Marianna

“ The way in which Marianna received the old fellow when we took him home has quite reformed him. He is fully convinced that she no longer loves you, but that she has given him at least one half of her heart, and that all he has to do is to win the other half. And Marianna, since she imbibed the poison of your kisses, has advanced three years in shrewdness, artfulness, and experience. ”

“ When he had thus worked himself round into a quiet cheerful humour, Salvator suddenly began—"They tell me, my dear sir, that you have a most beautiful and amiable niece, named Marianna—is it so? All the young men of the city are so smitten with love that they stupidly do nothing but run up and down the Via Ripetta, almost dislocating their necks in their efforts to look up at your balcony for a sight of your sweet Marianna, to snatch a single glance from her heavenly eyes." ”

“ Marianna, my darling child—my—my Marianna." "But recollect yourself," said now Cavalcanti, "recollect yourself, Signor Pasquale, it was only on the stage that you saw your niece dead. She is alive; she is here to crave pardon for the thoughtless step which love and also your own inconsiderate conduct drove her to take."
And Marianna, and behind her Antonio Scacciati, now ran forward from the back part of the hall and threw themselves at the old gentleman's feet,—for he had meanwhile been placed in an easy chair. ”

“ Marianna was particularly careful not to interrupt him in these outbreaks of passion, for by encouraging these gleams of hope in the old man's breast she fanned the flame of hope in her own, for the more he could be lulled into the belief that he held her fast in the indissoluble chains of love, the more easy it would be for her to escape him. ”

“ Thus screaming, the Satanic figures fell upon the old man. Capuzzi fell heavily to the ground and Pitichinaccio along with him, both raising a shrill piercing cry of distress and fear, like that of a whole troop of cudgelled asses.
Marianna had meanwhile torn herself away from the old man and leapt aside. Then one of the devils clasped her softly in his arms, whispering the sweet glad words, "O Marianna! my Marianna! At last we've managed it! My friends will carry the old man a long, long way from here, whilst we seek a better place of safety."
"O my Antonio!" whispered Marianna softly. ”

“ There's no other way, is there? Good-bye, Marianna, my good, true girl! Good-bye, Solomin! I leave her in your care. Live happily—live to the good of others; and you, Marianna, think of me only when you are happy. Think of me as a man who was true and good too, but one for whom it was somehow more fitting to die than to live. ”

“ And this hand, which I am holding, is to lie in mine as long as my narrative is truthful."
"I am listening," said Marianna.
"A woman's life begins with her first passion," said Andrea. "And my dear Marianna began to live only on the day when she first saw Paolo Gambara. She needed some deep passion to feed upon, and, above all, some interesting weakness to shelter and uphold. The beautiful woman's nature with which she is endowed is perhaps not so truly passion as maternal love. ”

“ What manifest sign had appeared to Gabrie? Where had she found out the secret? On Madame's impassive face? Antonio's? Marianna's? Or was it a thing already public? Yet Regina had never even [220] suspected it, nor did she remember the smallest revealing sign. True, a few words, a few phrases, now returned to her memory, taking a significance, which, even in her agitation, she thought must be exaggerated. "Anything is possible," Marianna had once said to her with her bad smile. "The blind see more than those with eyes." ”

“ I will cut him down if he opposes me and carry off Marianna."
"An excellent plan!" replied Salvator, laughing. "An excellent plan! Splendidly contrived! Of course I presume you have also found some means for transporting Marianna through the air to the Spanish Square, so that they shall not seize you and hang you before you can reach that place of refuge. No, my dear Antonio, violence can do nothing for you this time. You may lay your life on it too that Signor Pasquale will now take steps to guard against any open attack. ”

“ He depicted in startling colours the folly and madness of amorous old men, who call down upon their own heads the most ruinous mischief which Heaven can inflict upon a man, since all the love which might have fallen to their share is lost, and instead hatred and contempt shoot their fatal darts at them from every side.
At intervals lovely Marianna cried in a tone that went to everybody's heart, "O my uncle, I will love and honour you as my own father; you will kill me by a cruel death if you rob me of my Antonio." ”

