“You care very much for luxury?” said he one evening to Francesca, who was expressing her wish to get away from Gersau, where she missed many things.
“I!” cried she. “I love luxury as I love the arts, as I love a picture by Raphael, a fine horse, a beautiful day, or the Bay of Naples. Emilio,” she went on, “have I ever complained here during our days of privation.”
“You would not have been yourself if you had,” replied the old man gravely.
“After all, is it not in the nature of plain folks to aspire to grandeur?” she asked, with a mischievous glance at Rodolphe and at her husband. “Were my feet made for fatigue?” she added, putting out two pretty little feet. “My hands”—and she held one out to Rodolphe—“were those hands made to work?—Leave us,” she said to her husband; “I want to speak to him.”
The old man went into the drawing-room with sublime good faith; he was sure of his wife.
“I will not have you come with us to Geneva,” she said to Rodolphe. “It is a gossiping town. Though I am far above the nonsense the world talks, I do not choose to be calumniated, not for my own sake, but for his. I make it my pride to be the glory of that old man, who is, after all, my only protector. We are leaving; stay here a few days. When you come on to Geneva, call first on my husband, and let him introduce you to me. Let us hide our great and unchangeable affection from the eyes of the world. I love you; you know it; but this is how I will prove it to you—you shall never discern in my conduct anything whatever that may arouse your jealousy.”
She drew him into a corner of the balcony, kissed him on the forehead, and fled, leaving him in amazement.
Next day Rodolphe heard that the lodgers at the Bergmanns’ had left at daybreak. It then seemed to him intolerable to remain at Gersau, and he set out for Vevay by the longest route, starting sooner than was necessary. Attracted to the waters of the lake where the beautiful Italian awaited him, he reached Geneva by the end of October. To avoid the discomforts of the town he took rooms in a house at Eaux-Vives, outside the walls. As soon as he was settled, his first care was to ask his landlord, a retired jeweler, whether some Italian refugees from Milan had not lately come to reside at Geneva.
“Not so far as I know,” replied the man. “Prince and Princess Colonna of Rome have taken Monsieur Jeanrenaud’s place for three years; it is one of the finest on the lake. It is situated between the Villa Diodati and that of Monsieur Lafin-de-Dieu, let to the Vicomtesse de Beauséant. Prince Colonna has come to see his daughter and his son-in-law Prince Gandolphini, a Neopolitan, or if you like, a Sicilian, an old adherent of King Murat’s, and a victim of the last revolution. These are the last arrivals at Geneva, and they are not Milanese. Serious steps had to be taken, and the Pope’s interest in the Colonna family was invoked, to obtain permission from the foreign powers and the King of Naples for the Prince and Princess Gandolphini to live here. Geneva is anxious to do nothing to displease the Holy Alliance to which it owes its independence. Our part is not to ruffle foreign courts; there are many foreigners here, Russians and English.”
“Even some Gevenese?”
“Yes, monsieur, our lake is so fine! Lord Byron lived here about seven years at the Villa Diodati, which everyone goes to see now, like Coppet and Ferney.”
“You cannot tell me whether within a week or so a bookseller from Milan has come with his wife—named Lamporani, one of the leaders of the last revolution?”
“I could easily find out by going to the Foreigners’ Club,” said the jeweler.
Rodolphe’s first walk was very naturally to the Villa Diodati, the residence of Lord Byron, whose recent death added to its attractiveness: for is not death the consecration of genius?
The road to Eaux-Vives follows the shore of the lake, and, like all the roads in Switzerland, is very narrow; in some spots, in consequence of the configuration of the hilly ground, there is scarcely space for two carriages to pass each other.
At a few yards from the Jeanrenauds’ house, which he was approaching without knowing it, Rodolphe heard the sound of a carriage behind him, and, finding himself in a sunk road, he climbed to the top of a rock to leave the road free. Of course he looked at the approaching carriage—an elegant English phaeton, with a splendid pair of English horses. He felt quite dizzy as he beheld in this carriage Francesca, beautifully dressed, by the side of an old lady as hard as a cameo. A servant blazing with gold lace stood behind. Francesca recognized Rodolphe, and smiled at seeing him like a statue on a pedestal. The carriage, which the lover followed with his eyes as he climbed the hill, turned in at the gate of a country house, towards which he ran.
“Who lives here?” he asked the gardener.
“Prince and Princess Colonna, and Prince and Princess Gandolphini.”
“Have they not just driven in?”
“Yes, sir.”
In that instant a veil fell from Rodolphe’s eyes; he saw clearly the meaning of the past.
“If only this is her last piece of trickery!” thought the thunderstruck lover to himself.
He trembled lest he should have been the plaything of a whim, for he had heard what a capriccio might mean in an Italian. But what a crime had he committed in the eyes of a woman—in
