"Ginevra," continued the baron, "have you reflected that Luigi is the son of the man who killed your brother?""He was six years old when that crime was committed; he was, therefore, not guilty of it," she replied.
"He is a Porta!" cried Bartolomeo.
"I have never shared that hatred," said Ginevra, eagerly."You did not bring me up to think a Porta must be a monster.How could I know that one of those whom you thought you had killed survived? Is it not natural that you should now yield your vendetta to my feelings?""A Porta!" repeated Piombo."If his father had found you in your bed you would not be living now; he would have taken your life a hundred times.""It may be so," she answered; "but his son has given me life, and more than life.To see Luigi is a happiness without which I cannot live.
Luigi has revealed to me the world of sentiments.I may, perhaps, have seen faces more beautiful than his, but none has ever charmed me thus;I may have heard voices--no, no, never any so melodious! Luigi loves me; he will be my husband.""Never," said Piombo."I would rather see you in your coffin, Ginevra."The old Corsican rose and began to stride up and down the salon, dropping the following sentences, one by one, after pauses which betrayed his agitation.
"You think you can bend my will.Undeceive yourself.A Porta shall never be my son; that is my decree.Let there be no further question of this between us.I am Bartolomeo di Piombo; do you hear me, Ginevra?""Do you attach some mysterious meaning to those words?" she asked, coldly.
"They mean that I have a dagger, and that I do not fear man's justice.
Corsicans explain themselves to God."
"And I," said the daughter, rising, "am Ginevra Piombo, and I declare that within six months I shall be the wife of Luigi Porta.You are a tyrant, my father," she added, after a terrifying pause.
Bartolomeo clenched his fists and struck them on the marble of the chimneypiece.
"Ah! we are in Paris!" he muttered.
Then he was silent, crossed his arms, bowed his head on his breast, and said not another word during the whole evening.
After once giving utterance to her will, Ginevra affected inconceivable coolness.She opened the piano and sang, played charming nocturnes and scherzos with a grace and sentiment which displayed a perfect freedom of mind, thus triumphing over her father, whose darkling face showed no softening.The old man was cruelly hurt by this tacit insult; he gathered in this one moment the bitter fruits of the training he had given to his daughter.Respect is a barrier which protects parents as it does children, sparing grief to the former, remorse to the latter.
The next day, when Ginevra sought to leave the house at the hour when she usually went to the studio, she found the gates of the mansion closed to her.She said nothing, but soon found means to inform Luigi Porta of her father's severity.A chambermaid, who could neither read nor write, was able to carry letters between the lovers.For five days they corresponded thus, thanks to the inventive shrewdness of the youth.
The father and daughter seldom spoke to each other.Both were nursing in the depths of their heart a sentiment of hatred; they suffered, but they suffered proudly, and in silence.Recognizing how strong were the ties of love which bound them to each other, they each tried to break them, but without success.No gentle thought came, as formerly, to brighten the stern features of Piombo when he contemplated his Ginevra.The girl had something savage in her eye when she looked at her father; reproach sat enthroned on that innocent brow; she gave herself up, it is true, to happy thoughts, and yet, at times, remorse seemed to dull her eyes.It was not difficult to believe that she could never enjoy, peacefully, any happiness which caused sorrow to her parents.
With Bartolomeo, as with his daughter, the hesitations of this period caused by the native goodness of their souls were, nevertheless, compelled to give way before their pride and the rancor of their Corsican nature.They encouraged each other in their anger, and closed their eyes to the future.Perhaps they mutually flattered themselves that the one would yield to the other.
At last, on Ginevra's birthday, her mother, in despair at the estrangement which, day by day, assumed a more serious character, meditated an attempt to reconcile the father and daughter, by help of the memories of this family anniversary.They were all three sitting in Bartolomeo's study.Ginevra guessed her mother's intention by the timid hesitation on her face, and she smiled sadly.
At this moment a servant announced two notaries, accompanied by witnesses.Bartolomeo looked fixedly at these persons, whose cold and formal faces were grating to souls so passionately strained as those of the three chief actors in this scene.The old man turned to his daughter and looked at her uneasily.He saw upon her face a smile of triumph which made him expect some shock; but, after the manner of savages, he affected to maintain a deceitful indifference as he gazed at the notaries with an assumed air of calm curiosity.The strangers sat down, after being invited to do so by a gesture of the old man.
"Monsieur is, no doubt, M.le Baron di Piombo?" began the oldest of the notaries.
Bartolomeo bowed.The notary made a slight inclination of the head, looked at Ginevra with a sly expression, took out his snuff-box, opened it, and slowly inhaled a pinch, as if seeking for the words with which to open his errand; then, while uttering them, he made continual pauses (an oratorical manoeuvre very imperfectly represented by the printer's dash--).
"Monsieur," he said, "I am Monsieur Roguin, your daughter's notary, and we have come--my colleague and I--to fulfil the intentions of the law and--put an end to the divisions which--appear--to exist--between yourself and Mademoiselle, your daughter,--on the subject--of--her--marriage with Monsieur Luigi Porta."
