CHAPTER II

_Titania_. If you will patiently dance in our round,

And see our moonlight revels, go with us.

MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM

Early on the following morning, the travellers set out for Turin. The

luxuriant plain, that extends from the feet of the Alps to that

magnificent city, was not then, as now, shaded by an avenue of trees

nine miles in length; but plantations of olives, mulberry and palms,

festooned with vines, mingled with the pastoral scenery, through with

the rapid Po, after its descent from the mountains, wandered to meet

the humble Doria at Turin. As they advanced towards this city, the

Alps, seen at some distance, began to appear in all their awful

sublimity; chain rising over chain in long succession, their higher

points darkened by the hovering clouds, sometimes hid, and at others

seen shooting up far above them; while their lower steeps, broken into

fantastic forms, were touched with blue and purplish tints, which, as

they changed in light and shade, seemed to open new scenes to the eye.

To the east stretched the plains of Lombardy, with the towers of Turin

rising at a distance; and beyond, the Apennines, bounding the horizon.

The general magnificence of that city, with its vistas of churches and

palaces, branching from the grand square, each opening to a landscape

of the distant Alps or Apennines, was not only such as Emily had never

seen in France, but such as she had never imagined.

Montoni, who had been often at Turin, and cared little about views of

any kind, did not comply with his wife’s request, that they might

survey some of the palaces; but staying only till the necessary

refreshments could be obtained, they set forward for Venice with all

possible rapidity. Montoni’s manner, during this journey, was grave,

and even haughty; and towards Madame Montoni he was more especially

reserved; but it was not the reserve of respect so much as of pride and

discontent. Of Emily he took little notice. With Cavigni his

conversations were commonly on political or military topics, such as

the convulsed state of their country rendered at this time particularly

interesting, Emily observed, that, at the mention of any daring

exploit, Montoni’s eyes lost their sullenness, and seemed

instantaneously to gleam with fire; yet they still retained somewhat of

a lurking cunning, and she sometimes thought that their fire partook

more of the glare of malice than the brightness of valour, though the

latter would well have harmonised with the high chivalric air of his

figure, in which Cavigni, with all his gay and gallant manners, was his

inferior.

On entering the Milanese, the gentlemen exchanged their French hats for

the Italian cap of scarlet cloth, embroidered; and Emily was somewhat

surprised to observe, that Montoni added to his the military plume,

while Cavigni retained only the feather: which was usually worn with

such caps: but she at length concluded, that Montoni assumed this

ensign of a soldier for convenience, as a means of passing with more

safety through a country over-run with parties of the military.

Over the beautiful plains of this country the devastations of war were

frequently visible. Where the lands had not been suffered to lie

uncultivated, they were often tracked with the steps of the spoiler;

the vines were torn down from the branches that had supported them, the

olives trampled upon the ground, and even the groves of mulberry trees

had been hewn by the enemy to light fires that destroyed the hamlets

and villages of their owners. Emily turned her eyes with a sigh from

these painful vestiges of contention, to the Alps of the Grison, that

overlooked them to the north, whose awful solitudes seemed to offer to

persecuted man a secure asylum.

The travellers frequently distinguished troops of soldiers moving at a

distance; and they experienced, at the little inns on the road, the

scarcity of provision and other inconveniences, which are a part of the

consequence of intestine war; but they had never reason to be much

alarmed for their immediate safety, and they passed on to Milan with

little interruption of any kind, where they staid not to survey the

grandeur of the city, or even to view its vast cathedral, which was

then building.

Beyond Milan, the country wore the aspect of a ruder devastation; and

though everything seemed now quiet, the repose was like that of death,

spread over features, which retain the impression of the last

convulsions.

It was not till they had passed the eastern limits of the Milanese,

that the travellers saw any troops since they had left Milan, when, as

the evening was drawing to a close, they descried what appeared to be

an army winding onward along the distant plains, whose spears and other

arms caught the last rays of the sun. As the column advanced through a

part of the road, contracted between two hillocks, some of the

commanders, on horseback, were distinguished on a small eminence,

pointing and making signals for the march; while several of the

officers were riding along the line directing its progress, according

to the signs communicated by those above; and others, separating from

the vanguard, which had emerged from the pass, were riding carelessly

along the plains at some distance to the right of the army.

