O sollecito dubbio e fredda tema
Che pensando l’accresci.
Tasso, Canzone vi.
(O anxious doubt and chilling fear that grows by thinking.)
She was seated outside her door,--the young actress! The sea before her
in that heavenly bay seemed literally to sleep in the arms of the shore;
while, to the right, not far off, rose the dark and tangled crags to
which the traveller of to-day is duly brought to gaze on the tomb of
Virgil, or compare with the cavern of Posilipo the archway of Highgate
Hill. There were a few fisherman loitering by the cliffs, on which their
nets were hung to dry; and at a distance the sound of some rustic pipe
(more common at that day than at this), mingled now and then with the
bells of the lazy mules, broke the voluptuous silence,--the silence of
declining noon on the shores of Naples; never, till you have enjoyed it,
never, till you have felt its enervating but delicious charm, believe
that you can comprehend all the meaning of the Dolce far niente (The
pleasure of doing nothing.); and when that luxury has been known, when
you have breathed that atmosphere of fairy-land, then you will no longer
wonder why the heart ripens into fruit so sudden and so rich beneath the
rosy skies and the glorious sunshine of the South.
The eyes of the actress were fixed on the broad blue deep beyond. In the
unwonted negligence of her dress might be traced the abstraction of her
mind. Her beautiful hair was gathered up loosely, and partially bandaged
by a kerchief whose purple colour served to deepen the golden hue of her
tresses. A stray curl escaped and fell down the graceful neck. A loose
morning-robe, girded by a sash, left the breeze. That came ever and anon
from the sea, to die upon the bust half disclosed; and the tiny slipper,
that Cinderella might have worn, seemed a world too wide for the tiny
foot which it scarcely covered. It might be the heat of the day that
deepened the soft bloom of the cheeks, and gave an unwonted languor to
the large, dark eyes. In all the pomp of her stage attire,--in all the
flush of excitement before the intoxicating lamps,--never had Viola
looked so lovely.
By the side of the actress, and filling up the threshold,--stood
Gionetta, with her arms thrust to the elbow in two huge pockets on
either side of her gown.
“But I assure you,” said the nurse, in that sharp, quick, ear-splitting
tone in which the old women of the South are more than a match for those
of the North,--“but I assure you, my darling, that there is not a finer
cavalier in all Naples, nor a more beautiful, than this Inglese; and I
am told that all these Inglesi are much richer than they seem. Though
they have no trees in their country, poor people! and instead of
twenty-four they have only twelve hours to the day, yet I hear that they
shoe their horses with scudi; and since they cannot (the poor heretics!)
turn grapes into wine, for they have no grapes, they turn gold into
physic, and take a glass or two of pistoles whenever they are troubled
with the colic. But you don’t hear me, little pupil of my eyes,--you
don’t hear me!”
“And these things are whispered of Zanoni!” said Viola, half to herself,
and unheeding Gionetta’s eulogies on Glyndon and the English.
“Blessed Maria! do not talk of this terrible Zanoni. You may be sure
that his beautiful face, like his yet more beautiful pistoles, is
only witchcraft. I look at the money he gave me the other night, every
quarter of an hour, to see whether it has not turned into pebbles.”
“Do you then really believe,” said Viola, with timid earnestness, “that
sorcery still exists?”
“Believe! Do I believe in the blessed San Gennaro? How do you think he
cured old Filippo the fisherman, when the doctor gave him up? How do you
think he has managed himself to live at least these three hundred years?
How do you think he fascinates every one to his bidding with a look, as
the vampires do?”
“Ah, is this only witchcraft? It is like it,--it must be!” murmured
Viola, turning very pale. Gionetta herself was scarcely more
superstitious than the daughter of the musician. And her very innocence,
chilled at the strangeness of virgin passion, might well ascribe to
magic what hearts more experienced would have resolved to love.
“And then, why has this great Prince di -- been so terrified by him? Why
has he ceased to persecute us? Why has he been so quiet and still? Is
there no sorcery in all that?”
“Think you, then,” said Viola, with sweet inconsistency, “that I owe
that happiness and safety to his protection? Oh, let me so believe! Be
silent, Gionetta! Why have I only thee and my own terrors to consult?
O beautiful sun!” and the girl pressed her hand to her heart with wild
energy; “thou lightest every spot but this. Go, Gionetta! leave me
alone,--leave me!”
“And indeed it is time I should leave you; for the polenta will be
spoiled, and you have eat nothing all day. If you don’t eat you will
lose your beauty, my darling, and then nobody will care for you. Nobody
cares for us when we grow ugly,--I know that; and then you must, like
old Gionetta, get some Viola of your own to spoil. I’ll go and see to
the polenta.”
“Since I have known this man,” said the girl, half aloud,--“since his
dark eyes have haunted me, I am no longer the same. I long to escape
from myself,--to glide with the sunbeam over the hill-tops; to become
something that is not of earth. Phantoms float before me at night; and
a fluttering, like the wing of a bird, within my heart, seems as if the
spirit were terrified, and would break its cage.”
While murmuring these incoherent rhapsodies, a step that she did not
hear approached the actress, and a light hand touched her arm.
“Viola!--bellissima!--Viola!”
She turned, and saw Glyndon. The sight of his fair young face calmed her
at once. His presence gave her pleasure.
