years, at a rent of two hundred francs a year. Old Lovelace,
a man of ninety, and much broken, was too poor to allow
himself any gratifications, and very rarely went out; his
daughter worked to maintain him, translating English books,
and writing some herself, it was said. The Lovelaces could
not afford to hire boats to row on the lake, or horses and
guides to explore the neighborhood.

Poverty demanding such privation as this excites all the
greater compassion among the Swiss, because it deprives them
of a chance of profit. The cook of the establishment fed
the three English boarders for a hundred francs a month
inclusive. In Gersau it was generally believed, however, that
the gardener and his wife, in spite of their pretensions, used
the cook's name as a screen to net the little profits of this
bargain. The Bergmanns had made beautiful gardens round
their house, and had built a hothouse. The flowers, the
fruit, and the botanical rarities of this spot were what had
induced the young lady to settle on it as she passed through
Gersau. Miss Fanny was said to be nineteen years old ; she
was the old man's youngest child, and the object of his adula-
tion. About two months prior she had hired a piano from
Lucerne, for she seemed to be crazy about music, his hosts
informed him.

"She loves flowers and music, and she is unmarried ! "
thought Rodolphe ; " what good luck ! "

The next day Rodolphe went to ask leave to visit the hot-
houses and gardens, which were beginning to be somewhat
famous. The permission was riot immediately granted. The
retired gardeners asked, strangely enough, to see Rodolphe's
passport ; it was sent to them at once. The paper was not re-
turned to him till next morning, by the hands of the cook,
who expressed her master's pleasure in showing him their
place. Rodolphe went to the Bergmanns, not without a cer-
tain trepidation, known only to persons of strong feelings,



320 ALBERT SAVARON.

who go through as much passion in a moment as some men
experience in a whole lifetime.

After dressing himself carefully to gratify the old gardeners
of the Borromean Islands, whom he regarded as the warders
of his treasure, he went all over the grounds, looking at the
house now and again, but with much caution ; the old couple
treated him with evident distrust. But his attention was soon
attracted by the little English deaf-mute, in whom his discern-
ment, though young as yet, enabled him to recognize a girl
of African, or at least of Sicilian origin. The child had the
golden-brown color of a Havana cigar, eyes of fire, Armenian
eyelids with lashes of very un-British length, hair blacker than
black ; and under this almost olive skin, sinews of extraordi-
nary strength and feverish alertness. She looked at Rodolphe
with amazing curiosity and effrontery, watching his every
movement.

"To whom does that little Moresco belong?" he asked
worthy Madame Bergmann.

" To the English," Monsieur Bergmann replied.

"But she never was born in England ! "

"They may have, perhaps, brought her from the Indies,"
said Madame Bergmann.

" I have been told that Miss Lovelace is fond of music. I
should be delighted if, during the residence by the lake to
which I am condemned by my doctor's orders, she would
allow me to join her."

"They receive no one, and will not see anybody," said the
old gardener.

Rodolphe bit his lips and went away, without having been
invited into the house, or taken into the part of the garden
that lay between the front of the house and the shore of the
little promontory. On that side the house had a balcony
above the first floor, made of wood, and covered by the roof,
which projected deeply like the roof of a chalet on all four
sides^of the building, in the Swiss fashion. Rodolphe had



ALBERT SAVARON. 321

loudly praised the elegance of this arrangement, and talked
of the view from that balcony, but all in vain. When he had
taken leave of the Bergmanns it struck him that he was a
simpleton, like any man of spirit and imagination disappointed
of the result of a plan which he had believed would succeed.

In the evening he, of course, went out in a boat on the
lake, round and about the spit of land, to Brunnen and to
Schwytz, and came in at nightfall. From afar he saw the
window open and brightly, lighted ; he heard the sound of a
piano and the tones of an exquisite voice. He made the
boatmen stop, and gave himself up to the pleasure of listening
to an Italian air delightfully sung. When the singing ceased,
Rodolphe landed and sent away the boat and rowers. At the
cost of wetting his feet, he went to sit down under the water-
worn granite shelf crowned by a thick hedge of thorny acacia,
by the side of which ran a long lime avenue in the Berg-
manns' garden. By the end of an hour he heard steps and
voices just above him, but the words that reached his ears
were all Italian, and spoken by two women.

