. Leoni's beauty, his success, his superiority to all the others, the sort of worship that was paid him—and it was all mine, all at my feet! ”

“ Leoni, who was determined to win her friendship, had designed her costume so artistically that he had almost given a touch of poetry to her serious, wrinkled face. She, too, was intoxicated, poor Agathe! Alas! what does a woman's common-sense amount to?
We had been there two or three hours. My mother was dancing and my aunt gossiping with the superannuated females who compose what is called in France the tapestry of a ball-room. Leoni was seated by my side and talking to me in an undertone with a passion of which every word kindled a spark in my blood. ”

“ I could not continue; a flood of tears choked my voice and arrested my words.
"Why should I wish to degrade you?" cried Leoni beside himself with emotion; "to spare my tattered conscience another cause for remorse! You cannot understand that, Juliette. It is easy to see that you have never committed a crime!" ”

“ Leoni was easily satisfied except as to what he called the refectory. At last, when we had found a little verdure-clad shelf half-way down the slope of some deep gorge, sheltered from wind and sun, with a lovely view, and a brook close at hand sweetened by aromatic plants, he would himself arrange the repast on a white napkin spread on the ground. He would send Joanne to pick strawberries and plunge the wine into the cool water of the stream. He would light a spirit lamp and cook fresh eggs. ”

“ Do you wish me to tell you why Leoni, who is personally brave,—that is beyond question,—and who is the best swordsman that I know, has never thought fit to pick a quarrel with me, who never touched a sword in my life, and who drove him out of Paris with a word, out of Brussels with a glance? ”

“ Oh! how, how could I have distrusted Leoni? how could I have conceived any dread of the future? Do not tell me again that I am credulous and weak; the most strong-minded of women would have been subjugated forever by those six months of love. As for myself, I was absolutely enslaved; and my cruel remorse for having abandoned my parents, the thought of their grief, grew fainter day by day, and, finally, vanished almost entirely. Oh! how great was that man's power!
Juliette paused and fell into a melancholy reverie. ”

“ God! it has been a long attack. Now let us reason a little; you don't seriously mean to fight with Henryet?"
"Most seriously," replied Leoni; "you talk seriously enough about murdering him."
"That's a very different matter."
"It is precisely the same thing. He doesn't know how to use any weapon, and I am very expert with all sorts."
"Except the stiletto," said the marquis, "or the pistol at point-blank range; besides, you don't kill anybody but women."
"I will kill that man at all events," replied Leoni. ”

“ Hope is feverish enough at all times; what must it be when stimulated by curiosity!
The first blush of morning awakened Leoni from his light slumbers: he looked out; the hue of the sky was that too of the sea; the waves of the Mediterranean floated on as if freighted with roses; yet how Leoni wished they were glittering with the clear colourless light of noon! Never say that time is of equal length: the movement of the hours is as irregular as the beating of the heart which measures them. A year of ordinary life, if counted by hopes, fears, and fancies, was in that lingering morning. ”

“ But tell me, Leoni, can we not live more simply and more by ourselves here? We see each other now only through the fumes of punch; we speak to each other only amid songs and laughter. Why have we so many friends? Are we not enough for each other?"
"Why, Juliette," he replied, "angels are children, and you are both. You do not know that love is the function of the noblest faculties of the mind, and that we must take care of those faculties as of the apple of one's eye. ”

“ The only thing that disturbed me seriously was the constant presence of the Marquis de ——. He had obtained an introduction to the princess, on what pretext I have no idea, and amused her by his caustic, ill-natured chatter. Then he would draw Leoni into another room and have long interviews with him, from which Leoni always came with a gloomy brow.
"I hate and despise Lorenzo," he often said to me; "he is the vilest cur I know; he is capable of anything." ”

“ I propose to make him feel the shame of such cowardly persecution and such a detestable vengeance. But how can he injure you, Leoni? are you not so far above his attacks that with a word you can pulverize him? Are not your virtue and your strength as pure and unassailable as gold? O heaven! I understand; you are ruined! the papers you have been expecting bring only bad news. Henryet knows it and threatens to tell my parents. ”

“ I said to her; "Leoni is guilty enough; you have no intention of accusing him more than he deserves."
Juliette resumed her narrative.
It is a fact that he loved me, loved me for myself; the sequel proved that clearly enough. Do not shake your head, Bustamente. Leoni's is a powerful body, animated by a vast mind; all the virtues and all the vices, all the passions, holy and guilty alike, find a place in it at the same time. No one has ever chosen to judge him impartially ”

