CHAPTER II.

There was, indeed, something like perversity, it must be allowed, in this firm refusal of Constantia to reward so devoted an attachment. Even her stern, grave uncle, whose judicial functions were not likely to give him much leisure or disposition to interfere with the love affairs of his niece, had dropt a hint that the suit of Giacomo da Valencia would not be displeasing to himself. Bologna could not have supplied a more fitting match; our lover, therefore, was not guilty of presumption, though of much obstinacy. It was his _right_, this blessed hand of Constantia--he felt it was his right, and he would win it.

Some _one_, some _day_, she must surely love, he argued to himself, and why not me? and why not now? Oh, could I but plead my passion, he would say, alone,--pour it out unrestrained at her feet, she would surely see how _reasonable_ it was that she should love, that she ought, that she must! To his excited and impetuous mood of mind, it appeared that nothing but the artificial barrier which the customs of society interposed in their intercourse, prevented his success. He could never see her alone, never speak unreservedly and passionately. The presence of others imposed restraints on both; and if an opportunity occurred to speak without being overheard, the few moments were filled with embarrassment by reason of their brief and precarious tenure. Nay, what were a few moments to him who had so full a heart to utter? "Oh, could I place her _there_!" he would exclaim, pointing to the upper end of the spacious room he occupied, "and there kneel down, and pray before her, as men do to their saints! Oh Nature! Oh Heaven! you would not so desert me, that my prayer should be fruitless."

Yes! if she were there alone, no other mortal near! This thought so wrought within him, took so strong possession of his mind, that it led him to a thousand projects for its realisation. What if he carried her off by force from her uncle's residence, and brought her there? Surely the humility, the passionate devotion with which he would entreat her, would atone for the rash and violent means he had used to bring her within the scope of his supplications; and the utter submission, and profound respect of his manner, would immediately convince her that he had no design upon her freedom of will, and that she might confide with entire safety to his honour. And as to the feasibility of the project, popular and beloved as he was in the university, there were numbers of students quite ready to engage in any scheme he should propose, however hazardous it might be. It would be very easy for him to organise a little band of the most faithful and the boldest of his adherents, who, with a due mixture of stratagem and force, would accomplish this new and harmless species of abduction.

The uncle of Constantia held, as we have intimated, a high judicial post, and was sometimes absent from Bologna, administering justice amongst the several dependencies of the republic. On one of these occasions Constantia was sitting with a female friend, who had been invited to stay with her during his absence from home. The room they sat in was one of those fine old Gothic chambers, which the pencil of Haghe delights to reproduce and restore for us; and to his pencil we willingly leave the description of it. Constantia was seated on one of those tall arm-chairs, with straight high back, which beauty then made graceful to the eye, and leaned her little chin upon her doubled hand, as she listened to her friend, Leonora, who was reading her a lecture upon the very theme which makes the burden of our story, her coldness to Giacomo.

"What would you _have_? what do you _expect_?" was the triumphant close of her harangue.

"What would I have?" replied Constantia. "Myself! I would possess myself in peace and stillness--What do I expect? I do not live on expectation. I love my present life--its calm, its contentment, its freedom. Why would you help to rob me of these?"

"Freedom! So, then, you fear the tyrant in the husband. But, my dear Constantia, where there are only two in the society, there is an even chance for the tyranny."

"A pleasant prospect! But you mistake me, Leonora. It is not the husband in his tyranny I fear,--I have not come to think of that; it is the lover and his love! I would not be infected by the turmoil of his passion. I dread it. Friends let me have and cherish. Leonora, be you always one of them; but for this turbulent Love, may the lightest down upon his pinion never touch me! How soft it seems, how light, as light and soft as the down we rob the swan's neck of; but touch it, and it burns, and fans a fever into the veins. I do love my own calm life, and I will keep it."

As she spoke thus, she rose from her seat and advanced towards the window. The two friends stood looking together down the street, which, as the sun descended, began to be deserted of its usual crowd. Their attention was arrested by a numerous body of footmen, and other attendants, who were escorting apparently some lady in a sedan chair. They were rather surprised to observe that the sedan chair directed its course towards their own house. A knocking at the door was heard; and soon after their servant brought them word, that a certain Signora ---- desired urgently to speak with Constantia, but that she could not quit her chair. The person whose name was announced, was an old lady, one of Constantia's most intimate friends; she descended immediately into the hall to meet her. She precipitated herself towards the sedan chair, the door of which stood open; a slight impulse from some bystander, from a hand which trembled as it touched her, carried her forward, and she found herself seated in what indeed was an empty chair. Before she had time to raise an alarm, she found herself borne swiftly and softly along the street. Leonora, who had followed her friend down the stairs, and was a witness to her singular disappearance, called up all the servants of the establishment, and despatched them after their mistress. They followed, but to no purpose. The running footmen, on either side of the sedan, drew their swords. They were students in disguise. Giacomo had succeeded in his daring enterprise.

Constantia had hardly collected her thoughts, when she perceived that her chair was carried through a lofty archway up a broad flight of stairs, and deposited in a spacious apartment, once the proud saloon of a palatial residence, though the whole building, of which it formed a part, had since been constituted a portion of the university. All her attendants except one left the room. We need not say that it was Giacomo who handed her from her temporary imprisonment.

To judge from their bearing and attitude, you would have said that it was Giacomo who was the captive, bending before the mercy of Constantia. She stood there, upright, calm, inflexible. He was, indeed, at her mercy. He felt that his life depended on this present moment, and on the few words that should fall from her lips. He led her to the upper end of the room where his imagination had so often placed her. He knelt--he sued.