He took advantage of the moment when the two speakers
were at one end of the walk to slip noiselessly to the other.
After half an hour of struggling he got to the end of the
avenue, and there took up a position whence, without being
seen or heard, he could watch the two women without being
observed by them as they came towards him. What was Ro-
dolphe's amazement on recognizing the deaf-mute as one of
them ; she was talking to Miss Lovelace in Italian.

It was now eleven o'clock at night. The stillness was so
perfect on the lake and around the dwelling that the two
women must have thought themselves safe ; in all Gersau
there could be no eyes open but theirs. Rodolphe supposed
that the girl's dumbness . must be a necessary deception.
From the way in which they both spoke Italian, Rodolphe
suspected that it was the mother tongue of both girls, and
concluded that the English name also hid some disguise.
21



322 ALBERT SAVARON.

"They are Italian refugees," said he to himself, "outlaws
in fear of the Austrian or Sardinian police. The young lady
waits till it is dark to walk and talk in security."

He lay down by the side of the hedge, and crawled like a
snake to find a way between two acacia shrubs. At the risk
of leaving his coat behind him, or tearing deep scratches in
his back, he got through the hedge when the so-called Miss
Fanny and her pretended deaf-and-dumb maid were at the
other end of the path ; then, when they had come within
twenty yards of him without seeing him, for he was in the
shadow of the hedge, and the moon was shining brightly, he
suddenly rose.

" Fear nothing," said he in French to the Italian girl, " I
am not a spy. You are refugees, I have guessed that. I am
a Frenchman whom one look from you has fixed at Gersau."

Rodolphe, startled by the acute pain caused by some steel
instrument piercing his side, fell like a log.

" Net logo con pietra /" said the terrible dumb girl.

" Oh, Gina ! " exclaimed the Italian.

"She has missed me," said Rodolphe, pulling from the
wound a stiletto, which had been turned by one of the false
ribs. "But a little higher up it would have been deep in my
heart. I was wrong, Francesca," he went on, remembering
the name he had heard little Gina repeat several times; "I
owe her no grudge, do not scold her. The happiness of
speaking to you is well worth the prick of a stiletto. Only
show me the way out ; I must get back to the Stopfers' house.
Be easy ; I shall tell nothing."

Francesca, recovering from her astonishment, helped Ro-
dolphe to rise, and said a few words to Gina, whose eyes filled
with tears. The two girls made him sit down on a bench and
take off his coat, his waistcoat, and his cravat. Then Gina
opened his shirt and sucked the wound strongly. Francesca,
who had left them, returned with a large piece of sticking-
plaster, which she applied to the wound.



ALBERT S AVAR ON. 323

" You can walk now as far as your house," she said.

Each took an arm, and Rodolphe was conducted to a side
gate, of which the key was in Francesca's apron pocket.

" Does Gina speak French ? " said Rodolphe to Francesca.

"No. But do not excite yourself," replied Francesca with
some impatience.

" Let me look at you," said Rodolphe pathetically, " for it
may be long before I am able to come again "

He leaned against one of the gate-posts contemplating the
beautiful Italian, who allowed him to gaze at her for a moment
under the sweetest silence and the sweetest night that ever,
perhaps, shone on this lake, the king of these beautiful Swiss
lakes.

Francesca was quite of the classic Italian type, and such as
imagination supposes or pictures, or, if you will, dreams, that
Italian women are. What first struck Rodolphe was the grace
and elegance of a figure evidently powerful, though so slender
as to appear fragile. An amber paleness overspread her face,
betraying sudden interest, but it did not dim the voluptuous
glance of her liquid eyes of velvety blackness. A pair of
hands as beautiful as ever a Greek sculptor added to the
polished arms of a statue grasped Rodolphe's arm, and their
whiteness gleamed against his black coat. The rash French-
man could but just discern the long, oval shape of her face,
and a melancholy mouth showing brilliant teeth between the
parted lips, full, fresh, and brightly red. The exquisite lines
of this face guaranteed to Francesca permanent beauty ; but
what most struck Rodolphe was the adorable freedom, the
Italian frankness of this woman, wholly absorbed as she was
in her pity for him.

Francesca said a word to Gina, who gave Rodolphe her arm
as far as the Stopfers' door, and fled like a swallow as soon as
she had rung.

" These patriots do not play at killing ! " said Rodolphe to
himself as he felt his sufferings when he found himself in his



324 ALBERT S AVAR ON.

bed. " ' Net logo ! ' Gina would have pitched me into the
lake with a stone tied to my neck."