“ You are the wisest man I know, and I am afraid that you possess a very ungrateful master. Forward, gentlemen, and let’s get there, for I am beginning to grow boar-like and to long to stretch my sore and weary limbs in a good bed, if I can, or merely on a heap of straw. Here, Leoni, I suppose you have not brought any of that healing salve with which you have treated me more than once when I came to misfortune in the hunt?”
“By rights, sir, I am a chirurgien, or leech,” said Leoni gravely. “On my travels a few simples and my little case are things I never leave behind.” ”

“ And be sure, Don Aleo, that Leoni was not deceiving me at that time. While it is true that he had very strong reasons for keeping out of sight, it is none the less certain that he was happy in his retreat, and that he loved me there. Could he have feigned that perfect serenity during six whole months, unchanged for a single day? And why should he not have loved me? I was young and fair, I had left everything for him and I adored him. Understand, I am no longer under any delusion as to his character; I know everything and I will tell you the whole truth. ”

“ I should like to hear your judgment!" said the viscount, between his teeth.
"Come, come! more punch! more punch!" cried the other guests. "There's no possibility of any more fun unless we drink Chalm and Leoni under the table. They have reached the stage of nervous spasms; let's put them in a trance."
"Yes, my friends, my very dear friends!" cried Leoni, "punch! friendship! life—a jolly life! The deuce take the cards! they are what make me ugly. ”

“ It must be, I thought, that my character inspires an insurmountable repugnance which she dares not avow to me. Perhaps the life I lead is unpleasant to her, and yet I have made my habits conform to hers. Leoni used to take her constantly from city to city. I have kept her travelling for two years, forming no ties anywhere, and never delaying for an instant to leave the place where I detected the faintest sign of ennui on her face. And yet she is melancholy, that is certain; nothing amuses her, and it is only from consideration for me that she deigns sometimes to smile. ”

“ On the war music of his tongue.
A girl behind Leoni stands,
His scarf is in her trembling hands;
Scarce hath she power to bid each fold
Hang graceful with its blue and gold;
She droops beneath her shrouding veil,
Her lip, her cheek, are touched with pale;
A fear hath entered at her heart,—
Take life, so that fear also part.
His ward and cousin she has grown
Within Leoni's halls;
A flower which no rude wind hath blown,
O'er which no shadow falls.
So gradual has the maiden sprung
To womanhood's sweet prime ”

“ I shall be compelled by force to return to my parents."
"There are a thousand ways of eluding men and laws," replied Leoni with a smile; "we can surely find one; don't be alarmed; the whole world is at our disposal." ”

“ Except for my devil of a love-affair, which filled my brain, I had a fine chance in Brussels."
"You?" said the marquis; "you never did anything in that line, and you will never have the courage."
"Courage?" cried Leoni, half-rising, with flashing eyes.
"No extravagance," replied the marquis, with that horrifying sang-froid which they all had. "Let us understand each other. You have courage to kill a bear or a wild boar, but you have too many sentimental and philosophical ideas in your head to kill a man." ”

“ Once the relic is in our hands, a silken rope and some window must be our way.”
“But I know the secret of the passage, sir, how to open the door, and where the passage leads.”
“Where, boy, where?” cried Leoni excitedly.
“Down to the grounds, and then by a long winding alley through the private gardens to the riverside.”
“Hist!” whispered Leoni. “No more, boy, for your words have seemed to burn. Ah, it is strange! The workings too of fate. What I have striven for in vain has come to you without seeking, without thought. It is fate, boy, fate. ”

“ My mother, amazed at my action, began to fear that I might be capable of having a will of my own. She talked to me gently, hoping that in a short time I would consent to dance, and that Leoni would ask me again, but I persisted in remaining in my seat. An hour or more later we heard Leoni's name several times amid the confused murmuring of the ball; some one passing near us said that he had lost six hundred louis.
"Very fine!" said my aunt dryly; "he will do well to look out for some nice girl with a handsome dowry." ”

“ I was still in love with you, and, having reached Brussels only an hour earlier, I did not know that you were to be married. I discovered you in the midst of the crowd; I walked toward you and saw Leoni at your side. I thought that I was dreaming, that I was deceived by a resemblance. I made inquiries and discovered beyond question that your fiancé was the knight of industry who had stolen three or four hundred louis from me. I did not hope to supplant him, indeed I think that I did not wish to. To succeed such a man in your heart, perhaps to wipe from your cheeks the marks of his kisses ”