Monte-Cristo's Daughter
In the interval both the Viscount and the girl had become much attached
to each other, and then this mutual attachment had rapidly ripened into
mutual love of that ardor and intensity experienced only by children of
the southern or oriental sun. Young Massetti had avowed his passion to
his beautiful charmer, and the avowal had not caused her displeasure; it
was, on the contrary, exceedingly agreeable to her and she did not seek
to conceal the fact from her enthusiastic suitor.
The momentous interview took place in a densely shaded alley of the
garden of the Palazzo Costi one sultry afternoon of the early autumn.
The youthful couple were seated very near each other upon a rustic
bench. Massetti held Zuleika's small, soft hand in his and the electric
touch of her tiny and shapely fingers thrilled him as the touch of
female fingers had never thrilled him before. He gazed into the liquid
depths of her dark, glowing eyes and their subtile fire seemed to melt
his very soul. The close, sultry atmosphere, laden with heavy,
intoxicating perfumes, was fraught with a delirious influence well
calculated to set the blood aflame and promote the explosion of pent-up
love. The thick, green foliage enclosed the pair as in a verdant cloud,
effectually concealing them from observation. The opportunity was
irresistible. Giovanni drew closer to his fascinating companion, so
closely that her fragrant breath came full in his face, utterly
subjecting him and totally obliterating all caution, everything save his
absorbing passion for the palpitating girl whose slight, but clear-cut
form, gracefully-outlined beneath her flowing, half-oriental garments,
touched his. Suddenly carried away by a powerful transport, he threw his
arm around the young girl's yielding waist and drew her without
resistance upon his bosom, where she lay, gazing up into his flushed,
excited countenance with an indescribable, voluptuous charm, mingled
with thorough confidence and unhesitating innocence. Panting in his
clasp, her ruby lips partly opened as if for breath, and the ardent
Italian hastily, recklessly imprinted a fiery kiss upon them. Zuleika,
with an almost imperceptible movement, returned this chaste, but
ravishing salute.
"Oh! how I love you!" murmured Giovanni, quivering from head to foot in
his wild ecstasy, and clasping the lovely girl still tighter.
She made no verbal response, but did not stir, did not strive to
extricate herself from his warm embrace This was a sufficient answer for
the quick Italian. Zuleika, the beautiful Zuleika, returned his love,
favored his suit. His joy approached delirium.
"Oh! Zuleika," he whispered, gazing directly into her night black eyes,
"you love me, I am sure! Give me the treasures of your virgin heart! Be
mine--be my wife!"
"Oh! Giovanni," returned the quivering girl, in a low, but sweetly
modulated voice, "I do love you--God alone knows how much!--but I am
too young to be your wife! I am only a child, not yet out of school. My
father would not hear of my marrying for several years to come. Can you
not wait?"
"It will be a hard task, Zuleika," answered the young man, excitedly;
"but, still, I will wait if you give me a lover's hope. Promise to marry
me when you are at liberty to do so, nay, swear it, and I shall be
satisfied!"
"I can neither promise nor swear it, Giovanni, without my father's
approval and consent. He is a wise, experienced and thoughtful man,
tender and mild to every one he loves, though hard and implacable to his
enemies. Speak to him of me, of your love, of your wish. He will listen
to you and he will not imperil his daughter's happiness. Go to him
without delay, and rest assured that whatever he says or does will be
for the best interests of us both."
She had released herself from his clasp and drawn slightly away from
him, not in terror, not in prudery, not in coquetry, but as a measure of
prudence. She felt intuitively that the wild, intense passion of her
Italian adorer must be kept within discreet limits.
"I cannot speak to your father yet," replied Giovanni, hesitatingly. "He
might listen to me, it is true; but he would treat our love as a mere
childish fancy that time could not fail to dim, if not obliterate. I am
deeply in earnest, Zuleika, and could not bear to be treated as a
thoughtless, headlong stripling, who did not know his own mind.
Ridicule, even in its mildest form, would fire my blood, fill me with
mad projects of revenge. I prefer not to ask your father for your hand
until certain of a favorable reception of my suit. You comprehend my
scruples, do you not, Zuleika? I love you too dearly not to win you when
I ask!"
"But you will speak to my father?" said the girl, in faltering tones.
"Yes, darling, oh! yes; but not until that hated convent school has
ceased to oppose its barriers between us. When you have left it, when
you have completed the education the Count designs for you, I will seek
your father and ask you of him for my wife; until then, until I can with
safety speak, at least promise me that you will love no other man,
encourage no other suitor."
"That I will do," responded the girl, joyously. "Rest assured I will
love no other man, encourage no other suitor!"
Unable to control himself, the Viscount again clasped the object of his
adoration in his arms, and again their lips met in a long, passionate
kiss of love.
So it was settled, and Zuleika went to the convent school of the Sacred
Heart, feeling that her happiness was assured, but impatient of and
dissatisfied with the long delay that must necessarily intervene before
the realization of her hopes, the dawn of her woman's future.