Next day he sent to Lucerne for the best surgeon there, and
when the surgeon came, enjoined on him absolute secrecy,
giving him to understand that his honor strictly depended on
such observance.

Leopold returned from his excursion on the day when his
friend first got out of bed. Rodolphe made up a story, and
begged him to go to Lucerne to fetch their luggage and letters,
Leopold brought back the most fatal, the most dreadful
news : Rodolphe's mother was dead. While the two friends
were on their way from B&le to Lucerne, the fatal letter,
written by Leopold's father, had reached Lucerne the day
they left for Fluelen.

In spite of Leopold's utmost precautions, Rodolphe fell ill
of a nervous fever. As soon as Leopold saw his friend out
of danger, he set out for France with a power of attorney,
and Rodolphe could thus remain at Gersau, the only place in
the world where his grief could grow calmer. The young
Frenchman's position, his despair, the circumstances which
made such a loss worse for him than for any other man, were
known, and secured him the pity and interest of every one at
Gersau. Every morning the pretended dumb girl came to
see him and bring him news of her mistress.

As soon as Rodolphe could go out he went to the Berg-
manns' house, to thank Miss Fanny Lovelace and her father
for the interest they had taken in his sorrow and his illness.
For the first time since he had lodged with the Bergmanns the
old Italian admitted a stranger to his room, where Rodolphe
was received with the cordiality due to his misfortunes and to
his being a Frenchman, which excluded all distrust of him.
Francesca looked so lovely by candlelight that first evening
that she shed a ray of brightness on his grieving heart. Her
smiles flung the roses of hope on his woe. She sang, not
indeed gay songs, but grave and solemn melodies suited to



ALBERT S AVAR ON. 325

the state of Rodolphe's heart, and he observed this touching
care.

At about eight o'clock the old man left the young people
without any sign of uneasiness, and went to his room. When
Francesca was tired of singing, she led Rodolphe on to the
balcony, whence they perceived the sublime scenery of the
lake, and signed to him to be seated by her on a rustic
wooden bench.

"Am I very indiscreet in asking how old you are, cara
Francesca?" said Rodolphe.

"Nineteen," said she, "well past."

" If anything in the world could soothe my sorrow," he
went on, " it would be the hope of winning you from your
father, whatever your fortune may be. So beautiful as you
are, you seem to me richer than a prince's daughter. And I
tremble as I confess to you the feelings with which you have
inspired me; but they are deep they are eternal."

" Zitto /" said Francesca, laying a finger of her right hand
on her lips. " Say no more; I am not free. I have been
married these three years."

For a few minutes utter silence reigned. When the Italian
girl, alarmed at Rodolphe's stillness, went close to him, she
found that he had fainted.

" Povero ! " she said to herself. "And I thought him cold."

She fetched some salts, and revived Rodolphe by making
him smell at them.

" Married ! " said Rodolphe, looking at Francesca. And
then his tears flowed freely.

"Child!" said she. "But there still is hope. My hus-
band is "

" Eighty?" Rodolphe put in.

" No," said she with a smile, " but sixty-five. He has dis-
guised himself as much older to mislead the police."

"Dearest," said Rodolphe, "a few more shocks of this
kind and I shall die. Only when you have known me



326 ALBERT S AVAR ON.

twenty years will you understand the strength and power of
my heart, and the nature of its aspirations for happiness.
This plant," he went on, pointing to the yellow jasmine
which covered the balustrade, " does not climb more eagerly
to spread itself in the sunbeams than I have clung to you for
this month past. I love you passionately. That love will be
the secret fount of my life I may possibly die of it."

"Oh! Frenchman, Frenchman!" said she, emphasizing
her exclamation with a little incredulous grimace.

" Shall I not be forced to wait, to accept you at the hands
of time?" said he gravely. " But know this ; if you are in
earnest in what you have allowed to escape you, I will wait
for you faithfully, without suffering any other attachment to
grow up in my heart."

She looked at him doubtfully.

" None," said he, "not even a passing fancy. ' I have my
fortune to make ; you must have a splendid one, nature created
you a princess "

At this word Francesca could not repress a faint smile,
which gave her face the most bewitching expression, some-
thing subtle, like what the great Leonardo has so well depicted
in the Gioconda. This smile made Rodolphe pause. " Ah,
yes ! " he went on, "you must suffer much from the destitu-
tion to which exile has brought you. Oh, if you would make
me happy above all men, and consecrate my love, you would
treat me as a friend. Ought I not to be your friend ? My
poor mother has left sixty thousand francs of savings ; take
half."

