Chapter 6.III. The Flowers Amidst the Tombs.
Adrian found that the Becchino had taken care that famine should not
forestall the plague; the banquet of the dead was removed, and fresh viands
and wines of all kinds, - for there was plenty then in Florence! - spread
the table. He partook of the refreshment, though but sparingly, and
shrinking from repose in beds beneath whose gorgeous hangings Death had
been so lately busy, carefully closed door and window, wrapped himself in
his mantle, and found his resting-place on the cushions of the chamber in
which he had supped. Fatigue cast him into an unquiet slumber, from which
he was suddenly awakened by the roll of a cart below, and the jingle of
bells. He listened, as the cart proceeded slowly from door to door, and at
length its sound died away in the distance. - He slept no more that night!
The sun had not long risen ere he renewed his labours; and it was yet early
when, just as he passed a church, two ladies richly dressed came from the
porch, and seemed through their vizards to regard the young Cavalier with
earnest attention. The gaze arrested him also, when one of the ladies
said, "Fair sir, you are overbold: you wear no mask; neither do you smell
to flowers."
"Lady, I wear no mask, for I would be seen: I search these miserable
places for one in whose life I live."
"He is young, comely, evidently noble, and the plague hath not touched him:
he will serve our purpose well," whispered one of the ladies to the other.
"You echo my own thoughts," returned her companion; and then turning to
Adrian, she said, "You seek one you are not wedded to, if you seek so
fondly?"
"It is true."
"Young and fair, with dark hair and neck of snow; I will conduct you to
her."
"Signor!"
"Follow us!"
"Know you who I am, and whom I seek?"
"Yes."
"Can you in truth tell me aught of Irene?"
"I can: follow me."
"To her?"
"Yes, yes: follow us!"
The ladies moved on as if impatient of further parley. Amazed, doubtful,
and, as if in a dream, Adrian followed them. Their dress, manner, and the
pure Tuscan of the one who had addressed him, indicated them of birth and
station; but all else was a riddle which he could not solve.
They arrived at one of the bridges, where a litter and a servant on
horseback holding a palfrey by the bridle were in attendance. The ladies
entered the litter, and she who had before spoken bade Adrian follow on the
palfrey.
"But tell me - " he began.
"No questions, Cavalier," said she, impatiently; "follow the living in
silence, or remain with the dead, as you list."
With that the litter proceeded, and Adrian mounted the palfrey wonderingly,
and followed his strange conductors, who moved on at a tolerably brisk
pace. They crossed the bridge, left the river on one side, and, soon
ascending a gentle acclivity, the trees and flowers of the country began to
succeed dull walls and empty streets. After proceeding thus somewhat less
than half an hour, they turned up a green lane remote from the road, and
came suddenly upon the porticoes of a fair and stately palace. Here the
ladies descended from their litter; and Adrian, who had vainly sought to
extract speech from the attendant, also dismounted, and following them
across a spacious court, filled on either side with vases of flowers and
orange-trees, and then through a wide hall in the farther side of the
quadrangle, found himself in one of the loveliest spots eye ever saw or
poet ever sung. It was a garden plot of the most emerald verdure, bosquets
of laurel and of myrtle opened on either side into vistas half overhung
with clematis and rose, through whose arcades the prospect closed with
statues and gushing fountains; in front, the lawn was bounded by rows of
vases on marble pedestals filled with flowers, and broad and gradual
flights of steps of the whitest marble led from terrace to terrace, each
adorned with statues and fountains, half way down a high but softly sloping
and verdant hill. Beyond, spread in wide, various, and luxurious
landscape, the vineyards and olive-groves, the villas and villages, of the
Vale of Arno, intersected by the silver river, while the city, in all its
calm, but without its horror, raised its roofs and spires to the sun.
Birds of every hue and song, some free, some in net-work of golden wire,
warbled round; and upon the centre of the sward reclined four ladies
unmasked and richly dressed, the eldest of whom seemed scarcely more than
twenty; and five cavaliers, young and handsome, whose jewelled vests and
golden chains attested their degree. Wines and fruits were on a low table
beside; and musical instruments, chess-boards, and gammon-tables, lay
scattered all about. So fair a group, and so graceful a scene, Adrian
never beheld but once, and that was in the midst of the ghastly pestilence
of Italy! - such group and such scene our closet indolence may yet revive
in the pages of the bright Boccaccio!
On seeing Adrian and his companions approach, the party rose instantly; and
one of the ladies, who wore upon her head a wreath of laurel-leaves,
stepping before the rest, exclaimed, "well done, my Mariana! welcome back,
my fair subjects. And you, sir, welcome hither."
