Notwithstanding
the discipline which Marechal
Suchet had introduced
into his army corps, he was unable
to prevent a short period of
trouble and disorder at the taking
of Tarragona. According to certain
fair-minded military men, this
intoxication of victory bore
a striking resemblance to pillage,
though the marechal promptly
suppressed it. Order being re-established,
each regiment quartered in its
respective lines, and the commandant
of the city appointed, military
administration began. The place
assumed a mongrel aspect. Though
all things were organized on
a French system, the Spaniards
were left free
to follow "in petto" their national tastes.
This period
of pillage (it is difficult
to determine how
long it lasted) had, like all
other sublunary effects, a cause,
not so difficult to discover.
In the marechal's army was a
regiment, composed almost entirely
of Italians and commanded by
a certain Colonel Eugene, a man
of remarkable bravery, a second
Murat, who, having entered the
military service too late, obtained
neither a Grand Duchy of Berg
nor a Kingdom of Naples, nor
balls at the Pizzo. But if he
won no crown he had ample opportunity
to obtain wounds, and it was
not surprising that he met with
several. His regiment was composed
of the scattered fragments of
the Italian legion. This legion
was to Italy what the colonial
battalions are to France. Its
permanent cantonments, established
on the island of Elba, served
as an honorable place of exile
for the troublesome sons of good
families and for those great
men who have just missed greatness,
whom society brands with a hot
iron and designates by the term "mauvais
sujets"; men who are for the
most part misunderstood; whose
existence may become either noble
through the smile of a woman
lifting them out of their rut,
or shocking at the close of an
orgy under the influence of some
damnable reflection dropped by
a drunken comrade.
Napoleon had incorporated these
vigorous beings in the sixth
of the line, hoping to metamorphose
them finally into generals,--barring
those whom the bullets might
take off. But the emperor's calculation
was scarcely fulfilled, except
in the matter of the bullets.
This regiment, often decimated
but always the same in character,
acquired a great reputation for
valor in the field and for wickedness
in private life. At the siege
of Tarragona it lost its celebrated
hero, Bianchi, the man who, during
the campaign, had wagered that
he would eat the heart of a Spanish
sentinel, and did eat it. Though
Bianchi was the prince of the
devils incarnate to whom the
regiment owed its dual reputation,
he had, nevertheless, that sort
of chivalrous honor which excuses,
in the army, the worst excesses.
In a word, he would have been,
at an earlier period, an admirable
pirate. A few days before his
death he distinguished himself
by a daring action which the
marechal wished to reward. Bianchi
refused rank, pension, and additional
decoration, asking, for sole
recompense, the favor of being
the first to mount the breach
at the assault on Tarragona.
The marechal granted the request
and then forgot his promise;
but Bianchi forced him to remember
Bianchi. The enraged hero was
the first to plant our flag on
the wall, where he was shot by
a monk.
This historical digression
was necessary, in order to explain
how it was that the 6th of the
line was the regiment to enter
Tarragona, and why the disorder
and confusion, natural enough
in a city taken by storm, degenerated
for a time into a slight pillage.
This regiment possessed two
officers, not at all remarkable
among these men of iron, who
played, nevertheless, in the
history we shall now relate,
a somewhat important part.
The first,
a captain in the quartermaster's
department, an
officer half civil, half military,
was considered, in soldier phrase,
to be fighting his own battle.
He pretended bravery, boasted
loudly of belonging to the 6th
of the line, twirled his moustache
with the air of a man who was
ready to demolish everything;
but his brother officers did
not esteem him. The fortune he
possessed made him cautious.
He was nicknamed, for two reasons, "captain
of crows." In the first place,
he could smell powder a league
off, and took wing at the sound
of a musket; secondly, the nickname
was based on an innocent military
pun, which his position in the
regiment warranted. Captain Montefiore,
of the illustrious Montefiore
family of Milan (though the laws
of the Kingdom of Italy forbade
him to bear his title in the
French service) was one of the
handsomest men in the army. This
beauty may have been among the
secret causes of his prudence
on fighting days. A wound which
might have injured his nose,
cleft his forehead, or scarred
his cheek, would have destroyed
one of the most beautiful Italian
faces which a woman ever dreamed
of in all its delicate proportions.
