"Baluzzi's passionate courtship, which inspired me with fear and dread--as he intimidated me with menaces if I should not do his will--I could no longer resist. I had sung my first more important part at the _Pergola_ and been very successful; his calculations now gained a firmer basis, more resolutely he went at his object. At that time, it is true, I only perceived the expression of unlimited passion in all that he said or did, which at last intoxicated me, for nothing is more infectious than the soul's warmth. I gave my consent to the marriage; that it should be a secret one at first, we both agreed. Nothing is more fatal to young actresses than the title of _Signora_, it sets a barrier to those undecided wishes which spontaneously, like a superfluous element of nature, mingle with the admiration of beauty and artistic revelations; in such unexpressed emotions often lies the secret of success. A grand career lay before me, it must remain free and open to me. Baluzzi also desired this. We were married in the remote little church in the middle of the Orta lake. For the stage I continued to be Signora Bollini; but the heavy, fatal error of my life had been committed, it was no youthful folly whose consequences could be brushed away with a light hand. Marriage is indissoluble according to the laws of the Church, indissoluble according to those of the country. The priest's words had converted me into a slave for evermore. I did not feel it then, I was happy. This confession does not disgrace me, because felicity lies in our feelings, and delusion can call it forth as well as truth. Youth has its own rapture, its own bliss, and love is not so powerless as not to procure full enjoyment for all who are filled with it. Those were glorious days which I spent by the banks of the Orta lake. Baluzzi then seemed like a demi-god to me, but that bliss was of short duration. "Returned to Florence, I soon remarked that he displayed several rougher sides of his nature, at first surprising, then alarming me. I perceived that he gave himself up to a wild life, which, merely to win and deceive me, he had interrupted for some time. He laid an embargo upon my cash-box, I was almost reduced to poverty; he was a gambler, a drunkard, and spent his nights with wild companions. "The rapture of love, however, had given unthought-of wings to my talent; from part to part I attained greater success, and after the lapse of a year was engaged at the _Pergola_ with a considerable salary, but, with the salary, increased Baluzzi's claims; often he demanded money for his journeys to Monaco, where he indulged his mania for play, whence he always returned a bankrupt. All my expostulations were vain, he met them with bitter scorn and the defiant manner of a lord and master.