The Viscount Massetti, though he had professed himself willing to wait,
was, on his side, thoroughly discontented with the arduous task he had
undertaken. It was one thing to make a rash promise in the heat of
enthusiasm, but quite another to keep it, especially when that promise
involved a separation from the lovely girl who had inextricably entwined
herself about the fibres of his heart and was the sole guiding star of
his life and love.
The convent school of the Sacred Heart was located in the convent of
that Sisterhood, about three miles beyond the Porta del Popolo on the
northern side of Rome. The convent was a spacious edifice, but gloomy
and forbidding, with the aspect of a prison. Narrow, barred windows,
like those of a dungeon of the middle ages, admitted the light from
without, furnishing a dim, restricted illumination that gave but little
evidence of the power and brilliancy of the orb of day. At night the
faint, sepulchral blaze of candles only served to make the darkness
palpable and more ghastly.
The huge school-room was as primitive and comfortless in its
appointments and furniture as well could be. The walls were of dressed
stone and loomed up bare and grisly to a lofty ceiling that was covered
with a perfect labyrinth of curiously carved beams, the work of some
unknown artist of long ago. The scholars' dormitories were narrow
cell-like affairs, scantily furnished, in which every light must be
extinguished at the hour of nine in the evening. Once admitted to the
school, the pupils were not permitted to leave its precincts save at
vacation or at the termination of their course of studies, a
circumstance that heartily disgusted the gay, light-hearted Italian
girls sent there to receive both mental and moral training. Another
source of grave vexation to them was the regulation, already alluded to,
that rigorously excluded all male visitors, with the exception of
parents or guardians.
Attached to the convent was an extensive garden, full of huge trees that
had, apparently, stood there for centuries, so bent, gnarled and aged
were they. An ancient gardener, with a flowing beard as white as snow
and scanty locks of the same spotless hue, aided by two or three
assistants almost as ancient as himself, attended to the lawns and vast
flower-beds, the latter being kept constantly filled with plants of
gorgeous bloom and exquisite fragrance. The picturesque appearance of
the garden contrasted strongly and strangely with the rigid and staid
aspect of the convent edifice, and this garden was the one spot where
the pupils felt at home and thoroughly enjoyed themselves. They were
allowed to walk there at noon and towards twilight in the evening, under
the supervision of Sister Agatha, a sharp-sighted and vigilant nun, who
never failed to rebuke and correct her vivacious charges for even the
slightest infraction of discipline. Still, the girls enjoyed themselves
in the garden, for its extent and the fact that Sister Agatha could not
be everywhere at once enabled the frisky and light-hearted pupils to
indulge in many an escapade.
One noon Zuleika, who was in an unusually despondent frame of mind,
strayed from the rest of her companions and strolled beneath the
centenarian trees. Unconsciously she approached the lofty wall of the
garden. She seated herself at the foot of a gnarled old elm, the leafy
branches of which descended to the ground and effectually screened
Monte-Cristo's daughter from view. At least, so she thought, but though
she could not be seen by any within the garden enclosure she was plainly
visible from the wall and the trees looming above it without.
As Zuleika sat pondering on her lot and sadly thinking of her separation
from her lover, she heard or imagined she heard a singular noise amid
the thick boughs of an immense chestnut tree immediately outside the
garden wall. She started up in affright, but could discern nothing
unusual, and the singular noise was not repeated. The strangest part of
the whole affair, however, was that the noise had sounded like her own
name uttered by a human voice. This increased her terror and confusion,
and she was about to flee from the spot when an oblong pebble to which
something white was attached fluttered over the wall and fell at her
feet. She was now more alarmed then ever and took several steps
backward, the while regarding the white object that lay where it had
fallen, motionless and fascinating.
Finally her curiosity obtained the mastery, and, approaching the
suspicious object with the utmost caution, she bent over to examine it.
It was an ordinary envelope and, no doubt, contained a letter. For whom
was it intended? Obviously for one of the pupils. It was a clandestine
epistle, too, otherwise it would have come by the regular channel
through the post office. Perhaps it was a love letter. At this thought
she gave a guilty start and gazed piercingly into the chestnut tree, but
nothing was visible there save boughs and leaves. After all, the epistle
was, doubtless, destined for some swarthy-visaged Italian beauty, and
many such were in the convent school. That it had fallen at her feet was
certainly but a mere coincidence. It was not, it could not be intended
for her! Its rightful owner, who had clearly received many similar notes
in the same way, knew where it was and presently would come for it. The
envelope had fallen face downward, and she could not see the address.
She touched it with her foot, then cautiously turned it with the tip of
her shoe. She saw writing. It was the address. Somehow the arrangement
of the characters seemed familiar to her, though she was so dazed and
confused she could not make out the name. Her curiosity was unworthy of
her, she knew, unworthy of Monte-Cristo's daughter. What right had she
to pry into the heart secret of one of her school companions? Still she
gazed; she could not help it. Suddenly she stooped and took the envelope
from the ground. The address riveted her eyes like a magician's spell.
Great heavens! it was her own name--Zuleika!
Hurriedly snapping the slight string that bound the envelope to the