This face, not unlike the type
which Girodet has given to the
dying young Turk, in the "Revolt
at Cairo," was instinct with
that melancholy by which all
women are more or less duped.
The Marquis
de Montefiore possessed an
entailed property, but his
income was mortgaged for a number
of years to pay off the costs
of certain Italian escapades
which are inconceivable in Paris.
He had ruined himself in supporting
a theatre at Milan in order to
force upon a public a very inferior
prima donna, whom he was said
to love madly. A fine future
was therefore before him, and
he did not care to risk it for
the paltry distinction of a bit
of red ribbon. He was not a brave
man, but he was certainly a philosopher;
and he had precedents, if we
may use so parliamentary an expression.
Did not Philip the Second register
a vow after the battle of Saint
Quentin that never again would
he put himself under fire? And
did not the Duke of Alba encourage
him in thinking that the worst
trade in the world was the involuntary
exchange of a crown for a bullet?
Hence, Montefiore was Philippiste
in his capacity of rich marquis
and handsome man; and in other
respects also he was quite as
profound a politician as Philip
the Second himself. He consoled
himself for his nickname, and
for the disesteem of the regiment
by thinking that his comrades
were blackguards, whose opinion
would never be of any consequence
to him if by chance they survived
the present war, which seemed
to be one of extermination. He
relied on his face to win him
promotion; he saw himself made
colonel by feminine influence
and a carefully managed transition
from captain of equipment to
orderly officer, and from orderly
officer to aide-de-camp on the
staff of some easy-going marshal.
By that time, he reflected, he
should come into his property
of a hundred thousand scudi a
year, some journal would speak
of him as "the brave Montefiore," he
would marry a girl of rank, and
no one would dare to dispute
his courage or verify his wounds.
Captain Montefiore had one
friend in the person of the quartermaster,
--a Provencal, born in the neighborhood
of Nice, whose name was Diard.
A friend, whether at the galleys
or in the garret of an artist,
consoles for many troubles. Now
Montefiore and Diard were two
philosophers, who consoled each
other for their present lives
by the study of vice, as artists
soothe the immediate disappointment
of their hopes by the expectation
of future fame. Both regarded
the war in its results, not its
action; they simply considered
those who died for glory fools.
Chance had made soldiers of them;
whereas their natural proclivities
would have seated them at the
green table of a congress. Nature
had poured Montefiore into the
mould of a Rizzio, and Diard
into that of a diplomatist. Both
were endowed with that nervous,
feverish, half-feminine organization,
which is equally strong for good
or evil, and from which may emanate,
according to the impulse of these
singular temperaments, a crime
or a generous action, a noble
deed or a base one. The fate
of such natures depends at any
moment on the pressure, more
or less powerful, produced on
their nervous systems by violent
and transitory passions.
Diard was considered a good
accountant, but no soldier would
have trusted him with his purse
or his will, possibly because
of the antipathy felt by all
real soldiers against the bureaucrats.
The quartermaster was not without
courage and a certain juvenile
generosity, sentiments which
many men give up as they grow
older, by dint of reasoning or
calculating. Variable as the
beauty of a fair woman, Diard
was a great boaster and a great
talker, talking of everything.
He said he was artistic, and
he made prizes (like two celebrated
generals) of works of art, solely,
he declared, to preserve them
for posterity. His military comrades
would have been puzzled indeed
to form a correct judgment of
him. Many of them, accustomed
to draw upon his funds when occasion
obliged them, thought him rich;
but in truth, he was a gambler,
and gamblers may be said to have
nothing of their own. Montefiore
was also a gambler, and all the
officers of the regiment played
with the pair; for, to the shame
of men be it said, it is not
a rare thing to see persons gambling
together around a green table
who, when the game is finished,
will not bow to their companions,
feeling no respect for them.