“ In dark hours the strongest soul becomes the prey of superstition. The dream had been only a dream. In any case, it had knitted itself strangely to reality by the 10,000 lire, the beautiful Apartment, Marianna's laugh.
Marianna! Ah! She at any rate would know! For a space Regina thought of summoning her.
"I will make her speak—by violence if necessary! I will send the nurse and the maid out of the house! I'm stronger than Marianna!" ”

“ Will you defraud yourself of your own Marianna, you dog? Are you going to throw her at that diabolical rascal's head? The sweet Marianna--your life, your hope, your all-in-all? Ah, beware! Have a care, deluded blockhead! These fists shall beat you black and blue, and give you something else to think about than dinners and marriages."
But the Capuzzi on the stage clenched his fists too, and cried out in a similar fury, with the same yelling voice: "May all the devils enter your body! ”

“ They bore the dead youth into the house of his mother. The women raised their wail; the guitars were silent.—Felix's mother, Marianna, was a widow; she had seen much trouble. As soon as the youth was buried, she dried her tears, and thought only of avenging him, for she was a woman of a high spirit, and sprung of the ancient house of Colonna d'Istria.
Marianna laid aside her female dress, and put on male attire. She wrapped herself in the pelone, put a Phrygian cap upon her head, girded herself with the carchera, placed dagger and pistols in her belt, and grasped the double-barrel. ”

“ The future is all dark, and we are pushing forward together into this darkness. I need not explain to you what it is we are going into, and what work we have chosen. Marianna and I are not in search of happiness; we don't want to enjoy ourselves, but to struggle on together, side by side, supporting each other. Our aim is clear to us; but what ways will lead up to it, we do not know. Shall we find, if not sympathy and help, at least freedom to work? Marianna is a splendid, honest girl ”

“ Tiralla had never imagined that she could feel so much love for her daughter. She was really fond of her now. Marianna would on no account sleep any longer in the same room as Rosa; she said that it was impossible to close an eye the whole night through, and if she worked so hard during the day she really must rest at night. The truth was that when Marianna stole out of bed in order to go to her lover, the child would sit up in bed and call out, "Where are you going, Marianna?" ”

“ Marianna, too, could often not restrain her tears at the thought that her father's brother would never till his dying day forgive the trick that had been played upon him; and thus Pasquale's hatred cast a sorrowful shadow upon her happy life. Salvator comforted them both with the thought that time cures much harder matters, and that chance might perhaps bring the old man to them in a much less dangerous manner than if they had remained in Rome, or were to go back there now. ”

“ The old argus, mad with joy, and believing himself on the eve of an unlooked for happiness, has sworn to grant every wish to Marianna; she immediately asked to be taken to signor Formica's theatre, near the Popolo gate.—The good man, surprised at this desire, held eouncil with doctor Pryamid and Pitichinaccio; and they decided that Capuzzi ought to keep his word. To-morrow Marianna is to go to the theatre; Pitichinaccio is to accompany her, dressed like a duenna. ”

“ Here is the young and sympathetic Marianna.”
She turned slightly and beckoned Marianna to her side, but the girl remained where she was, hand in hand with Armando.
“No, no,” said Marianna, recoiling.
“Bah! She is young, my brother, and does not know what she wants. Can’t you see that if you are not married at once the colony will always despise you? Never again shall you hold up your head.”
“But the people will know just the same that I have been put in a sack,” groaned Di Bello.
“Listen,” said Carolina, putting a finger beside her nose shrewdly. “Those people are fools. ”

“ He had asked Marianna if she knew why her mistress was in such a bad humour, and why she frowned so.
[Pg 157]
"Let the wicked look fall on the dog," whispered Marianna, and spat on the ground whilst she made the sign of the cross. She would take good care not to mention her suspicions to her master. If she said to him, "That woman is up to something," he would turn her out of the house as a reward. He was still so wrapped up in the woman. And she really did not know herself what the Pani was up to. The mushrooms had agreed with the master all right ”