Francesca looked steadily at him. This piercing gaze went
to the bottom of Rodolphe's soul.

" We want nothing ; my work amply supplies our luxuries,"
she replied in a grave voice.

"And can I endure that a Francesca should work?" cried
he. " One day you will return to your country and find all
you left there." Again the Italian girl looked at Rodolphe.



ALBERT S AVAR ON. 327

"And you will then repay me what you may have conde-
scended to borrow," he added, with an expression full of
delicate feeling.

"Let us drop this subject," said she, with incomparable
dignity of gesture, expression, and attitude. " Make a splen-
did fortune, be one of the remarkable men of your country ;
that is my desire. Fame is a drawbridge which may serve to
cross a deep gulf. Be ambitious, if you must. I believe you
have great and powerful talents, but use them rather for the
happiness of mankind than to deserve me ; you will be all the
greater in my eyes."

In the course of this conversation, which lasted two hours,
Rodolphe discovered that Francesca was an enthusiast for
liberal ideas, and for that worship of liberty which had led to
the three revolutions in Naples, Piedmont, and Spain. On
leaving, he was shown to the door by Gina, the so-called
mute. At eleven o'clock no one was astir in the village,
there was no fear of listeners ; Rodolphe took Gina into a
corner, and asked her in a low voice and bad Italian, "Who
are your master and mistress, child ? Tell me, I will give
you this fine new gold-piece."

" Monsieur," said the girl, taking the coin, "my master is
the famous bookseller Lamporani of Milan, one of the leaders of
the revolution, and the conspirator of all others whom Austria
would most like to have in the Spielberg."

"A bookseller's wife ! Ah, so much the better," thought
he ; "we are on an equal footing. And what is her family ? "
he added, " for she looks like a queen."

"All Italian women do," replied Gina proudly. "Her
father's name is Colonna."

Emboldened by Francesca's modest rank, Rodolphe had an
awning fitted to his boat and cushions in the stern. When
this was done, the lover came to propose to Francesca to come
out on the lake. The Italian accepted, no doubt to carry out
her part of a young English miss in the eyes of the villagers,



328 ALBERT SAVARON.

but she brought Ginawith her. Francesca Colonna's lightest
actions betrayed a superior education and the highest social
rank. By the way in which she took her place at the end of
the boat Rodolphe felt himself in some sort cut off from her,
and, in the face of a look of pride worthy of an aristocrat,
the familiarity he had intended fell dead. By a glance Fran-
cesca made herself a princess, with all the prerogatives she
might have enjoyed in the middle ages. She seemed to have
read the thoughts of this vassal who was so audacious as to
constitute himself her protector.

Already, in the furniture of the room where Francesca had
received him, in her dress, and in the various trifles she made
use of, Rodolphe had detected indications of a superior char-
acter and a fine fortune. All these observations now recurred
to his mind ; he became thoughtful after having been trampled
on, as it were, by Francesca's dignity. Gina, her half-grown-up
confidante, also seemed to have a mocking expression as she
gave a covert or side glance at Rodolphe. This obvious disa-
greement between the Italian lady's rank and her manners was
a fresh puzzle to Rodolphe, who suspected some further trick
like Gina's assumed dumbness.

" Where would you go, Signora Lamporani ? " he asked.

" Towards Lucerne," replied Francesca in French.

"Good! " said Rodolphe to himself, "she is not startled
by hearing me speak her name ; she had, no doubt, foreseen
that I should ask Gina she is so cunning. What is your
quarrel with me?" he went on, going at last to sit down by
her side, and asking her by a gesture to give him her hand,
which she withdrew. " You are cold and ceremonious ; what,
in colloquial language, we should call short"

" It is true," she replied with a smile. "I am wrong. It
is not good manners ; it is vulgar. In French you would call it
inartistic. It is better to be frank than to harbor cold or
hostile feelings towards a friend, and you have already proved
yourself my friend. Perhaps I have gone too far with you.



ALBERT S AVAR ON. 329

You must have taken me to be a very ordinary woman."
Rodolphe made many signs of denial. "Yes," said the
bookseller's wife, going on without noticing this pantomime,
which, however, she plainly saw. " I have detected that, and
naturally I have reconsidered my conduct. Well ! I will put
an end to everything by a few words of deep truth. Under-
stand this, Rodolphe : I feel in myself the strength to stifle a
feeling if it were not in harmony with my ideas or anticipation
of what true love is. I could love as we can love in Italy,
but I know my duty. No intoxication can make me forget it.
Married without my consent to that poor old man, I might take
advantage of 'the liberty he so generously gives me; but three
years of married life imply acceptance of its laws. Hence the
most vehement passion would never make me utter, even
involuntarily, a wish to find myself free.

