LUCRECIA.
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��Tuscany saw their ranks thinned by death or exile, confiscation and im- prisonment.
The noise of the struggle sent its deep echoes even to Pistoja. Lucrecia missed several old and warm friends from her side, while the Austrian police confiscated several estates, and the garrison was doubled.
"It is all over !" said Lucrecia to Monsieur Rospigliosi. "The Italians are conquered ! Twenty million cow- ards and a handful of heroes !"
"Tosinghi is dead and Palandra ruined," replied the priest, with a sad tone of reproach.
" I know," she replied, " I will marry Palandra." Lucrecia had passed the first years of youth. Her ardent enthusiasm had little by little been ex- tinguished, and there remained of her love for the demi-gods of antiquity only a disgust for the reality. She had lost all hope. Then duty, rigid and strict, stood before her like a statue of destiny. When Palandra returned, wounded and penniless, she married him as one pays a debt.
Her husband loved her passionately, but she returned it with coolness and haughtiness. The years, in passing, had marked more proudly the lines of her face, and fixed with an inflexible contour those of her character.
Austria had crushed the revolt, but the scattered insurgents got together here and there and conspired anew. We know the fate of these poor fellows. Palandra was one of the leaders, and one night he was arrested with some comrades in a deep wood. He was taken to Milan, and with a mere formal trial, sent to the fortress of San Michele de Murano, near Venice. Lucrecia went with him until the swords of the guard prevented her going further. The parting was heart- rending. Palandra, passionately in love with his wife, tried in vain to re- press his feelings and his rage. Lucrecia, who knew it was useless to intercede for pardon, foresaw his long and severe captivity, and she reproach- ed herself with having caused it. " If
��he had not loved me," she thought, "he would be at this minute in Flor- ence, with the young nobles who applaud the prima donnas of Pergola, or who promenade in the Cascine or upon the Lugn'arno. And was not that his true destiny ! I wished to make heroes out of my lovers, and I have taken their lives, and have not even paid them with my love !"
At this moment she wished with all her heart that she might be imprisoned in Palandra's place ; but she could not share his punishment. While remorse filled her heart, her husband knelt at her feet. He would have given his life for one loving word from her cold lips.
"Will you love me?" he cried, sti- fling a sob. "Oh ! say that you will when I am imprisoned in this living tomb, Lucrecia? Italy will be delivered some day, but when? I shall be an old man perhaps. Shall I find you waiting for me?" "Calm yourself," she replied looking in his eyes and holding both his hands, and then they tore him away from her.
Thus they separated, the one to go to an Austrian prison, the other to re- turn to Pistoja to her deserted palace. Her friends had been suddenly scat- tered by terror or defiance. Each feared for himself or his own. The walls had ears, and no one dared to men- tion politics for fear of letting fall a word which would be wrongly inter- preted.
Lucrecia was twenty-eight years old, and her last illusion had been broken. The insurgents no longer talked with enthusiasm, and she knew that new efforts would only furnish fresh vic- tims to Austrian prisons. Her's was a profound despair, in the midst of which was a strange uneasiness, a dis- taste for all human things, and an un- quenchable desire for excitement. Monsieur Rospigliosi tried in vain to reason her out of this unhappy state, and teach her Christian resignation, without which life must become un- endurable, after the years of youth are passed ; but Lucrecia could not sub-
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