So far from minimising thesedifferences, we have
felt it our duty to indicate them boldly. If you were not a mere boy, she told him,
your uncles clerks wouldhave no secrets for you.
If you love me, said Vanina as she left her, you
will see asurgeon.
Then his thoughts turned to other things, and he
ceased to look ather.
ThoseRoman Princes, whom I despise as citizens,
have so many advantagesover me! The Cardinal looked athim without deigning to utter
a word.
She could not utter a word; her eyes were parched
andburning. There is nothing to be done for the present, he said
finally.
The young man said to him with a laugh:Why,
Monsignor, do not you recognise Vanina Vanini? During her absence, he had arranged
hermarriage with Principe Livio Savelli. Missirilli said to Vanina with a visible
air of constraint:As soon as it is dark, I must go out. For the last hour, she had
felt that shewould never look upon her lover again. But the nobler your heart is,
the better you mustunderstand me.
Missirilli was indespair; he was afraid that he
would never see Vanina again.
I swear to you that it was not a piece of vain
bravado, butsimply that I was not thinking. Often she found her mouth filled with
blood.
I amgoing to have myself sent to the baths of la
Porretta.
Vanina sank down on a chair, half unconscious, and
plunged in the mostagonizing grief.
Sheappeared to find more pleasure in teasing young
Livio Savelli, whoseemed deeply in love. Beside herself with alarm, she ran over
thewhole house in search of him.
The stranger moved in thebed; Vanina saw that she
had been wounded. Destroy, crush the scoundrel who hasbetrayed us, even if he should
be my own father. Eachsoldier is close enough to the next to be able to speak to
him. Vanina could not conceive any common reason for hertrouble.
She found a cruel joy inpunishing herself for the
weakness that had made her speak. The day before yesterday, I liedwhen I said that
my name was Clementina; I am an unhappy carbonaro.
Over this commission presidedthe Minister of
Police.
But the nobler your heart is, the better you
mustunderstand me. What woman is there who has never had more than one
lover?
When it was dark, a surgeon appeared; he was alone.
Vanina came each night to press her face against the panes of theyoung carbonaros
window.