Montefiore was the man with whom
Bianchi made his bet about the
heart of the Spanish sentinel.
Montefiore and Diard were among
the last to mount the breach
at Tarragona, but the first in
the heart of the town as soon
as it was taken. Accidents of
this sort happen in all attacks,
but with this pair of friends
they were customary. Supporting
each other, they made their way
bravely through a labyrinth of
narrow and gloomy little streets
in quest of their personal objects;
one seeking for painted madonnas,
the other for madonnas of flesh
and blood.
In what part of Tarragona it
happened I cannot say, but Diard
presently recognized by its architecture
the portal of a convent, the
gate of which was already battered
in. Springing into the cloister
to put a stop to the fury of
the soldiers, he arrived just
in time to prevent two Parisians
from shooting a Virgin by Albano.
In spite of the moustache with
which in their military fanaticism
they had decorated her face,
he bought the picture. Montefiore,
left alone during this episode,
noticed, nearly opposite the
convent, the house and shop of
a draper, from which a shot was
fired at him at the moment when
his eyes caught a flaming glance
from those of an inquisitive
young girl, whose head was advanced
under the shelter of a blind.
Tarragona taken by assault, Tarragona
furious, firing from every window,
Tarragona violated, with dishevelled
hair, and half-naked, was indeed
an object of curiosity,--the
curiosity of a daring Spanish
woman. It was a magnified bull-fight.
Montefiore forgot the pillage,
and heard, for the moment, neither
the cries, nor the musketry,
nor the growling of the artillery.
The profile of that Spanish girl
was the most divinely delicious
thing which he, an Italian libertine,
weary of Italian beauty, and
dreaming of an impossible woman
because he was tired of all women,
had ever seen. He could still
quiver, he, who had wasted his
fortune on a thousand follies,
the thousand passions of a young
and blase man--the most abominable
monster that society generates.
An idea came into his head, suggested
perhaps by the shot of the draper-patriot,
namely,--to set fire to the house.
But he was now alone, and without
any means of action; the fighting
was centred in the market-place,
where a few obstinate beings
were still defending the town.
A better idea then occurred to
him. Diard came out of the convent,
but Montefiore said not a word
of his discovery; on the contrary,
he accompanied him on a series
of rambles about the streets.
But the next day, the Italian
had obtained his military billet
in the house of the draper,--an
appropriate lodging for an equipment
captain!
The house of
the worthy Spaniard consisted,
on the ground-floor,
of a vast and gloomy shop, externally
fortified with stout iron bars,
such as we see in the old storehouses
of the rue des Lombards. This
shop communicated with a parlor
lighted from an interior courtyard,
a large room breathing the very
spirit of the middle-ages, with
smoky old pictures, old tapestries,
antique "brazero," a plumed hat
hanging to a nail, the musket
of the guerrillas, and the cloak
of Bartholo. The kitchen adjoined
this unique living-room, where
the inmates took their meals
and warmed themselves over the
dull glow of the brazier, smoking
cigars and discoursing bitterly
to animate all hearts with hatred
against the French. Silver pitchers
and precious dishes of plate
and porcelain adorned a buttery
shelf of the old fashion. But
the light, sparsely admitted,
allowed these dazzling objects
to show but slightly; all things,
as in pictures of the Dutch school,
looked brown, even the faces.
Between the shop and this living-room,
so fine in color and in its tone
of patriarchal life, was a dark
staircase leading to a ware-room
where the light, carefully distributed,
permitted the examination of
goods. Above this were the apartments
of the merchant and his wife.
Rooms for an apprentice and a
servant-woman were in a garret
under the roof, which projected
over the street and was supported
by buttresses, giving a somewhat
fantastic appearance to the exterior
of the building. These chambers
were now taken by the merchant
and his wife who gave up their
own rooms to the officer who
was billeted upon them,--probably
because they wished to avoid
all quarrelling.
