Page:Manzoni - The Betrothed, 1834.djvu/133

 Such a state of things formed a sad contrast to the radiant visions which had occupied her imagination. Her confinement was as strict at home as it had been in the monastery; and she, who had fancied she should enjoy, at least for this brief period, the pleasures of the world, found herself an exile from all society. At every announcement of a visiter, she was compelled to retire with the elderly persons of the family; and always dined apart whenever a guest was present. Even the servants of the family appeared to concur with the designs of their master, and to treat her with carelessness, ill concealed by an awkward attempt at formality. There was one among them, however, who seemed to feel towards her respect and compassion. This was a handsome page, who equalled, in her imagination, the ideal images of loveliness she had so often fondly cherished. There was soon apparent a change in her manner, a love of reverie and abstraction, and she no longer appeared to covet the favour of her family; some engrossing thought had taken possession of her mind. To be brief, she was detected one day in folding a letter, which it had been better she had not written, and which she was obliged to relinquish to her female attendant, who carried it to the prince, her father. He came immediately to her apartment with the letter in his hand, and in few but terrible words told her, that for the present she should be confined to her chamber, with the society only of the woman who had made the discovery; and intimated for the future still darker punishments. The page was dismissed, with an imperative command of silence, and solemn threatenings of punishment should he presume to violate it. Gertrude was then left alone, with her shame, her remorse, and her terror; and the sole company of this woman, whom she hated, as the witness of her fault, and the cause of her disgrace. The hatred was cordially returned, inasmuch as the attendant found herself reduced to the annoying duty of a jailer, and was made the guardian of a perilous secret for life. The first confused tumult of her feelings having in some measure subsided, she recalled to mind the dark intimations of her father with regard to some future punishment; what could this be? It most probably was a