Vendetta! | Page 6

Thou, with a ready wit, a glancing eye, a gay
smile, a supple form, thou wilt not enter the lists of love? What says
Voltaire of the blind god?
"'Qui que tu sois voila ton maitre, Il fut--il est--ou il doit etre !'"
When my friend spoke thus I smiled, but answered nothing. His
arguments failed to convince me. Yet I loved to hear him talk--his
voice was mellow as the note of a thrush, and his eyes had an
eloquence greater than all speech. I loved him--God knows! unselfishly,
sincerely--with that rare tenderness sometimes felt by schoolboys for

one another, but seldom experienced by grown men. I was happy in his
society, as he, indeed, appeared to be in mine. We passed most of our
time together, he, like myself, having been bereaved of his parents in
early youth, and therefore left to shape out his own course of life as
suited his particular fancy. He chose art as a profession, and, though a
fairly successful painter, was as poor as I was rich. I remedied this
neglect of fortune for him in various ways with due forethought and
delicacy--and gave him as many commissions as I possibly could
without rousing his suspicion or wounding his pride. For he possessed a
strong attraction for me--we had much the same tastes, we shared the
same sympathies, in short, I desired nothing better than his confidence
and companionship.
In this world no one, however harmless, is allowed to continue happy.
Fate--or caprice--cannot endure to see us monotonously at rest.
Something perfectly trivial--a look, a word, a touch, and lo! a long
chain of old associations is broken asunder, and the peace we deemed
so deep and lasting in finally interrupted. This change came to me, as
surely as it comes to all. One day--how well I remember it!--one sultry
evening toward the end of May, 1881, I was in Naples. I had passed the
afternoon in my yacht, idly and slowly sailing over the bay, availing
myself of what little wind there was. Guido's absence (he had gone to
Rome on a visit of some weeks' duration) rendered me somewhat of a
solitary, and as my light craft ran into harbor, I found myself in a
pensive, half-uncertain mood, which brought with it its own depression.
The few sailors who manned my vessel dispersed right and left as soon
as they were landed--each to his own favorite haunts of pleasure or
dissipation--but I was in no humor to be easily amused. Though I had
plenty of acquaintance in the city, I cared little for such entertainment
as they could offer me. As I strolled along through one of the principal
streets, considering whether or not I should return on foot to my own
dwelling on the heights, I heard a sound of singing, and perceived in
the distance a glimmer of white robes. It was the Month of Mary, and I
at once concluded that this must be an approaching Procession of the
Virgin. Half in idleness, half in curiosity, I stood still and waited. The
singing voices came nearer and nearer--I saw the priests, the acolytes,
the swinging gold censers heavy with fragrance, the flaring candles, the

snowy veils of children and girls--and then all suddenly the picturesque
beauty of the scene danced before my eyes in a whirling blur of
brilliancy and color from which looked forth--one face! One face
beaming out like a star from a cloud of amber tresses--one face of
rose-tinted, childlike loveliness--a loveliness absolutely perfect, lighted
up by two luminous eyes, large and black as night--one face in which
the small, curved mouth smiled half provokingly, half sweetly! I gazed
and gazed again, dazzled and excited, beauty makes such fools of us all!
This was a woman--one of the sex I mistrusted and avoided--a woman
in the earliest spring of her youth, a girl of fifteen or sixteen at the
utmost. Her veil had been thrown back by accident or design, and for
one brief moment I drank in that soul-tempting glance, that witch-like
smile! The procession passed--the vision faded--but in that breath of
time one epoch of my life had closed forever, and another had begun!
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
Of course I married her. We Neapolitans lose no time in such matters.
We are not prudent. Unlike the calm blood of Englishmen, ours rushes
swiftly through our veins--it is warm as wine and sunlight, and needs
no fictitious stimulant. We love, we desire, we possess; and then? We
tire, you say? These southern races are so fickle! All wrong--we are
less tired than you deem. And do not Englishmen tire? Have they no
secret ennui at times when sitting in the chimney nook of "home, sweet