Montefiore gave himself out
as a former Spanish subject,
persecuted by Napoleon, whom
he was serving against his will;
and these semi-lies had the success
he expected. He was invited to
share the meals of the family,
and was treated with the respect
due to his name, his birth, and
his title. He had his reasons
for capturing the good-will of
the merchant and his wife; he
scented his madonna as the ogre
scented the youthful flesh of
Tom Thumb and his brothers. But
in spite of the confidence he
managed to inspire in the worthy
pair the latter maintained the
most profound silence as to the
said madonna; and not only did
the captain see no trace of the
young girl during the first day
he spent under the roof of the
honest Spaniard, but he heard
no sound and came upon no indication
which revealed her presence in
that ancient building. Supposing
that she was the only daughter
of the old couple, Montefiore
concluded they had consigned
her to the garret, where, for
the time being, they made their
home.
But no revelation came to betray
the hiding-place of that precious
treasure. The marquis glued his
face to the lozenge-shaped leaded
panes which looked upon the black-walled
enclosure of the inner courtyard;
but in vain; he saw no gleam
of light except from the windows
of the old couple, whom he could
see and hear as they went and
came and talked and coughed.
Of the young girl, not a shadow!
Montefiore was far too wary
to risk the future of his passion
by exploring the house nocturnally,
or by tapping softly on the doors.
Discovery by that hot patriot,
the mercer, suspicious as a Spaniard
must be, meant ruin infallibly.
The captain therefore resolved
to wait patiently, resting his
faith on time and the imperfection
of men, which always results--even
with scoundrels, and how much
more with honest men!--in the
neglect of precautions.
The next day
he discovered a hammock in
the kitchen, showing
plainly where the servant-woman
slept. As for the apprentice,
his bed was evidently made on
the shop counter. During supper
on the second day Montefiore
succeeded, by cursing Napoleon,
in smoothing the anxious forehead
of the merchant, a grave, black-visaged
Spaniard, much like the faces
formerly carved on the handles
of Moorish lutes; even the wife
let a gay smile of hatred appear
in the folds of her elderly face.
The lamp and the reflections
of the brazier illumined fantastically
the shadows of the noble room.
The mistress of the house offered
a "cigarrito" to their semi-compatriot.
At this moment the rustle of
a dress and the fall of a chair
behind the tapestry were plainly
heard.
"Ah!" cried the wife, turning
pale, "may the saints assist
us! God grant no harm has happened!"
"You have some one in the next
room, have you not?" said Montefiore,
giving no sign of emotion.
The draper dropped a word of
imprecation against the girls.
Evidently alarmed, the wife opened
a secret door, and led in, half
fainting, the Italian's madonna,
to whom he was careful to pay
no attention; only, to avoid
a too-studied indifference, he
glanced at the girl before he
turned to his host and said in
his own language:--
"Is that your
daughter, signore?"
Perez de Lagounia (such was
the merchant's name) had large
commercial relations with Genoa,
Florence, and Livorno; he knew
Italian, and replied in the same
language:--
"No; if she
were my daughter I should take
less precautions.
The child is confided to our
care, and I would rather die
than see any evil happen to her.
But how is it possible to put
sense into a girl of eighteen?"
"She is very handsome," said
Montefiore, coldly, not looking
at her face again.
"Her mother's beauty is celebrated," replied
the merchant, briefly.
They continued to smoke, watching
each other. Though Montefiore
compelled himself not to give
the slightest look which might
contradict his apparent coldness,
he could not refrain, at a moment
when Perez turned his head to
expectorate, from casting a rapid
glance at the young girl, whose
sparkling eyes met his. Then,
with that science of vision which
gives to a libertine, as it does
to a sculptor, the fatal power
of disrobing, if we may so express
it, a woman, and divining her
shape by inductions both rapid
and sagacious, he beheld one
of those masterpieces of Nature
whose creation appears to demand
as its right all the happiness
of love. Here was a fair young
face, on which the sun of Spain
had cast faint tones of bistre
which added to its expression
of seraphic calmness a passionate
pride, like a flash of light
infused beneath that diaphanous
complexion,-- due, perhaps, to
the Moorish blood which vivified
and colored it. Her hair, raised
to the top of her head, fell
thence with black reflections
round the delicate transparent
ears and defined the outlines
of a blue-veined throat. These
luxuriant locks brought into
strong relief the dazzling eyes
and the scarlet lips of a well-arched
mouth. The bodice of the country
set off the lines of a figure
that swayed as easily as a branch
of willow. She was not the Virgin
of Italy, but the Virgin of Spain,
of Murillo, the only artist daring
enough to have painted the Mother
of God intoxicated with the joy
of conceiving the Christ,--the
glowing imagination of the boldest
and also the warmest of painters.
