* * * * * 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 home," with their fat wives and ever-spreading families? Truly, yes! But they are too cautious to say so.
I need not relate the story of my courtship--it was brief and sweet as a song sung perfectly. There were no obstacles. The girl I sought was the only daughter of a ruined Florentine noble of dissolute character, who gained a bare subsistence by frequenting the gaming-tables. His child had been brought up in a convent renowned for strict discipline--she knew nothing of the world. She was, he assured me, with maudlin tears in his eyes, "as innocent as a flower on the altar of the Madonna." I believed him--for what could this lovely, youthful, low-voiced maiden know of even the shadow of evil? I was eager to gather so fair a lily for my own proud wearing--and her father gladly gave her to me, no doubt inwardly congratulating himself on the wealthy match that had fallen to the lot of his dowerless daughter.
We were married at the end of June, and Guido Ferrari graced our bridal with his handsome and gallant presence.
"By the body of Bacchus!" he exclaimed to me when the nuptial ceremony was over, "thou hast profited by my teaching, Fabio! A quiet rogue is often most cunning! Thou hast rifled the casket of Venus, and stolen her fairest jewel--thou hast secured the loveliest maiden in the two Sicilies!"
I pressed his hand, and a touch of remorse stole over me, for he was no longer first in my affection. Almost I regretted it--yes, on my very wedding-morn I looked back to the old days--old now though so recent--and sighed to think they were ended. I glanced at Nina, my wife. It was enough! Her beauty dazzled and overcame me. The melting languor of her large limpid eyes stole into my veins--I forgot all but her. I was in that high delirium of passion in which love, and love only, seems the keynote of creation. I touched the topmost peak of the height of joy--the days were feasts of fairy-land, the nights dreams of rapture! No; I never tired! My wife's beauty never palled upon me; she grew fairer with each day of possession. I never saw her otherwise than attractive, and within a few months she had probed all the depths of my nature. She discovered how certain sweet looks of hers could draw me to her side, a willing and devoted slave; she measured my weakness with her own power; she knew--what did she not know? I torture myself with these foolish memories. All men past the age of twenty have learned somewhat of the tricks of women--the pretty playful nothings that weaken the will and sap the force of the strongest hero. She loved me? Oh, yes, I suppose so! Looking back on those days, I can frankly say I believe she loved me--as nine hundred wives out of a thousand love their husbands, namely--for what they can get. And I grudged her nothing. If I chose to idolize her, and raise her to the stature of an angel when she was but on the low level of mere womanhood, that was my folly, not her fault.