CHAPTER 2.X.
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.