In this young girl three things
were united, a single one of
which would have sufficed for
the glory of a woman: the purity
of the pearl in the depths of
ocean; the sublime exaltation
of the Spanish Saint Teresa;
and a passion of love which was
ignorant of itself. The presence
of such a woman has the virtue
of a talisman. Montefiore no
longer felt worn and jaded. That
young girl brought back his youthful
freshness.
But, though the apparition
was delightful, it did not last.
The girl was taken back to the
secret chamber, where the servant-woman
carried to her openly both light
and food.
"You do right to hide her," said
Montefiore in Italian. "I will
keep your secret. The devil!
we have generals in our army
who are capable of abducting
her."
Montefiore's infatuation went
so far as to suggest to him the
idea of marrying her. He accordingly
asked her history, and Perez
very willingly told him the circumstances
under which she had become his
ward. The prudent Spaniard was
led to make this confidence because
he had heard of Montefiore in
Italy, and knowing his reputation
was desirous to let him see how
strong were the barriers which
protected the young girl from
the possibility of seduction.
Though the good-man was gifted
with a certain patriarchal eloquence,
in keeping with his simple life
and customs, his tale will be
improved by abridgment.
At the period when the French
Revolution changed the manners
and morals of every country which
served as the scene of its wars,
a street prostitute came to Tarragona,
driven from Venice at the time
of its fall. The life of this
woman had been a tissue of romantic
adventures and strange vicissitudes.
To her, oftener than to any other
woman of her class, it had happened,
thanks to the caprice of great
lords struck with her extraordinary
beauty, to be literally gorged
with gold and jewels and all
the delights of excessive wealth,--
flowers, carriages, pages, maids,
palaces, pictures, journeys (like
those of Catherine II.); in short,
the life of a queen, despotic
in her caprices and obeyed, often
beyond her own imaginings. Then,
without herself, or any one,
chemist, physician, or man of
science, being able to discover
how her gold evaporated, she
would find herself back in the
streets, poor, denuded of everything,
preserving nothing but her all-powerful
beauty, yet living on without
thought or care of the past,
the present, or the future. Cast,
in her poverty, into the hands
of some poor gambling officer,
she attached herself to him as
a dog to its master, sharing
the discomforts of the military
life, which indeed she comforted,
as content under the roof of
a garret as beneath the silken
hangings of opulence. Italian
and Spanish both, she fulfilled
very scrupulously the duties
of religion, and more than once
she had said to love:--
"Return to-morrow;
to-day I belong to God."
But this slime permeated with
gold and perfumes, this careless
indifference to all things, these
unbridled passions, these religious
beliefs cast into that heart
like diamonds into mire, this
life begun, and ended, in a hospital,
these gambling chances transferred
to the soul, to the very existence,--in
short, this great alchemy, for
which vice lit the fire beneath
the crucible in which fortunes
were melted up and the gold of
ancestors and the honor of great
names evaporated, proceeded from
a CAUSE, a particular heredity,
faithfully transmitted from mother
to daughter since the middle
ages. The name of this woman
was La Marana. In her family,
existing solely in the female
line, the idea, person, name
and power of a father had been
completely unknown since the
thirteenth century. The name
Marana was to her what the designation
of Stuart is to the celebrated
royal race of Scotland, a name
of distinction substituted for
the patronymic name by the constant
heredity of the same office devolving
on the family.
