Captain Mansana, Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson [ebook reader color screen .TXT] 📗

these missives weighed so heavily on his spirits that it drove him from his quarters, where so many unfulfilled obligations lay in wait for him. As soon as he was released from his military duties, he would hurry out into the woods and hills that overhung the little town, which was situated amidst scenery exceptionally wild and beautiful.

Pondering over his engagement in these country rambles, it began to look illusory and disappointing. True, his promised bride could call herself Princess, but in Italy that lofty title has not quite the charm that attaches to it in other countries. Princes and princesses are too common, and the position of a good many of them is a little doubtful. Nor was he greatly attracted by the wealth Theresa had inherited from her father, since her mother had gained her share in it by deserting the national cause during the period of Italy's abasement. No doubt there was Theresa's undoubted beauty; but that was evanescent, and the lady already showed signs of a too rapidly ripening maturity. Their romantic engagement could not blot out of his mind the memory of the long humiliation she had compelled him to endure, or the subsequent display of overstrained excitement in her which had provoked him to a revulsion of feeling. In calmer moments a pleasanter picture rose before his mind; but then again his pride would take alarm and whisper that in this unequal union he must always be the subordinate partner, or perhaps that he would again become the sport of her caprices, as he had been before.

After his long morning rambles among the hills he usually sat down to rest on a bench placed under an old olive-tree, a short distance above the town, and afterwards walked back to breakfast. One morning two persons--an elderly gentleman and a young lady--took their places on the bench as he rose to go. The same thing happened the next morning at the same time. On the following day he lingered, not unwillingly, a little longer--long enough to observe what the lady was like and to exchange a word or two with her companion. Italians glide easily into conversation and acquaintance, and Mansana ascertained without difficulty that the old gentleman was a pensioned official of the preceding regime, and that the young lady was his daughter--a girl of about fifteen, fresh from a convent school. She sat close by her father's side, and spoke scarcely more than a few words--just enough to reveal the exquisite sweetness of her voice.

Afterwards Mansana met the pair daily, and the meetings were no longer accidental; he waited on the hill-side till he saw them ascending from the town, and then made his way to the bench. He enjoyed the quiet friendliness of their manner. The old gentleman talked willingly enough, though with a certain caution, about politics. When Mansana had listened to his remarks, he would say a few words to the daughter. The girl's growing likeness to her father was easy to trace. There was a sort of wrinkled fulness in the old face, which showed that its owner had once been a man of the sleek, rotund type. The daughter's small, plump figure promised to develop in that direction; but at present it had only a soft and budding roundness of contour, that looked charming in the simple morning-dress, in which alone Mansana had seen her. The father's eyes had lost their colour and fire; the daughter's were half-hidden by down-drooping eyelids, and a slight bend of the head. The little maiden's face and her whole personality had a curious attraction for him in their tranquil meetings. Her hair was arranged with scrupulous exactitude each day, in the very latest fashionable style--a token of the convent-bred child's artless delight at being allowed to share in the vanities of this carnal world. The little dimpled hands, that sat so daintily on the trim wrists, were always busy with some fancy work, which the bent head and the downcast eyes followed intently. The eyes looked up when Mansana spoke to her, but usually with a sidelong glance that yet did not quite avoid meeting his; and through them peeped timidly the undeveloped childish soul, half shy, half glad, but wholly curious to look upon this strange new world and its strange creature, man. The more one tries to peer into such veiled, down-drooping eyes, the more do they fascinate, since they still withhold a part of their mystery. What her eyes held--and there was often a roguish gleam in the corners--and in particular what thoughts of himself they hid, Mansana would have given much to know. And it was with the express purpose of breaking through her reserve that he spoke of himself with more freedom than was at all customary with him. It delighted him to see her cheeks dimpling as he talked, and the pretty quiver, that never quite left the tiny mouth, red and sweet as an unplucked berry. It pleased him still more when she began to talk to him, in a voice whose fresh, unsullied ring stirred his senses like the trill of birds on a glowing summer morning. Then she took to questioning him, with bashful inquisitiveness, upon the details of his approaching marriage. Her thoughts about engagements and honeymooning, not openly expressed, but evident enough from the tenor of her eager inquiries, seemed to him so charming that the engagement began to regain its old attraction in his eyes. Thanks to her, some ten or twelve days after Mansana's departure, Theresa actually received a letter from him, which was followed by others. He was no master of the pen, and his letters were as laconic as his talk; but he wrote affectionately, and that again was due to his new friend. If he now sat down regularly after breakfast to write to Theresa it was because earlier in the morning he had enjoyed one of those frank conversations with the girl; and with the fresh grace of the young figure, the busy little hands intent on their work, and the sympathetic play of lips, eyes, and dimples, in his thoughts, and the tones of the exquisite voice still ringing in his ears, he began once more to taste the joy of life and to feel the old yearning stir in him again.