“ Heaven be praised for the vent-hole. I will write to Marianna; Margaret shall take the letter with her"——
"Nay, nay, we can have none of that, Antonio," replied Salvator. "Margaret can be useful to us without being your love-messenger exactly. Besides, accident, which often plays many fine tricks, might carry your amorous confessions into old Capuzzi's hands, and so bring an endless amount of fresh trouble upon Marianna, just at the very moment when she is on the point of getting the lovesick old fool under her thumb. ”

“ How shall we live if we give up our work?”
“I will make up the ten soldi. Bid her come.”
So the next dawn did not find Marianna hastening with lunch hamper down the path through the fir thicket toward the mill in [Pg 115] the gorge. But Armando was at the spot where he met her every morning on her way to work. And while he watched and worried under the alders, whose boles the torrent splashed, Marianna stood at the bedside of Aunt Carolina. At daybreak she had entered the room softly, and found the woman from America awake. ”

“ She has convinced the old man, not only that she had no share in our trick, but that she hates our goings-on, and will meet with scorn every device on your part to approach her. In his excessive delight the old man was too hasty, and swore that if he could do anything to please his adored Marianna he would do it immediately, she had only to give utterance to her wish. Whereupon Marianna modestly asked for nothing except that her zio carissimo (dearest uncle) would take her to see Signor Formica in the theatre outside the Porta del Popolo. This rather posed Capuzzi ”

“ How could he wait so long when the vendetta was boiling in his veins? His wife had done him a deadly wrong, and, per Dio! deadly should be the accounting.
“See the grand trouble she has caused to me, to my friend, and to poor Marianna!”
[Pg 306]
“To Marianna?” she asked, in genuine wonder. “What wrong has she done her?”
“Were not she and Armando to wed when his Presidentessa should be sold? A long time they must wait now. Thundering heavens! But she shall pay.”
“You are mistaken,” rejoined Carolina, with a note of authority. “It would have made no difference to Marianna. ”

“ The most practised skill, the most impenetrable craftiness--in short, every art of the woman most accomplished and experienced in the ways of the world--could suggest nothing more than what little Marianna did, in order to throw dust in the old man's eyes with the most absolute assurance of success. She could not possibly have acted with greater talent to make the road clear for us, whatever our undertakings were to be. The campaign against the insane old fool was legitimate--every kind of trick and artifice seems justified ”

“ Who was there in all Rome who did not scorn and mock at old Capuzzi, with his mean avarice, his silly amorousness, his crazy jealousy?--or who did not wish the poor tormented Marianna her freedom? Yet now that Antonio had succeeded in carrying her off, all the scorn and mockery suddenly turned to pity for the poor old fellow who was seen creeping about the streets of Rome, with bowed head, inconsolable.
Misfortunes rarely come singly. ”

“ As a piece of unconscious psychological self-analysis, they are unsurpassed; as a product of the Peninsular heart they are unrivalled. These five short letters written by Marianna to “expostulate her desertion” form one of the few documents of extreme human experience, and reveal a passion which in the course of two centuries has lost nothing of its heat. ”

“ It was worst in the hot weather when other people could move out of town, and it hurt me to see Marianna looking white and tired. I used to wish I could send her to one of the summer-boarders' farms up in the hills, though I guess she wouldn't have gone without me. ”

“ I have got some extremely good apartments in the house of a 'Merchant of Venice,' who is a good deal occupied with business, and has a wife in her twenty-second year. Marianna (that is her name) is in her appearance altogether like an antelope. She has the large, black, oriental eyes, with that peculiar expression in them which is seen rarely among EuPg 312ropeans—even the Italians—and which many of the Turkish women give themselves by tinging the eyelid,—an art not known out of that country, I believe. ”