"Emilio knows my character. He knows that without my
heart, which is my own, and which I might give away, I
should never allow any one to take my hand. That is why I
have just refused it to you. I desire to be loved and waited
for with fidelity, nobleness, ardor, while all I can give is
infinite tenderness of which the expression may not overstep
the boundary of the heart, the permitted neutral ground. All
this being thoroughly understood. Oh ! " she went on with a
girlish gesture, " I will be as coquettish, as gay, as glad, as a
child who knows comparatively nothing of the dangers of
familiarity."

This plain and frank declaration was made in a tone, an
accent, and supported by a look which gave it the deepest
stamp of truth.

"A Princess Colonna could not have spoken better," said
Rodolphe, smiling.

"Is that," she answered with some haughtiness, "a reflec-
tion on the humbleness of my birth ? Must your love flaunt
a coat-of-arms? At Milan the noblest n?~ js are written over
shop-doors: Sforza, Canova, Viscona, Trivulzio, Ursini j



330 ALBERT SAVARON.

there are Archintos apothecaries ; but, believe me, though I
keep a shop, I have the feelings of a duchess."

" A reflection ! Nay, madame, I meant it for praise."

" By comparison ? " she said archly.

"Ah, once for all," said he, "not to torture me if my
words should ill express my feelings, understand that my love
is perfect ; it carries with it absolute obedience and respect."

She bowed as a woman satisfied, and said, " Then monsieur
accepts the treaty ? ' '

"Yes," said he. "I can understand that in a rich and
powerful feminine nature the faculty of loving ought not to be
wasted, and that you, out of delicacy, wished to restrain it.
Ah ! Francesca, at my age tenderness requited, and by so
sublime, so royally beautiful a creature as you are why, it is
the fulfillment of all my wishes. To love you as you desire to
be loved is not that enough to make a young man guard
himself against every evil folly ? Is it not to concentrate all his
powers in a noble passion, of which in the future he may
be proud, and which can leave none but lovely memories?
If you could but know with what hues you have clothed the
chain of Pilatus, the Rigi, and this superb lake

" I want to know," said she, with the Italian artlessness
which has always a touch of artfulness.

" Well, this hour will shine on all my life like a diamond
on a queen's brow."

Francesca's only reply was to lay her hand on Rodolphe's.

" Oh dearest ! for ever dearest ! Tell me, have you never
loved?"

"Never."

" And you allow me to love you nobly, looking to heaven
for the utmost fulfillment ? " he asked.

She gently bent her head. Two large tears rolled down
Rodolphe's cheeks.

"Why! what is the matter?" she cried, abandoning her
imperial manner.



ALBERT SAVARON. 331

" I have now no mother whom I can tell of my happiness ;
she left this earth without seeing what would have mitigated
her agony "

"What?" said she.

"Her tenderness replaced by an equal tenderness "

" Povero mw/" exclaimed the Italian, much touched.
"Believe me," she went on after a pause, " it is a very sweet
thing, and to a woman, a strong element of fidelity to know
that she is all in all on earth to the man she loves ; to find
him lonely, with no family, with nothing in his heart but his
love in short, to have him wholly to herself."

When two lovers thus understand each other, the heart feels
delicious peace, supreme tranquillity. Certainty is the basis
for which human feelings crave, for it is never lacking to
religious sentiment ; man is always certain of being fully
repaid by God. Love never believes itself secure but by this
resemblance to divine love. And the raptures of that moment
must have been fully felt to be understood; it is unique in
life ; it can never return again, alas ! than the emotions of
youth. To believe in a woman, to make her your human re-
ligion, the fount of life, the secret luminary of all your least
thoughts! is not this a second birth? And a young man
m ingles with this love a little of the feeling he had for his
mother.

Rodolphe and Francesca for some time remained in perfect
silence, answering each other by sympathetic glances full of
thoughts. They understood each other in the midst of one
of the most beautiful scenes of nature, whose glories, inter-
preted by the glory in their hearts, helped to stamp on their
minds the most fugitive details of that unique hour. There