Striking indeed was the contrast between this little friend and his superb Theresa, with all her beauty and accomplishments, and he felt it when he sat down at his writing-table to converse with his fiancee. He could no longer smile at her impetuosity; and yet how generously she made excuses for his silence. "No, I have not taken it amiss," she wrote. "Naturally you found it hard to write. You wanted rest--rest even from me. You ought not to have been made to feel that my letters were a burden to you from their vehemence. Forgive me. In this alone you are to blame, as I alone am to blame for the sufferings you have endured. I shall never forgive myself, but strive, all my life, to make amends to you for them."

Not one woman in a thousand would have had such ideas, or have written so generously. He was forced to admit that; and yet there came upon him again that constant sense of overstrain. To bring back the impression of tranquillity and composure, he wrote to her of Amanda Brandini, as his new friend was named. He repeated some remarks the girl had made about betrothal and marriage. As he wrote them down he felt their charm, and felt too that he had transcribed them rather skilfully, so that he read over his letter to himself with a certain degree of satisfaction.

Those bright morning meetings, which lightened the whole day for Mansana, were never followed by an invitation to call upon his friends at their own house. He respected them for this dignified reserve; but the meetings themselves fanned the flame of his longing to see Theresa again, and so one day, to her intense astonishment, the princess received a telegram, announcing that he was growing weary of his exile from her presence, and that he would be with her in Ancona in three days' time.

On the day he sent this telegram he happened to be strolling through a small plaza, where there was a cafe. He entered and called for something to quench his thirst. The place was new to him; and as he sat waiting to be served, he let his eyes wander round the little square, till they lighted on the form of Amanda Brandini upon the verandah of a house immediately opposite. This, then, was where she lived.

But she was not alone. Leaning against the balustrade by her side, and so close to her that he could almost have touched her lips with his, stood a smart young lieutenant. Earlier in the day he had been presented to Mansana, who had been informed that he was quartered at a neighbouring garrison, and that he was generally known by the sobriquet of "Amorino." And now this young Amorin's eyes were fastened on hers; their smiling lips moved, but what they said could not be heard, and it seemed to Mansana as if they were whispering confidentially: a whispered talk that ran on unceasingly. Mansana felt the blood stand still at his heart as a sharp pang pricked through him. He rose and left the cafe and then returned, remembering that he had not paid for his untasted draught. When he looked up again to the balcony he was astonished to see that the pair there were engaged in a kind of struggle. The "Amorino" was evidently and rudely urging his advances upon the girl, and she kept him back, crimsoned with blushes. Her figure quivered with the agitation of the contest, her face glowed with excitement. The young officer's insolent advances were evidently provoking a tumult of resistance. Who had permitted this marauder to enter the fold? Where was Amanda's father?

CHAPTER X

The next morning Mansana took care to be earlier than usual at the trysting-place; but his two friends had also arrived before their accustomed time, as though they, as well as he, found pleasure in these meetings, and were anxious to make the most of them, especially now when only two more such opportunities were possible.

Mansana forced himself to go through the inevitable political preliminaries with the old man; then turning suddenly to Amanda, changed the conversation by asking brusquely, "With whom were you disputing on the balcony last evening?"

By way of answer her cheeks flushed with a bright, charming colour, as, in a manner peculiar to herself, she stole a sidelong glance into Mansana's face from underneath her lowered lids. Seeing her blushes, and little knowing how easily and quickly a young girl's colour comes and goes, Mansana's own cheeks grew pale. This frightened her; and as he saw this, he once again misinterpreted the meaning of her fear.

The girl's father, who had in the meanwhile been looking on in open-mouthed surprise, broke the silence by exclaiming, "Ah! of course! now I understand it! It was Luigi, my nephew, Luigi Borghi! He is staying in the town for a couple of days, in order to be present at the city festival. Ha, ha! he's a gay youth, is Luigi!"

Mansana waited with impatience till he was alone again, then started hurriedly in quest of Major Sardi, the friend for whose companionship he had specially selected this garrison. He would discover from him details of Luigi's past career. These were not favourable. Mansana thereupon, without hesitation, made straight for the hotel where the young man was lodging.

Luigi had just risen; he greeted Mansana with the deference due to a superior officer, and after both were