As they drew nearer, Montoni, distinguishing the feathers that waved in

their caps, and the banners and liveries of the bands that followed

them, thought he knew this to be the small army commanded by the famous

captain Utaldo, with whom, as well as with some of the other chiefs, he

was personally acquainted. He, therefore, gave orders that the

carriages should draw up by the side of the road, to await their

arrival, and give them the pass. A faint strain of martial music now

stole by, and, gradually strengthening as the troops approached, Emily

distinguished the drums and trumpets, with the clash of cymbals and of

arms, that were struck by a small party, in time to the march.

Montoni being now certain that these were the bands of the victorious

Utaldo, leaned from the carriage window, and hailed their general by

waving his cap in the air; which compliment the chief returned by

raising his spear, and then letting it down again suddenly, while some

of his officers, who were riding at a distance from the troops, came up

to the carriage, and saluted Montoni as an old acquaintance. The

captain himself soon after arriving, his bands halted while he

conversed with Montoni, whom he appeared much rejoiced to see; and from

what he said, Emily understood that this was a victorious army,

returning into their own principality; while the numerous waggons, that

accompanied them, contained the rich spoils of the enemy, their own

wounded soldiers, and the prisoners they had taken in battle, who were

to be ransomed when the peace, then negociating between the

neighbouring states, should be ratified. The chiefs on the following

day were to separate, and each, taking his share of the spoil, was to

return with his own band to his castle. This was therefore to be an

evening of uncommon and general festivity, in commemoration of the

victory they had accomplished together, and of the farewell which the

commanders were about to take of each other.

Emily, as these officers conversed with Montoni, observed with

admiration, tinctured with awe, their high martial air, mingled with

the haughtiness of the noblesse of those days, and heightened by the

gallantry of their dress, by the plumes towering on their caps, the

armorial coat, Persian sash, and ancient Spanish cloak. Utaldo, telling

Montoni that his army were going to encamp for the night near a village

at only a few miles distance, invited him to turn back and partake of

their festivity, assuring the ladies also, that they should be

pleasantly accommodated; but Montoni excused himself, adding, that it

was his design to reach Verona that evening; and, after some

conversation concerning the state of the country towards that city,

they parted.

The travellers proceeded without any interruption; but it was some

hours after sunset before they arrived at Verona, whose beautiful

environs were therefore not seen by Emily till the following morning;

when, leaving that pleasant town at an early hour, they set off for

Padua, where they embarked on the Brenta for Venice. Here the scene was

entirely changed; no vestiges of war, such as had deformed the plains

of the Milanese, appeared; on the contrary, all was peace and elegance.

The verdant banks of the Brenta exhibited a continued landscape of

beauty, gaiety, and splendour. Emily gazed with admiration on the

villas of the Venetian noblesse, with their cool porticos and

colonnades, overhung with poplars and cypresses of majestic height and

lively verdure; on their rich orangeries, whose blossoms perfumed the

air, and on the luxuriant willows, that dipped their light leaves in

the wave, and sheltered from the sun the gay parties whose music came

at intervals on the breeze. The Carnival did, indeed, appear to extend

from Venice along the whole line of these enchanting shores; the river

was gay with boats passing to that city, exhibiting the fantastic

diversity of a masquerade in the dresses of the people within them;

and, towards evening, groups of dancers frequently were seen beneath

the trees.

Cavigni, meanwhile, informed her of the names of the noblemen to whom

the several villas they passed belonged, adding light sketches of their

characters, such as served to amuse rather than to inform, exhibiting

his own wit instead of the delineation of truth. Emily was sometimes

diverted by his conversation; but his gaiety did not entertain Madame

Montoni, as it had formerly done; she was frequently grave, and Montoni

retained his usual reserve.