The two guides of the Colonna had by this time removed their masks; and the
one who had accosted him, shaking her long and raven ringlets over a
bright, laughing eye and a cheek to whose native olive now rose a slight
blush, turned to him ere he could reply to the welcome he had received.
"Signor Cavalier," said she, "you now see to what I have decoyed you. Own
that this is pleasanter than the sights and sounds of the city we have
left. You gaze on me in surprise. See, my Queen, how speechless the
marvel of your court has made our new gallant; I assure you he could talk
quickly enough when he had only us to confer with: nay, I was forced to
impose silence on him."
"Oh! then you have not yet informed him of the custom and origin of the
court he enters!" quoth she of the laurel wreath.
"No, my Queen; I thought all description given in such a spot as our poor
Florence now is would fail of its object. My task is done, I resign him to
your Grace!"
So saying the lady tripped lightly away, and began coquettishly sleeking
her locks in the smooth mirror of a marble basin, whose waters trickled
over the margin upon the grass below, ever and anon glancing archly towards
the stranger, and sufficiently at hand to overhear all that was said.
"In the first place, Signor, permit us to inquire," said the lady who bore
the appellation of Queen, "thy name, rank, and birth-place."
"Madam," returned Adrian, "I came hither little dreaming to answer
questions respecting myself; but what it pleases you to ask, it must please
me to reply to. My name is Adrian di Castello, one of the Roman house of
the Colonna."
"A noble column of a noble house!" answered the Queen. "For us, respecting
whom your curiosity may perhaps be aroused, know that we six ladies of
Florence, deserted by or deprived of our kin and protectors, formed the
resolution to retire to this palace, where, if death comes, it comes
stripped of half its horrors; and as the learned tell us that sadness
engenders the awful malady, so you see us sworn foes to sadness. Six
cavaliers of our acquaintance agreed to join us. We pass our days, whether
many or few, in whatever diversions we can find or invent. Music and the
dance, merry tales and lively songs, with such slight change of scene as
from sward to shade, from alley to fountain, fill up our time, and prepare
us for peaceful sleep and happy dreams. Each lady is by turns Queen of our
fairy court, as is my lot this day. One law forms the code of our
constitution - that nothing sad shall be admitted. We would live as if
yonder city were not, and as if (added the fair Queen, with a slight sigh)
youth, grace, and beauty, could endure for ever. One of our knights madly
left us for a day, promising to return; we have seen him no more; we will
not guess what hath chanced to him. It became necessary to fill up his
place; we drew lots who should seek his substitute; it fell upon the ladies
who have - not, I trust, to your displeasure - brought you hither. Fair
sir, my explanation is made."
"Alas, lovely Queen," said Adrian, wrestling strongly, but vainly, with the
bitter disappointment he felt - "I cannot be one of your happy circle; I am
in myself a violation of your law. I am filled with but one sad and
anxious thought, to which all mirth would seem impiety. I am a seeker
amongst the living and the dead for one being of whose fate I am uncertain;
and it was only by the words that fell from my fair conductor, that I have
been decoyed hither from my mournful task. Suffer me, gracious lady, to
return to Florence."
The Queen looked in mute vexation towards the dark-eyed Mariana, who
returned the glance by one equally expressive, and then suddenly stepping
up to Adrian she said, -
"But, Signor, if I should still keep my promise, if I should be able to
satisfy thee of the health and safety of - of Irene."
"Irene!" echoed Adrian in surprise, forgetful at the moment that he had
before revealed the name of her he sought - "Irene - Irene di Gabrini,
sister of the once renowned Rienzi!"
"The same," replied Mariana, quickly; "I know her, as I told you. Nay,
Signor, I do not deceive thee. It is true that I cannot bring thee to her;
but better as it is, - she went away many days ago to one of the towns of
Lombardy, which, they say, the Pestilence has not yet pierced. Now, noble
sir, is not your heart lightened? and will you so soon be a deserter from
the Court of Loveliness; and perhaps," she added, with a soft look from her
large dark eyes, "of Love?"
"Dare I, in truth, believe you, Lady?" said Adrian, all delighted, yet
still half doubting.
"Would I deceive a true lover, as methinks you are? Be assured. Nay,
Queen, receive your subject."
The Queen extended her hand to Adrian, and led him to the group that still
stood on the grass at a little distance. They welcomed him as a brother,
and soon forgave his abstracted courtesies, in compliment to his good mien
and illustrious name.
The Queen clapped her hands, and the party again ranged themselves on the
sward. Each lady beside each gallant. "You, Mariana, if not fatigued,"
said the Queen, "shall take the lute and silence these noisy grasshoppers,
which chirp about us with as much pretension as if they were nightingales.