Beginning with abrupt protests and exclamations, his impassioned pleading gradually grew more continuous, but not less vehement, till it flowed in the full torrent of a lover's eloquence. On all this turbulent pathos Constantia looked calmly down, more in sorrow than in anger. From the moment she understood in whose power she was, she had ceased (so much justice she had at least done to the character of her lover) to have any alarm whatever on her own account; but she was filled with regret, disquietude, and concern for the fatal consequences which might ensue to himself from the unwarrantable step he had taken. "Restore me to my uncle's before he shall hear of this," were the only words she vouchsafed in return to all his passionate appeal.

But the pleading of the desperate lover was not, as may well be supposed, allowed to proceed without interruption. Leonora, a young girl of spirit and animation, immediately sent forth the servants of the household to rouse up the friends of the family, and to spread every where the report of the strange outrage which had been committed upon one of the most respected families of Bologna. A fleet messenger was especially despatched to the uncle of Constantia, distant only a few miles from the town, to recall him to a scene where his presence was so much required. There was a perpetual standing feud between the citizens of Bologna and the students of the university, which had often disturbed the tranquillity of the city; it was therefore with extreme alacrity and zeal that the townsmen rushed in crowds into the streets, armed with the best weapons they could procure, to rescue the niece of their venerable judge, and to punish the gross outrage which they conceived had been perpetrated.

When, however, the multitude came in front of the large mansion or palace in which Giacomo resided, and which was tenanted entirely by students, the great majority of whom were his zealous partisans, and all of whom were prepared, in any quarrel whatever, to take part against the townsmen, they found the enterprise they had undertaken to be one of no little difficulty. The huge gates were closed and barred, while the windows above were occupied by a spirited garrison who had already supplied themselves with missiles of every description to annoy their assailants. These latter began, with true Italian energy, to pull up the posts out of the street, to form battering-rams with which to force the gates. They thundered at them with dreadful din, shaking the whole edifice; and in spite of the missiles despatched in quick succession from above, seemed to be on the point of effecting an entrance.

When Constantia heard this horrible din she turned pale with affright--Giacomo pale with rage. He could make no impression on the cold beauty before him--his suppressed passion was suffocating him. Against _these_ assailants all his impetuosity could burst forth--_them_ he knew at least how to defy;--here was an enemy he could vanquish, or, at worst, a defeat he knew how to sustain. When, therefore, several of his friends rushed breathless into the room to tell him that the great gates began to creak upon their hinges, and were likely to be beaten in, he almost welcomed this new species of contest. Conducting Constantia into a side-room, where she would be out of reach of the ensuing tumult and disorder, and where an aged matron waited to attend upon her, he went with his friends to meet the rest of his companions in arms, who were anxious to consult him on the next measures which in their present emergency should be taken.

The house, or palazzo, was built on a plan very customary in such structures. In the centre were the tall gates, now undergoing the battery of the citizens, which opened upon a square, lofty, paved court or hall, supported by columns, and forming a carriage-way up to the foot of the staircase. Originally you passed through the hall into a garden beyond, but when the building had been converted into a residence for students, and made a part, in fact, of the university, a wall had been erected, separating the garden from the house. This wall, though lofty, did not, however, rise to the level of the roof of the hall; both light and air were admitted from above it, and you still saw the topmost branches of the orange-trees and the summits of the fountains that were playing in the garden beyond. From either side of this hall rose the broad and marble staircase which led into the interior of the house.

Upon both branches of this noble staircase, whose steps faced the entrance, Giacomo stationed his gallant band, armed each of them at least with his rapier. He then commissioned one of his companions to proclaim to the besiegers from a window above, that if they would cease their battering, and retreat a few paces from the gates, they should be opened to them.

To this the crowd assented, presuming that it could imply nothing else than a surrender. The great doors were opened. They rushed forward; but the staircase they thought to ascend so readily was occupied every inch of it by a brave phalanx, which awaited them with glittering swords, held forward in spear fashion, tier above tier. The first rank of this disordered multitude had no desire whatever to be thrust forward by those in the rear on the points held forth by this determined phalanx. A great number of them passed harmless between the two staircases, but the wall we have described prevented any egress in that direction; and when the lower part of the hall was quite full, the struggle commenced in earnest between those of the crowd who desired to retreat, and those who, knowing nothing of the peril of their companions, were still urging forward. The struggle rose to a combat. The students, who, at the express desire of Giacomo, stood steadily at their post, and preserved a dead silence, were undisturbed spectators of the tumult, and saw their adversaries in desperate strife, the one against the other.

They seemed to be on the point of obtaining, in this singular manner, a bloodless victory, when Andrea, the uncle of Constantia, together with the Podesta, made their appearance, with such military force as could be assembled at the moment. This had immediately one good effect; the crowd without, by making way for the Podesta, released their companions within, still struggling for escape. The military force of the Podesta soon stood confronted with the little band of students. Yet these were so well placed, had so decidedly the advantage of position, and their leader was so well known for his prowess and indomitable courage, that there was a great unwillingness to commence the attack, and very loud calls were made upon them to surrender to the majesty of the law.

For Giacomo, the combat was what his blood boiled for. Would that he could have fought single-handed--he alone--and perilled, and have lost his life! But when he saw the respected form of the uncle of Constantia--when he reflected that the experiment he had so long desired, _had been made and failed_--that the cold virgin whom he had left up stairs was still invincible, whoever else he might conquer or resist, and that he should be exposing the lives of his companions in a combat where to him there was now no victory--he lowered his sword, and made treaty of peace with the Podesta. On consideration that none other but himself should suffer any species of penalty for that day's transaction, he offered to resign Constantia to her uncle, and himself to the pleasure of the Podesta. These terms were very readily accepted; his companions alone seemed reluctant to acquiesce in them.