Nothing could exceed Emily’s admiration on her first view of Venice,

with its islets, palaces, and towers rising out of the sea, whose clear

surface reflected the tremulous picture in all its colours. The sun,

sinking in the west, tinted the waves and the lofty mountains of

Friuli, which skirt the northern shores of the Adriatic, with a saffron

glow, while on the marble porticos and colonnades of St. Mark were

thrown the rich lights and shades of evening. As they glided on, the

grander features of this city appeared more distinctly: its terraces,

crowned with airy yet majestic fabrics, touched, as they now were, with

the splendour of the setting sun, appeared as if they had been called

up from the ocean by the wand of an enchanter, rather than reared by

mortal hands.

The sun, soon after, sinking to the lower world, the shadow of the

earth stole gradually over the waves, and then up the towering sides of

the mountains of Friuli, till it extinguished even the last upward

beams that had lingered on their summits, and the melancholy purple of

evening drew over them, like a thin veil. How deep, how beautiful was

the tranquillity that wrapped the scene! All nature seemed to repose;

the finest emotions of the soul were alone awake. Emily’s eyes filled

with tears of admiration and sublime devotion, as she raised them over

the sleeping world to the vast heavens, and heard the notes of solemn

music, that stole over the waters from a distance. She listened in

still rapture, and no person of the party broke the charm by an

enquiry. The sounds seemed to grow on the air; for so smoothly did the

barge glide along, that its motion was not perceivable, and the fairy

city appeared approaching to welcome the strangers. They now

distinguished a female voice, accompanied by a few instruments, singing

a soft and mournful air; and its fine expression, as sometimes it

seemed pleading with the impassioned tenderness of love, and then

languishing into the cadence of hopeless grief, declared, that it

flowed from no feigned sensibility. Ah! thought Emily, as she sighed

and remembered Valancourt, those strains come from the heart!

She looked round, with anxious enquiry; the deep twilight, that had

fallen over the scene, admitted only imperfect images to the eye, but,

at some distance on the sea, she thought she perceived a gondola: a

chorus of voices and instruments now swelled on the air—so sweet, so

solemn! it seemed like the hymn of angels descending through the

silence of night! Now it died away, and fancy almost beheld the holy

choir reascending towards heaven; then again it swelled with the

breeze, trembled awhile, and again died into silence. It brought to

Emily’s recollection some lines of her late father, and she repeated in

a low voice,

Oft I hear,

Upon the silence of the midnight air,

Celestial voices swell in holy chorus

That bears the soul to heaven!

The deep stillness, that succeeded, was as expressive as the strain

that had just ceased. It was uninterrupted for several minutes, till a

general sigh seemed to release the company from their enchantment.

Emily, however, long indulged the pleasing sadness, that had stolen

upon her spirits; but the gay and busy scene that appeared, as the

barge approached St. Mark’s Place, at length roused her attention. The

rising moon, which threw a shadowy light upon the terraces, and

illumined the porticos and magnificent arcades that crowned them,

discovered the various company, whose light steps, soft guitars, and

softer voices, echoed through the colonnades.

The music they heard before now passed Montoni’s barge, in one of the

gondolas, of which several were seen skimming along the moonlight sea,

full of gay parties, catching the cool breeze. Most of these had music,

made sweeter by the waves over which it floated, and by the measured

sound of oars, as they dashed the sparkling tide. Emily gazed, and

listened, and thought herself in a fairy scene; even Madame Montoni was

pleased; Montoni congratulated himself on his return to Venice, which

he called the first city in the world, and Cavigni was more gay and

animated than ever.

The barge passed on to the grand canal, where Montoni’s mansion was

situated. And here, other forms of beauty and of grandeur, such as her

imagination had never painted, were unfolded to Emily in the palaces of

Sansovino and Palladio, as she glided along the waves. The air bore no

sounds, but those of sweetness, echoing along each margin of the canal,

and from gondolas on its surface, while groups of masks were seen

dancing on the moonlight terraces, and seemed almost to realise the

romance of fairyland.

