The Hill of Venus
By Gallizier, Nathan
Classic work by Gallizier, Nathan.
Table of Contents
THE SUMMONS It was the time of the summer solstice in the year 1266. Evening was falling on the Basilicata, the shadowy, hazy twilight of the fading midsummer day. The pale green...
THE PLEDGE In the antechamber of the elder Villani's sick-room, during the talk between father and son, the monks had quietly waited the termination of the interview. The Prior sa...
VISTAS The morning dawned gray with heat. The air was lifeless. The sun, rolling lazily up the eastern sky, scarcely deigned to permit his beams to penetrate the humid atmosphere....
PROSERPINA Francesco arrived at Avellino at dusk. It was the hour when the castle courtyard was comparatively deserted. Only two bow-men guarded the lowered drawbridge, and they p...
WAVES OF DESTINY When Francesco waked on the following morning, the June sun touched the tree-tops which bounded the western horizon with their delicate feathery twigs. Throughout...
THE BROKEN TROTH Spring triumphed with a vaunting pageant in the park of Avellino, where the gravelled walks were snowy beneath the light of the higher risen moon, and were in sha...
THE PASSAGE Francesco rode out into the scented night and the round yellow moon rode with him. Strange things were happening beneath that moon; in the crucible of destiny a new li...
THE VIGIL OF SANTA MARIA ASSUNTA On the summit of a conical hill, rising above the great amphitheatre of forests that skirt the sunny Apulian plains, upon the ruins of a temple to...
THE PASSING OF CONRADINO Days and weeks in the cloisters of Monte Cassino sufficed to convince Francesco that he was not destined to find any friendships there. The elder Villani ...
TONSURE AND THORN The following weeks dragged along in hopeless monotony. The last night of Francesco's novitiate had come. There would not be a loophole of escape for him now. On...
THE CALL During the months that followed, it had become Francesco's habit to spend most of his leisure time in loneliness on the spot whence he had beheld the passing of Conradino...
THE DELLS OF VALLOMBROSA It was a windless morning. Stillness and sunlight lay upon the world, when on the back of his own good steed, which had seen heavy service since last he r...
THE DUKE OF SPOLETO Francesco, having spent the night at a wayside inn, was astir with the breaking of the dawn. He saddled and bridled his horse for the day's journey, and having...
ROME! The chimes of the Angelus were borne to him on the soft breeze of evening, when, on the third day of his journey, Francesco caught sight of the walls and towers of Rome. As ...
THE WHITE LADY The Piazza of St. John Lateran was alive with the rush and roar of a vast multitude, which congested the spacious square from the Church of Santa Croce in Gerusalem...
THE FEAST AT THE CAPITOL When darkness had fallen on the Capitoline Hill, the old palace of the Caesars seemed to waken to a semblance of new life. In the gorgeous reception hall ...
QUAINT WAYFARERS Early on the following morning Francesco left Rome through the ancient Flaminian gate and started upon his journey towards Viterbo. It was a fair morning, golden...
THE PAWN OF THE CHURCH When Francesco arrived on the height it was the hour of the closing of the city-gates and he took lodging at an inn situated near the city walls. He caught...
THE RED TOWER With the first pulse of dawn in the East, Francesco was up and astir with the zest of the hour. The woods were full of golden vapor, of dew and the chanting of birds...
SIREN LAND It was early on the following morning when Francesco saddled his steed and departed from the Red Tower. He did not trust himself to remain longer under the same roof wi...
THE LADY OF SHADOWS It was early on the following day when Francesco took the direction of the palace. The city appeared gay and bright; the beautiful isles of Ischia and Capri, l...
AN INTERLUDE Meantime, the atmosphere of this secular court was not distasteful to Francesco. The love of poetry and the arts which had made Naples in the twelfth century the lite...
THE HILL OF VENUS Some by land, and some by sea, the revellers took their morning way along the coast towards the ruins of ancient Baiae. Francesco was on horseback, a friend havi...
TWILIGHT WATERS Dazed, in a state of mind bordering on utter bewilderment, such as he had not experienced since the Masque of the Gods in the park of Avellino, Francesco wandered ...
THE CRIMSON NIGHT It had been a day of driving wind and rain. The sound of the sea beat weirdly through the streets of Naples. The great street of the Provencals leading from Cast...
A LEGEND Out into the open caverns of the night Francesco and Ilaria rode. Their eyes still roved from the fading city to the great ships stealing over the water. Their tall masts...
MEMORIES How the birds sang that evening when the saffron afterglow had fainted over the forest spires, and when all was still with the hush of night, how the cry of a nightingale...
THE GRAIL OF LOVE Francesco was astir early with the coming of the dawn. The grass was drenched with dew, the woods towered heavenwards with a thousand golden peaks. In the valley...
DEAD LEAVES Through bleak and desolate stretches Francesco spurred his steed, as if to outstrip his mastering agony. Ilaria had gone from him. Nothing mattered any longer. He had...
THE ABBEY OF FARFA The great vaults of the Abbey of Farfa resounded with glee and merriment. Before a low, massive stone table, resembling a druidical altar, surrounded by giant ...
RETRIBUTION Beneath the dark cornices of a thicket of wind-stunted pines stood a small company of men, looking out into the hastening night. The half-light of evening lay over the...
THE QUEST As the world grew gray with waking light, Francesco came from the woods and heard the noise of the sea in the hush that breathed in the dawn. The storm had passed over t...
THE ANCHORESS OF NARNI Six days had passed. Once more the sun had tossed night from the sky and kindled hope in the hymning east. The bleak wilderness barriered by sea and crag ha...
THE DAWN An undefined melancholy overshadowed the world. Autumn breathed in the wind. The year, red-bosomed, was rushing to its doom. On the summit of a wood-crowned hill, rising...