Massimilla Doni | Page 3

rapture that was almost a spasm. Sometimes
the mere sight of the splendid black hair that crowned the adored head,
bound by a simple gold fillet, and falling in satin tresses on each side of
a spacious brow, was enough to give him a ringing in his ears, the wild
tide of the blood rushing through his veins as if it must burst his heart.
By what obscure phenomenon did his soul so overmaster his body that
he was no longer conscious of his independent self, but was wholly one
with this woman at the least word she spoke in that voice which
disturbed the very sources of life in him? If, in utter seclusion, a
woman of moderate charms can, by being constantly studied, seem
supreme and imposing, perhaps one so magnificently handsome as the
Duchess could fascinate to stupidity a youth in whom rapture found
some fresh incitement; for she had really absorbed his young soul.
Massimilla, the heiress of the Doni, of Florence, had married the
Sicilian Duke Cataneo. Her mother, since dead, had hoped, by
promoting this marriage, to leave her rich and happy, according to
Florentine custom. She had concluded that her daughter, emerging

from a convent to embark in life, would achieve, under the laws of love,
that second union of heart with heart which, to an Italian woman, is all
in all. But Massimilla Doni had acquired in her convent a real taste for
a religious life, and, when she had pledged her troth to Duke Cataneo,
she was Christianly content to be his wife.
This was an untenable position. Cataneo, who only looked for a
duchess, thought himself ridiculous as a husband; and, when
Massimilla complained of this indifference, he calmly bid her look
about her for a cavaliere servente, even offering his services to
introduce to her some youths from whom to choose. The Duchess wept;
the Duke made his bow.
Massimilla looked about her at the world that crowded round her; her
mother took her to the Pergola, to some ambassadors' drawing-rooms,
to the Cascine--wherever handsome young men of fashion were to be
met; she saw none to her mind, and determined to travel. Then she lost
her mother, inherited her property, assumed mourning, and made her
way to Venice. There she saw Emilio, who, as he went past her opera
box, exchanged with her a flash of inquiry.
This was all. The Venetian was thunderstruck, while a voice in the
Duchess' ear called out: "This is he!"
Anywhere else two persons more prudent and less guileless would have
studied and examined each other; but these two ignorances mingled
like two masses of homogeneous matter, which, when they meet, form
but one. Massimilla was at once and thenceforth Venetian. She bought
the palazzo she had rented on the Canareggio; and then, not knowing
how to invest her wealth, she had purchased Rivalta, the country-place
where she was now staying.
Emilio, being introduced to the Duchess by the Signora Vulpato,
waited very respectfully on the lady in her box all through the winter.
Never was love more ardent in two souls, or more bashful in its
advances. The two children were afraid of each other. Massimilla was
no coquette. She had no second string to her bow, no secondo, no terzo,
no patito. Satisfied with a smile and a word, she admired her Venetian
youth, with his pointed face, his long, thin nose, his black eyes, and
noble brow; but, in spite of her artless encouragement, he never went to
her house till they had spent three months in getting used to each other.
Then summer brought its Eastern sky. The Duchess lamented having to

go alone to Rivalta. Emilio, at once happy and uneasy at the thought of
being alone with her, had accompanied Massimilla to her retreat. And
now this pretty pair had been there for six months.
Massimilla, now twenty, had not sacrificed her religious principles to
her passion without a struggle. Still they had yielded, though tardily;
and at this moment she would have been ready to consummate the love
union for which her mother had prepared her, as Emilio sat there
holding her beautiful, aristocratic hand,--long, white, and sheeny,
ending in fine, rosy nails, as if she had procured from Asia some of the
henna with which the Sultan's wives dye their fingertips.
A misfortune, of which she was unconscious, but which was torture to
Emilio, kept up a singular barrier between them. Massimilla, young as
she was, had the majestic bearing which mythological tradition ascribes
to Juno, the only goddess to whom it does not give a lover; for Diana,
the chaste Diana, loved! Jupiter alone could hold his own with his
divine better-half, on whom many English ladies model themselves.
Emilio set his mistress far too