“Viola,” said the Englishman, taking her hand, and drawing her again
to the bench from which she had risen, as he seated himself beside her,
“you shall hear me speak! You must know already that I love thee! It has
not been pity or admiration alone that has led me ever and ever to thy
dear side; reasons there may have been why I have not spoken, save by
my eyes, before; but this day--I know not how it is--I feel a more
sustained and settled courage to address thee, and learn the happiest or
the worst. I have rivals, I know,--rivals who are more powerful than the
poor artist; are they also more favoured?”
Viola blushed faintly; but her countenance was grave and distressed.
Looking down, and marking some hieroglyphical figures in the dust with
the point of her slipper, she said, with some hesitation, and a vain
attempt to be gay, “Signor, whoever wastes his thoughts on an actress
must submit to have rivals. It is our unhappy destiny not to be sacred
even to ourselves.”
“But you do not love this destiny, glittering though it seem; your heart
is not in the vocation which your gifts adorn.”
“Ah, no!” said the actress, her eyes filling with tears. “Once I loved
to be the priestess of song and music; now I feel only that it is a
miserable lot to be slave to a multitude.”
“Fly, then, with me,” said the artist, passionately; “quit forever the
calling that divides that heart I would have all my own. Share my fate
now and forever,--my pride, my delight, my ideal! Thou shalt inspire my
canvas and my song; thy beauty shall be made at once holy and renowned.
In the galleries of princes, crowds shall gather round the effigy of a
Venus or a Saint, and a whisper shall break forth, ‘It is Viola Pisani!’
Ah! Viola, I adore thee; tell me that I do not worship in vain.”
“Thou art good and fair,” said Viola, gazing on her lover, as he pressed
nearer to her, and clasped her hand in his; “but what should I give thee
in return?”
“Love, love,--only love!”
“A sister’s love?”
“Ah, speak not with such cruel coldness!”
“It is all I have for thee. Listen to me, signor: when I look on your
face, when I hear your voice, a certain serene and tranquil calm creeps
over and lulls thoughts,--oh, how feverish, how wild! When thou art
gone, the day seems a shade more dark; but the shadow soon flies. I
miss thee not; I think not of thee: no, I love thee not; and I will give
myself only where I love.”
“But I would teach thee to love me; fear it not. Nay, such love as
thou describest, in our tranquil climates, is the love of innocence and
youth.”
“Of innocence!” said Viola. “Is it so? Perhaps--” She paused, and added,
with an effort, “Foreigner! and wouldst thou wed the orphan? Ah, THOU at
least art generous! It is not the innocence thou wouldst destroy!”
Glyndon drew back, conscience-stricken.
“No, it may not be!” she said, rising, but not conscious of the
thoughts, half of shame, half suspicion, that passed through the mind
of her lover. “Leave me, and forget me. You do not understand, you
could not comprehend, the nature of her whom you think to love. From my
childhood upward, I have felt as if I were marked out for some strange
and preternatural doom; as if I were singled from my kind. This feeling
(and, oh! at times it is one of delirious and vague delight, at others
of the darkest gloom) deepens within me day by day. It is like the
shadow of twilight, spreading slowly and solemnly around. My hour
approaches: a little while, and it will be night!”
As she spoke, Glyndon listened with visible emotion and perturbation.
“Viola!” he exclaimed, as she ceased, “your words more than ever enchain
me to you. As you feel, I feel. I, too, have been ever haunted with a
chill and unearthly foreboding. Amidst the crowds of men I have felt
alone. In all my pleasures, my toils, my pursuits, a warning voice has
murmured in my ear, ‘Time has a dark mystery in store for thy manhood.’
When you spoke, it was as the voice of my own soul.”
Viola gazed upon him in wonder and fear. Her countenance was as white as
marble; and those features, so divine in their rare symmetry, might have
served the Greek with a study for the Pythoness, when, from the mystic
cavern and the bubbling spring, she first hears the voice of the
inspiring god. Gradually the rigour and tension of that wonderful face
relaxed, the colour returned, the pulse beat: the heart animated the
frame.
“Tell me,” she said, turning partially aside,--“tell me, have you
seen--do you know--a stranger in this city,--one of whom wild stories
are afloat?”
“You speak of Zanoni? I have seen him: I know him,--and you? Ah, he,
too, would be my rival!--he, too, would bear thee from me!”
“You err,” said Viola, hastily, and with a deep sigh; “he pleads for
you: he informed me of your love; he besought me not--not to reject it.”
“Strange being! incomprehensible enigma! Why did you name him?”
“Why! ah, I would have asked whether, when you first saw him, the
foreboding, the instinct, of which you spoke, came on you more
fearfully, more intelligibly than before; whether you felt at once
repelled from him, yet attracted towards him; whether you felt,” and the
actress spoke with hurried animation, “that with HIM was connected the
secret of your life?”
“All this I felt,” answered Glyndon, in a trembling voice, “the first
time I was in his presence. Though all around me was gay,--music,
amidst lamp-lit trees, light converse near, and heaven without a cloud
above,--my knees knocked together, my hair bristled, and my blood
curdled like ice. Since then he has divided my thoughts with thee.”
“No more, no more!” said Viola, in a stifled tone; “there must be the
hand of fate in this. I can speak to you no more now. Farewell!” She
sprung past him into the house, and closed the door. Glyndon did not
follow her, nor, strange as it may seem, was he so inclined. The thought
and recollection of that moonlit hour in the gardens, of the strange
address of Zanoni, froze up all human passion. Viola herself, if not
forgotten, shrunk back like a shadow into the recesses of his breast.
He shivered as he stepped into the sunlight, and musingly retraced his
steps into the more populous parts of that liveliest of Italian cities.