When I returned, Madame Orio greeted me with open hands and a flood of gratitude. I was now, she said, privileged and welcome friend of the house.
The evening passed in easy conversation and candlelight until supper was announced. I pleaded an engagement so gracefully that she could not press me to stay.
Marton rose to light me out of the room, but her aunt, believing Nanette to be my favourite, commanded.
"Nanette, see the abbé out."
Nanette hesitated. "Aunt, perhaps Marton-"
"Nanette," Madame Orio repeated, "you will go."
Obedience won.
She led me down the stairs, slammed the front door loudly for show, blew out her candle, and slipped back inside, leaving me in the dark.
I climbed softly to the third floor and found the sisters' room. The air smelled faintly of lavender and wax.
I stretched out on a sofa and waited patiently for the rising of the star of my happiness.
An hour passed amidst the sweetest dreams of my imagination.
Then the street door creaked again. Footsteps. Laughter. Three silhouettes entered -the sisters, and between them, my Angela.
I rose, drew her close, and forgot the rest of the world. I keep up for two full hours my conversation with her.
When the clock struck twelve, the girls pitied me for having gone so late supperless.
I am shocked at such an idea.
"With such happiness as I am enjoying," I said, "I can suffer from no human want."
They laughed and told me I was a prisoner: the key slept under their aunt's pillow, and the door would not open until she went to mass at dawn. I assured them no captivity could be sweeter.
I wonder at my young friends imagining that such news can be anything but delightful to me.
I express all my joy at the certainty of passing the next five hours with the beloved mistress of my heart.
We talked another hour. Suddenly Nanette begins to laugh, Angela wants to know the reason, and Marton whispering a few words to her, they both laugh likewise.
This puzzles me.
In my turn, I want to know what causes this general laughter, and at last Nanette, putting on an air of anxiety, told me as she held up a candle stub. "This is the last candle we have, and that in a few minutes we shall be in the dark."
This is a piece of news particularly agreeable to me, but I do not let my satisfaction appear on my countenance.
I feigned dismay. "I am truly sorry for your sake, you should go to bed and sleep quietly under my respectful guardianship."
My proposal increased their merriment.
Their laughter filled the room. Angela tilted her head, eyes glinting in the half-light. "And what shall we do," she asked, "when the dark finally comes?"
"We can talk," I said.
The four of us had been talking for three hours. I was, naturally, the hero of the romance.
Love is a great poet, its resources are inexhaustible, but if the end it has in view is not obtained, it feels weary and remains silent.
My Angela listened willingly. She answered rarely, and when she did, it was with proverbs-small, well-aimed stones that made my arguments stumble.
Each time my poor hands came to the assistance of love, she drew herself back or repulsed me.
Still, I kept speaking and using my hands without losing courage. My reasoning dazzled her but never moved her; her eyes wavered, her heart did not.
Meanwhile, her two friends watched me with an attention that was -how shall I say- misplaced. The geometry of affection was wrong; my passion struck the wrong angle.
I felt heat rise through my body though the night was cold. Sweat gathered on my forehead.
At last the candle guttered. Nanette pinched the flame and carried the stub away, leaving us in darkness.
I reached instinctively for Angela. My arms met air.
She had vanished.
I could not help laughing at the rapidity with which she had availed herself of the opportunity of escaping me.
For one full hour I poured out all the tender, cheerful words that love inspired me with, to persuade her to come back to me; I could only suppose that it was a joke to tease me. But I became impatient.
"The joke," I said, "has lasted long enough; it is foolish, as I could not run after you, and I am surprised to hear you laugh, for your strange conduct leads me to suppose that you are making fun of me. Come and take your seat near me, and if I must speak to you without seeing you let my hands assure me that I am not addressing my words to the empty air. To continue this game would be an insult to me, and my love does not deserve such a return."
Her voice came back, soft but steady. "Well, be calm. I will listen to every word you may say, but you must feel that it would not be decent for me to place myself near you in this dark room."
"Do you want me to stand where I am until morning?"
"Lie down on the bed and sleep."
"I wonder, indeed, at your thinking me capable of doing so in the state I am in. Well, I suppose we must play at blind man's buff."
I reached through the dark, hands out, laughing, half desperate.
Each time my fingers brushed a sleeve or a curl of hair -Nanette, Marton- they cried out, revealed themselves, and I, stupid Don Quixote, let them go at once.
Love and prejudice blinded me, I could not see how ridiculous I was with my respectful reserve.
I played the gallant when the hour demanded a thief.
The room was small, yet Angela evaded me completely. I begged her to yield, cursed her cruelty, begged again.
Her voice answered from nowhere, light and amused. "The difficulty of meeting each other," she said, "is mutual."
At last I gave up and sank into a chair, sweating from the chase.
For the next hour I told the history of Roger, when Angelica disappears through the power of the magic ring which the loving knight had so imprudently given her.
My voice filled the dark:
Cosi dicendo, intorno a la fortuna
Brancolando n'andava come cieco.
O quante volte abbraccio l'aria vana
Sperando la donzella abbracciar seco.
(So saying, he went groping round about the wheel of fortune, like a blind man.
Oh, how many times did he embrace the empty air, hoping to embrace the maiden with him.)
Nanette laughed softly. She had read Ariosto and took Angelica's side.
"Roger was a fool," she said. "if he had been wise, he would never have trusted the ring to a coquette."
I was delighted with Nanette, but I was yet too much of a novice to apply her remarks to myself.
One was hour left. Madame Orio would rise before dawn, pious as clockwork, and I was to be gone before she opened the street door for mass.
I spent that last hour pleading with Angela. "Come sit by me-only a moment," I whispered. She stayed where she was.
My soul went through every gradation of hope and despair, and the reader cannot possibly realize it unless he has been placed in a similar position.
I exhausted the most convincing arguments; then I had recourse to prayers, and even to tears.
But, seeing all was useless, I gave way to that feeling of noble indignation which lends dignity to anger.
Had I not been in the dark, I might, I truly believe, have struck the proud monster, the cruel girl, who had thus for five hours condemned me to the most distressing suffering.
I poured out all the abuse, all the insulting words that despised love can suggest to an infuriated mind; I loaded her with the deepest curses; I swore that my love had entirely turned into hatred, and, as a finale, I advised her to be careful, as I would kill her the moment I would set my eyes on her.
The first light broke as my fury burned out.
Below, I heard the bolt slide, the door creak open-Madame Orio leaving for church.
I reached for my cloak and hat, ready to escape the wreck I'd made of the night.
But how can I ever portray the consternation in which I was thrown when, casting a sly glance upon the young friends, I found the three bathed in tears!
I froze.
In my shame and despair I thought of committing suicide, and sitting down again, I recollected my brutal speeches, and upbraided myself for having wantonly caused them to weep.
My throat closed; I couldn't speak. I felt choking; at last tears came to my assistance, and I gave way to a fit of crying which relieved me.
When Nanette whispered that her aunt would soon return, I stood, wiped my face, and fled without a word.
At home I threw myself on the bed, staring at the ceiling until noon. Sleep did not visit my troubled mind.
At noon, M. de Malipiero, noticing the change in my countenance, enquired what ailed me, and longing to unburden my heart, I told him all that had happened.
The wise old man did not laugh at my sorrow, but by his sensible advice he managed to console me and to give me courage. He was in the same predicament with the beautiful Therese.
Yet he could not help laughing at dinner when he saw me, in spite of my grief, eat with increased appetite; I had gone without my supper the night before, and he kindly informed me that a constitution which forgets grief in front of a full plate is one that will survive many disappointments in love.