Sing, sweet subject, sing; and let it be the song our dear friend, Signor
Visdomini, (I know not if this be the same Visdomini who, three years
afterwards, with one of the Medici, conducted so gallant a reinforcement to
Scarperia, then besieged by Visconti d'Oleggio.) made for a kind of
inaugural anthem to such as we admitted to our court."
Mariana, who had reclined herself by the side of Adrian, took up the lute,
and, after a short prelude, sung the words thus imperfectly translated: -
The Song of the Florentine Lady.
Enjoy the more the smiles of noon
If doubtful be the morrow;
And know the Fort of Life is soon
Betray'd to Death by Sorrow!
Death claims us all - then, Grief, away!
We'll own no meaner master;
The clouds that darken round the day
But bring the night the faster.
Love - feast - be merry while on earth,
Such, Grave, should be thy moral!
Ev'n Death himself is friends with Mirth,
And veils the tomb with laurel.
(At that time, in Italy, the laurel was frequently planted over the dead.)
While gazing on the eyes I love,
New life to mine is given -
If joy the lot of saints above,
Joy fits us best for Heaven.
To this song, which was much applauded, succeeded those light and witty
tales in which the Italian novelists furnished Voltaire and Marmontel with
a model - each, in his or her turn, taking up the discourse, and with an
equal dexterity avoiding every lugubrious image or mournful reflection that
might remind those graceful idlers of the vicinity of Death. At any other
time the temper and accomplishments of the young Lord di Castello would
have fitted him to enjoy and to shine in that Arcadian court. But now he
in vain sought to dispel the gloom from his brow, and the anxious thought
from his heart. He revolved the intelligence he had received, wondered,
guessed, hoped, and dreaded still; and if for a moment his mind returned to
the scene about him, his nature, too truly poetical for the false sentiment
of the place, asked itself in what, save the polished exterior and the
graceful circumstance, the mirth that he now so reluctantly witnessed
differed from the brutal revels in the convent of Santa Maria - each alike
in its motive, though so differing in the manner - equally callous and
equally selfish, coining horror into enjoyment. The fair Mariana, whose
partner had been reft from her, as the Queen had related, was in no mind to
lose the new one she had gained. She pressed upon him from time to time
the wine-flask and the fruits; and in those unmeaning courtesies her hand
gently lingered upon his. At length, the hour arrived when the companions
retired to the Palace, during the fiercer heats of noon - to come forth
again in the declining sun, to sup by the side of the fountain, to dance,
to sing, and to make merry by torchlight and the stars till the hour of
rest. But Adrian, not willing to continue the entertainment, no sooner
found himself in the apartment to which he was conducted, than he resolved
to effect a silent escape, as under all circumstances the shortest, and not
perhaps the least courteous, farewell left to him. Accordingly, when all
seemed quiet and hushed in the repose common to the inhabitants of the
South during that hour, he left his apartment, descended the stairs, passed
the outer court, and was already at the gate, when he heard himself called
by a voice that spoke vexation and alarm. He turned to behold Mariana.
"Why, how now, Signor di Castello, is our company so unpleasing, is our
music so jarring, or are our brows so wrinkled, that you should fly as the
traveller flies from the witches he surprises at Benevento? Nay, you
cannot mean to leave us yet?"
"Fair dame," returned the cavalier, somewhat disconcerted, "it is in vain
that I seek to rally my mournful spirits, or to fit myself for the court to
which nothing sad should come. Your laws hang about me like a culprit -
better timely flight than harsh expulsion."
As he spoke he moved on, and would have passed the gate, but Mariana caught
his arm.
"Nay," said she, softly; "are there no eyes of dark light, and no neck of
wintry snow, that can compensate to thee for the absent one? Tarry and
forget, as doubtless in absence even thou art forgotten!"
"Lady," answered Adrian, with great gravity, not unmixed with an ill-
suppressed disdain, "I have not sojourned long enough amidst the sights and
sounds of woe, to blunt my heart and spirit into callousness to all around.
Enjoy, if thou canst, and gather the rank roses of the sepulchre; but to
me, haunted still by funeral images, Beauty fails to bring delight, and
Love, - even holy love - seems darkened by the Shadow of Death. Pardon me,
and farewell."
"Go, then," said the Florentine, stung and enraged at his coldness; "go and
find your mistress amidst the associations on which it pleases your
philosophy to dwell. I did but deceive thee, blind fool! as I had hoped
for thine own good, when I told thee Irene - (was that her name?) - was
gone from Florence. Of her I know nought, and heard nought, save from
thee. Go back and search the vault, and see whether thou lovest her
still!"
