O, be gone!
By Heaven, I love thee better than myself,
For I came hither armed against myself.
--“Romeo and Juliet.”
The young actress and Gionetta had returned from the theatre; and Viola
fatigued and exhausted, had thrown herself on a sofa, while Gionetta
busied herself with the long tresses which, released from the fillet
that bound them, half-concealed the form of the actress, like a veil of
threads of gold. As she smoothed the luxuriant locks, the old nurse
ran gossiping on about the little events of the night, the scandal and
politics of the scenes and the tireroom. Gionetta was a worthy soul.
Almanzor, in Dryden’s tragedy of “Almahide,” did not change sides with
more gallant indifference than the exemplary nurse. She was at last
grieved and scandalised that Viola had not selected one chosen cavalier.
But the choice she left wholly to her fair charge. Zegri or Abencerrage,
Glyndon or Zanoni, it had been the same to her, except that the
rumours she had collected respecting the latter, combined with his
own recommendations of his rival, had given her preference to the
Englishman. She interpreted ill the impatient and heavy sigh with which
Viola greeted her praises of Glyndon, and her wonder that he had of late
so neglected his attentions behind the scenes, and she exhausted all
her powers of panegyric upon the supposed object of the sigh. “And
then, too,” she said, “if nothing else were to be said against the other
signor, it is enough that he is about to leave Naples.”
“Leave Naples!--Zanoni?”
“Yes, darling! In passing by the Mole to-day, there was a crowd round
some outlandish-looking sailors. His ship arrived this morning, and
anchors in the bay. The sailors say that they are to be prepared to sail
with the first wind; they were taking in fresh stores. They--”
“Leave me, Gionetta! Leave me!”
The time had already passed when the girl could confide in Gionetta.
Her thoughts had advanced to that point when the heart recoils from all
confidence, and feels that it cannot be comprehended. Alone now, in the
principal apartment of the house, she paced its narrow boundaries
with tremulous and agitated steps: she recalled the frightful suit
of Nicot,--the injurious taunt of Glyndon; and she sickened at the
remembrance of the hollow applauses which, bestowed on the actress, not
the woman, only subjected her to contumely and insult. In that room the
recollection of her father’s death, the withered laurel and the broken
chords, rose chillingly before her. Hers, she felt, was a yet gloomier
fate,--the chords may break while the laurel is yet green. The lamp,
waning in its socket, burned pale and dim, and her eyes instinctively
turned from the darker corner of the room. Orphan, by the hearth of thy
parent, dost thou fear the presence of the dead!
And was Zanoni indeed about to quit Naples? Should she see him no
more? Oh, fool, to think that there was grief in any other thought! The
past!--that was gone! The future!--there was no future to her, Zanoni
absent! But this was the night of the third day on which Zanoni had told
her that, come what might, he would visit her again. It was, then, if
she might believe him, some appointed crisis in her fate; and how should
she tell him of Glyndon’s hateful words? The pure and the proud mind
can never confide its wrongs to another, only its triumphs and its
happiness. But at that late hour would Zanoni visit her,--could she
receive him? Midnight was at hand. Still in undefined suspense, in
intense anxiety, she lingered in the room. The quarter before midnight
sounded, dull and distant. All was still, and she was about to pass to
her sleeping-room, when she heard the hoofs of a horse at full speed;
the sound ceased, there was a knock at the door. Her heart beat
violently; but fear gave way to another sentiment when she heard a
voice, too well known, calling on her name. She paused, and then, with
the fearlessness of innocence, descended and unbarred the door.
Zanoni entered with a light and hasty step. His horseman’s cloak fitted
tightly to his noble form, and his broad hat threw a gloomy shade over
his commanding features.
The girl followed him into the room she had just left, trembling and
blushing deeply, and stood before him with the lamp she held shining
upward on her cheek and the long hair that fell like a shower of light
over the half-clad shoulders and heaving bust.
“Viola,” said Zanoni, in a voice that spoke deep emotion, “I am by thy
side once more to save thee. Not a moment is to be lost. Thou must fly
with me, or remain the victim of the Prince di --. I would have made the
charge I now undertake another’s; thou knowest I would,--thou knowest
it!--but he is not worthy of thee, the cold Englishman! I throw myself
at thy feet; have trust in me, and fly.”
He grasped her hand passionately as he dropped on his knee, and looked
up into her face with his bright, beseeching eyes.
“Fly with thee!” said Viola, scarce believing her senses.
“With me. Name, fame, honour,--all will be sacrificed if thou dost not.”
“Then--then,” said the wild girl, falteringly, and turning aside her
face,--“then I am not indifferent to thee; thou wouldst not give me to
another?”
Zanoni was silent; but his breast heaved, his cheeks flushed, his eyes
darted dark and impassioned fire.
“Speak!” exclaimed Viola, in jealous suspicion of his silence.
“Indifferent to me! No; but I dare not yet say that I love thee.”
