Volume VI Part 39 (1/2)
”She does not see any cooes everywhere”
”It's very strange I must have seen her, and yet I do not think I could have passed her by unrecognized You have been with her ten years?”
”Yes, sir, as I had the honour of infored? Has she had any sickness? Has she aged?”
”Not at all She has become rather stout, but I assure you you would take her for a woman of thirty”
”Ito write to her now”
The wo me in astonishment, at the extraordinary situation in which I was placed
”Ought I to return to Aix immediately?” I asked myself She has a town house, but does not see coht surely see h my illness, and she would not have done so if she had beco her She uess that I ao to her or shall I write? I resolved to write, and I told her in ave the letter todispatched at once, and drove on to Marseilles where I alighted at an obscure inn, not wishi+ng to be recognized I had scarcely got out of e when I saw Madame Schizza, Nina's sister She had left Barcelona with her husband They had been at Marseilles three or four days and were going to Leghorn
Madaone out; and as I was full of curiosity I begged her to co ready
”What is your sister doing? Is she still at Barcelona?”
”Yes; but she will not be there long, for the bishop will not have her in the town or the diocese, and the bishop is stronger than the viceroy
She only returned to Barcelona on the plea that she wished to pass through Catalonia of her way home, but she does not need to stay there for nine or ten months on that account She will have to leave in a month for certain, but she is not much put out, as the viceroy is sure to keep her wherever she goes, and shehi in the bad repute she has gained for her lover”
”I know so of her peculiarities; but she cannot dislike a ot her dias of gratitude? She is not a hu, and no one knows her as I do She has made the count commit a hundred acts of injustice so that all Spain may talk of her, and know that she has made herself mistress of his body and soul, and all he has The worse his actions are, the more certain she feels that people will talk of her, and that is all she wants Her obligations to , for she owesmy husband in her service she has sent him about his business”
”Then I wonder how she caenerously”
”If you knew all, you would not feel grateful to her”
”Tell me all, then”
”She only paid for your keep at the inn and in prison to make people believe you were her lover, and to shame the count All Barcelona knows that you were assassinated at her door, and that you were fortunate enough to run the fellow through”
”But she cannot have been the instigator of, or even the accoainst nature”
”I dare say, but everything in Nina is against nature What I tell you is the bare truth, for I was a witness of it all Whenever the viceroy visited her she wearied hiallantry, your wit, your noble actions, coe
”The count got i else, but she would not; and at last he went away, cursing your na,--
”'Valga ive you a pleasure you do not expect'
”I assure you that e heard the pistol-shot after you had gone, she rehtest emotion, that the shot was the pleasure her rascally Spaniard had proht be killed
”'All the worse for the count,' she replied, 'for his turn will co like aof the exciteht o'clock the following day, your man came and told her that you had been taken to the citadel; and I will say it to her credit, she seemed relieved to hear you were alive”