Formerly, in France, Spain,
and Italy, when those three countries
had, in the fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries, mutual interests which
united and disunited them by
perpetual warfare, the name Marana
served to express in its general
sense, a prostitute. In those
days women of that sort had a
certain rank in the world of
which nothing in our day can
give an idea. Ninon de l'Enclos
and Marian Delorme have alone
played, in France, the role of
the Imperias, Catalinas, and
Maranas who, in preceding centuries,
gathered around them the cassock,
gown, and sword. An Imperia built
I forget which church in Rome
in a frenzy of repentance, as
Rhodope built, in earlier times,
a pyramid in Egypt. The name
Marana, inflicted at first as
a disgrace upon the singular
family with which we are now
concerned, had ended by becoming
its veritable name and by ennobling
its vice by incontestable antiquity.
One day, a day of opulence
or of penury I know not which,
for this event was a secret between
herself and God, but assuredly
it was in a moment of repentance
and melancholy, this Marana of
the nineteenth century stood
with her feet in the slime and
her head raised to heaven. She
cursed the blood in her veins,
she cursed herself, she trembled
lest she should have a daughter,
and she swore, as such women
swear, on the honor and with
the will of the galleys--the
firmest will, the most scrupulous
honor that there is on earth--she
swore, before an altar, and believing
in that altar, to make her daughter
a virtuous creature, a saint,
and thus to gain, after that
long line of lost women, criminals
in love, an angel in heaven for
them all.
The vow once made, the blood
of the Maranas spoke; the courtesan
returned to her reckless life,
a thought the more within her
heart. At last she loved, with
the violent love of such women,
as Henrietta Wilson loved Lord
Ponsonby, as Mademoiselle Dupuis
loved Bolingbroke, as the Marchesa
Pescara loved her husband--but
no, she did not love, she adored
one of those fair men, half women,
to whom she gave the virtues
which she had not, striving to
keep for herself all that there
was of vice between them. It
was from that weak man, that
senseless marriage unblessed
by God or man which happiness
is thought to justify, but which
no happiness absolves, and for
which men blush at last, that
she had a daughter, a daughter
to save, a daughter for whom
to desire a noble life and the
chastity she had not. Henceforth,
happy or not happy, opulent or
beggared, she had in her heart
a pure, untainted sentiment,
the highest of all human feelings
because the most disinterested.
Love has its egotism, but motherhood
has none. La Marana was a mother
like none other; for, in her
total, her eternal shipwreck,
motherhood might still redeem
her. To accomplish sacredly through
life the task of sending a pure
soul to heaven, was not that
a better thing than a tardy repentance?
was it not, in truth, the only
spotless prayer which she could
lift to God?
So, when this daughter, when
her Marie-Juana-Pepita (she would
fain have given her all the saints
in the calendar as guardians),
when this dear little creature
was granted to her, she became
possessed of so high an idea
of the dignity of motherhood
that she entreated vice to grant
her a respite. She made herself
virtuous and lived in solitude.
No more fetes, no more orgies,
no more love. All joys, all fortunes
were centred now in the cradle
of her child. The tones of that
infant voice made an oasis for
her soul in the burning sands
of her existence. That sentiment
could not be measured or estimated
by any other. Did it not, in
fact, comprise all human sentiments,
all heavenly hopes? La Marana
was so resolved not to soil her
daughter with any stain other
than that of birth, that she
sought to invest her with social
virtues; she even obliged the
young father to settle a handsome
patrimony upon the child and
to give her his name. Thus the
girl was not know as Juana Marana,
but as Juana di Mancini.
Then, after seven years of
joy, and kisses, and intoxicating
happiness, the time came when
the poor Marana deprived herself
of her idol. That Juana might
never bow her head under their
hereditary shame, the mother
had the courage to renounce her
child for her child's sake, and
to seek, not without horrible
suffering, for another mother,
another home, other principles
to follow, other and saintlier
examples to imitate. The abdication
of a mother is either a revolting
act or a sublime one; in this
case, was it not sublime?