“Then what matters my fate?” said Viola, turning pale, and shrinking
from his side; “leave me,--I fear no danger. My life, and therefore my
honour, is in mine own hands.”
“Be not so mad,” said Zanoni. “Hark! do you hear the neigh of my
steed?--it is an alarm that warns us of the approaching peril. Haste, or
you are lost!”
“Why dost thou care for me?” said the girl, bitterly. “Thou hast read my
heart; thou knowest that thou art become the lord of my destiny. But to
be bound beneath the weight of a cold obligation; to be the beggar on
the eyes of indifference; to cast myself on one who loves me not,--THAT
were indeed the vilest sin of my sex. Ah, Zanoni, rather let me die!”
She had thrown back her clustering hair from her face while she spoke;
and as she now stood, with her arms drooping mournfully, and her hands
clasped together with the proud bitterness of her wayward spirit, giving
new zest and charm to her singular beauty, it was impossible to conceive
a sight more irresistible to the eye and the heart.
“Tempt me not to thine own danger,--perhaps destruction!” exclaimed
Zanoni, in faltering accents. “Thou canst not dream of what thou wouldst
demand,--come!” and, advancing, he wound his arm round her waist. “Come,
Viola; believe at least in my friendship, my honour, my protection--”
“And not thy love,” said the Italian, turning on him her reproachful
eyes. Those eyes met his, and he could not withdraw from the charm of
their gaze. He felt her heart throbbing beneath his own; her breath came
warm upon his cheek. He trembled,--HE! the lofty, the mysterious Zanoni,
who seemed to stand aloof from his race. With a deep and burning sigh,
he murmured, “Viola, I love thee! Oh!” he continued passionately, and,
releasing his hold, he threw himself abruptly at her feet, “I no more
command,--as woman should be wooed, I woo thee. From the first glance of
those eyes, from the first sound of thy voice, thou becamest too fatally
dear to me. Thou speakest of fascination,--it lives and it breathes
in thee! I fled from Naples to fly from thy presence,--it pursued me.
Months, years passed, and thy sweet face still shone upon my heart. I
returned, because I pictured thee alone and sorrowful in the world, and
knew that dangers, from which I might save thee, were gathering
near thee and around. Beautiful Soul! whose leaves I have read with
reverence, it was for thy sake, thine alone, that I would have given
thee to one who might make thee happier on earth than I can. Viola!
Viola! thou knowest not--never canst thou know--how dear thou art to
me!”
It is in vain to seek for words to describe the delight--the proud, the
full, the complete, and the entire delight--that filled the heart of the
Neapolitan. He whom she had considered too lofty even for love,--more
humble to her than those she had half-despised! She was silent, but her
eyes spoke to him; and then slowly, as aware, at last, that the human
love had advanced on the ideal, she shrank into the terrors of a modest
and virtuous nature. She did not dare,--she did not dream to ask him the
question she had so fearlessly made to Glyndon; but she felt a sudden
coldness,--a sense that a barrier was yet between love and love. “Oh,
Zanoni!” she murmured, with downcast eyes, “ask me not to fly with
thee; tempt me not to my shame. Thou wouldst protect me from others. Oh,
protect me from thyself!”
“Poor orphan!” said he, tenderly, “and canst thou think that I ask from
thee one sacrifice,--still less the greatest that woman can give to
love? As my wife I woo thee, and by every tie, and by every vow that can
hallow and endear affection. Alas! they have belied love to thee indeed,
if thou dost not know the religion that belongs to it! They who truly
love would seek, for the treasure they obtain, every bond that can make
it lasting and secure. Viola, weep not, unless thou givest me the holy
right to kiss away thy tears!”
And that beautiful face, no more averted, drooped upon his bosom; and
as he bent down, his lips sought the rosy mouth: a long and burning
kiss,--danger, life, the world was forgotten! Suddenly Zanoni tore
himself from her.
“Hearest thou the wind that sighs, and dies away? As that wind, my power
to preserve thee, to guard thee, to foresee the storm in thy skies, is
gone. No matter. Haste, haste; and may love supply the loss of all that
it has dared to sacrifice! Come.”
Viola hesitated no more. She threw her mantle over her shoulders, and
gathered up her dishevelled hair; a moment, and she was prepared, when a
sudden crash was heard below.
“Too late!--fool that I was, too late!” cried Zanoni, in a sharp tone of
agony, as he hurried to the door. He opened it, only to be borne back by
the press of armed men. The room literally swarmed with the followers of
the ravisher, masked, and armed to the teeth.
Viola was already in the grasp of two of the myrmidons. Her shriek smote
the ear of Zanoni. He sprang forward; and Viola heard his wild cry in
a foreign tongue. She saw the blades of the ruffians pointed at his
breast! She lost her senses; and when she recovered, she found herself
gagged, and in a carriage that was driven rapidly, by the side of a
masked and motionless figure. The carriage stopped at the portals of a
gloomy mansion. The gates opened noiselessly; a broad flight of steps,
brilliantly illumined, was before her. She was in the palace of the
Prince di --.