THE FOOL ERRANT - World eBook Library - World Public Library

in your replies. Why, Heaven! the world was before you two! You had happiness, adventure, all the rest of it. And if you must
needs wander this world, need I assure you that two are better company than one?" Fra Palamone, I remembered, had been of
that opinion too. "As it is," she continued, "you may be years before you find Aurelia, and you must be prepared for any step
she may have been driven to take in her extremity. I don't wish to wound you—but there can hardly be any doubt about her
plans." She rose to her feet and looked kindly at me, saying, "I thank you for telling me your story. If I understand it, I think you
are rather mad; if I don't, then I must be. But I admire you; I think I love you. I foretell happiness for you in times to come, but
not of the sort you seem to hope for at present." She held out her hand to me. "Adieu, Don Francesco," she said, "we will part
here. Do you go to find Aurelia Gualandi, I to search for a lover like you."
Deeply touched by this gentle conclusion of our argument, I held her hand and made her sit down again. She resisted—faintly,
not seriously. I then told her that I did not intend her to leave me in this manner, or in any manner which did not assure me of her
honourable wellbeing; and now it was she who pleaded feebly, now it was I who was convinced, fiery, unanswerable. I said
that I was resolved to protect her honour, to work for her, to establish her firmly and comfortably in the world which had used
her so ill. I told her that, being devoted entirely to the love of Aurelia, my company could do her no harm; that, on the contrary,
the world, putting the worst construction upon our alliance, would actually respect her more and do her less injury than if she
went into it alone. "I charge myself with your future, Virginia," I said, "as if you were my sister. I am young and able; I shall
provide for you, never fear, until you are honourably and happily married. And you shall accept this service from me—the only
one I can do you—upon my own terms; and respect the bargain that you make with me more than you have your father's."
She would not look at me, and said nothing; but she gave me both her hands, and bending her head until she reached them,
kissed mine fervently and with humble gratitude. Thus began the most extraordinary partnership between a young man and
woman which the world can ever have known.
For the plighting of it, Virginia took all the order and direction. I remember that she left me for a short time sitting there on the
church steps, and returned with bread and salt, got I know not how or whence. She broke the bread, sprinkled it with the salt,
and initiated me into a mystical meal of her own devising.
"This old church under which we partake our sacrament," she told me, "is called San Pietro's. It is here that, in times gone by,
the Bishop of Pistoja went through the ceremony of a mystical marriage with the Abbess of the Benedictines, which has now
been stopped by the Jesuits, because, more than once, it was not so mystical a business as it might have been. But I think the
place very suitable for what you and I have to do."
With certain rites, then, of her own contriving—certain sprinklings of salt in a ring upon the ground about us, upon our heads
and knees, with certain balancing of flakes of bread, and many signs of the Cross, Virginia and I celebrated a union which, I say
with my hand on my heart, was intended by both of us to be as mystical as possible, and was so until, long afterwards, it was
deliberately ended. At the end of her observances she took my hands in each of hers, crosswise, and looking earnestly at me,
said, "We are now indissolubly bound together—by the communion of bread and salt—my pure intention to your pure desire.
Together we will live until we find Aurelia—you as master, I as servant—you vowed to preserve my soul, I to succour your
body. Let nothing henceforward separate us—but one thing."
"Amen to that, Virginia," I said, "and that one thing shall be a prosperous marriage for you."
So the bargain was struck; and now again I looked at the girl. The hard and bitter fires had burned themselves out of her eyes;
nothing remained there but a clear radiancy. She was like a new creature, earnest, frosty cold, like a spirit set free. I have said
she was handsome in a thin, fine way. She was very pale, black-browed, with firm, pure lips, a sharp chin, grey, judging eyes.
She was lithe and spare like a boy, and very strong. Her hair, which was abundant and loosely coiled upon the nape of her
neck, was nearly black; not of that soft, cloudy dark which made Aurelia's so glorious, but as if burnt, with a hot, rusty tinge
here and there about it. Though not now in the rags in which I saw her first, she was still poorly dressed, in the habit of the
peasantry of that country, in a green petticoat and red bodice, which, like that of all unmarried girls here, was cut to display the
bosom. Her feet were bare, and her arms also to the arm-pits.
Such was Virginia Strozzi, for whom I had not then any symptom of what the world calls love. I do not deny that she interested
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