At Tarragona
a lucky accident threw the
Lagounias in her way,
under circumstances which enabled
her to recognize the integrity
of the Spaniard and the noble
virtue of his wife. She came
to them at a time when her proposal
seemed that of a liberating angel.
The fortune and honor of the
merchant, momentarily compromised,
required a prompt and secret
succor. La Marana made over to
the husband the whole sum she
had obtained of the father for
Juana's "dot," requiring neither
acknowledgment nor interest.
According to her own code of
honor, a contract, a trust, was
a thing of the heart, and God
its supreme judge. After stating
the miseries of her position
to Dona Lagounia, she confided
her daughter and her daughter's
fortune to the fine old Spanish
honor, pure and spotless, which
filled the precincts of that
ancient house. Dona Lagounia
had no child, and she was only
too happy to obtain one to nurture.
The mother then parted from her
Juana, convinced that the child's
future was safe, and certain
of having found her a mother,
a mother who would bring her
up as a Mancini, and not as a
Marana.
Leaving her child in the simple
modest house of the merchant
where the burgher virtues reigned,
where religion and sacred sentiments
and honor filled the air, the
poor prostitute, the disinherited
mother was enabled to bear her
trial by visions of Juana, virgin,
wife, and mother, a mother throughout
her life. On the threshold of
that house Marana left a tear
such as the angels garner up.
Since that day of mourning
and hope the mother, drawn by
some invincible presentiment,
had thrice returned to see her
daughter. Once when Juana fell
ill with a dangerous complaint:
"I knew it," she
said to Perez when she reached
the house.
Asleep, she had seen her Juana
dying. She nursed her and watched
her, until one morning, sure
of the girl's convalescence,
she kissed her, still asleep,
on the forehead and left her
without betraying whom she was.
A second time the Marana came
to the church where Juana made
her first communion. Simply dressed,
concealing herself behind a column,
the exiled mother recognized
herself in her daughter such
as she once had been, pure as
the snow fresh-fallen on the
Alps. A courtesan even in maternity,
the Marana felt in the depths
of her soul a jealous sentiment,
stronger for the moment than
that of love, and she left the
church, incapable of resisting
any longer the desire to kill
Dona Lagounia, as she sat there,
with radiant face, too much the
mother of her child. A third
and last meeting had taken place
between mother and daughter in
the streets of Milan, to which
city the merchant and his wife
had paid a visit. The Marana
drove through the Corso in all
the splendor of a sovereign;
she passed her daughter like
a flash of lightning and was
not recognized. Horrible anguish!
To this Marana, surfeited with
kisses, one was lacking, a single
one, for which she would have
bartered all the others: the
joyous, girlish kiss of a daughter
to a mother, an honored mother,
a mother in whom shone all the
domestic virtues. Juana living
was dead to her. One thought
revived the soul of the courtesan--a
precious thought! Juana was henceforth
safe. She might be the humblest
of women, but at least she was
not what her mother was--an infamous
courtesan.
The merchant and his wife had
fulfilled their trust with scrupulous
integrity. Juana's fortune, managed
by them, had increased tenfold.
Perez de Lagounia, now the richest
merchant in the provinces, felt
for the young girl a sentiment
that was semi-superstitious.
Her money had preserved his ancient
house from dishonorable ruin,
and the presence of so precious
a treasure had brought him untold
prosperity. His wife, a heart
of gold, and full of delicacy,
had made the child religious,
and as pure as she was beautiful.
Juana might well become the wife
of either a great seigneur or
a wealthy merchant; she lacked
no virtue necessary to the highest
destiny. Perez had intended taking
her to Madrid and marrying her
to some grandee, but the events
of the present war delayed the
fulfilment of this project.
"I don't know where the Marana
now is," said Perez, ending the
above history, "but in whatever
quarter of the world she may
be living, when she hears of
the occupation of our province
by your armies, and of the siege
of Tarragona, she will assuredly
set out at once to come here
and see to her daughter's safety."
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