The barge stopped before the portico of a large house, from whence a

servant of Montoni crossed the terrace, and immediately the party

disembarked. From the portico they passed a noble hall to a staircase

of marble, which led to a saloon, fitted up in a style of magnificence

that surprised Emily. The walls and ceilings were adorned with

historical and allegorical paintings, in _fresco_; silver tripods,

depending from chains of the same metal, illumined the apartment, the

floor of which was covered with Indian mats painted in a variety of

colours and devices; the couches and drapery of the lattices were of

pale green silk, embroidered and fringed with green and gold. Balcony

lattices opened upon the grand canal, whence rose a confusion of voices

and of musical instruments, and the breeze that gave freshness to the

apartment. Emily, considering the gloomy temper of Montoni, looked upon

the splendid furniture of this house with surprise, and remembered the

report of his being a man of broken fortune, with astonishment. “Ah!”

said she to herself, “if Valancourt could but see this mansion, what

peace would it give him! He would then be convinced that the report was

groundless.”

Madame Montoni seemed to assume the air of a princess; but Montoni was

restless and discontented, and did not even observe the civility of

bidding her welcome to her home.

Soon after his arrival, he ordered his gondola, and, with Cavigni, went

out to mingle in the scenes of the evening. Madame then became serious

and thoughtful. Emily, who was charmed with everything she saw,

endeavoured to enliven her; but reflection had not, with Madame

Montoni, subdued caprice and ill-humour, and her answers discovered so

much of both, that Emily gave up the attempt of diverting her, and

withdrew to a lattice, to amuse herself with the scene without, so new

and so enchanting.

The first object that attracted her notice was a group of dancers on

the terrace below, led by a guitar and some other instruments. The

girl, who struck the guitar, and another, who flourished a tambourine,

passed on in a dancing step, and with a light grace and gaiety of

heart, that would have subdued the goddess of spleen in her worst

humour. After these came a group of fantastic figures, some dressed as

gondolieri, others as minstrels, while others seemed to defy all

description. They sung in parts, their voices accompanied by a few soft

instruments. At a little distance from the portico they stopped, and

Emily distinguished the verses of Ariosto. They sung of the wars of the

Moors against Charlemagne, and then of the woes of Orlando: afterwards

the measure changed, and the melancholy sweetness of Petrarch

succeeded. The magic of his grief was assisted by all that Italian

music and Italian expression, heightened by the enchantments of

Venetian moonlight, could give.

Emily, as she listened, caught the pensive enthusiasm; her tears flowed

silently, while her fancy bore her far away to France and to

Valancourt. Each succeeding sonnet, more full of charming sadness than

the last, seemed to bind the spell of melancholy: with extreme regret

she saw the musicians move on, and her attention followed the strain

till the last faint warble died in air. She then remained sunk in that

pensive tranquillity which soft music leaves on the mind—a state like

that produced by the view of a beautiful landscape by moonlight, or by

the recollection of scenes marked with the tenderness of friends lost

for ever, and with sorrows, which time has mellowed into mild regret.

Such scenes are indeed, to the mind, like “those faint traces which the

memory bears of music that is past.”

Other sounds soon awakened her attention: it was the solemn harmony of

horns, that swelled from a distance; and, observing the gondolas

arrange themselves along the margin of the terraces, she threw on her

veil, and, stepping into the balcony, discerned, in the distant

perspective of the canal, something like a procession, floating on the

light surface of the water: as it approached, the horns and other

instruments mingled sweetly, and soon after the fabled deities of the

city seemed to have arisen from the ocean; for Neptune, with Venice

personified as his queen, came on the undulating waves, surrounded by

tritons and sea-nymphs. The fantastic splendour of this spectacle,

together with the grandeur of the surrounding palaces, appeared like

the vision of a poet suddenly embodied, and the fanciful images, which

it awakened in Emily’s mind, lingered there long after the procession

had passed away. She indulged herself in imagining what might be the

manners and delights of a sea-nymph, till she almost wished to throw

off the habit of mortality, and plunge into the green wave to

participate them.

“How delightful,” said she, “to live amidst the coral bowers and

crystal caverns of the ocean, with my sister nymphs, and listen to the

sounding waters above, and to the soft shells of the tritons! and then,

after sunset, to skim on the surface of the waves round wild rocks and

along sequestered shores, where, perhaps, some pensive wanderer comes

to weep! Then would I soothe his sorrows with my sweet music, and offer

him from a shell some of the delicious fruit that hangs round Neptune’s

palace.”

She was recalled from her reverie to a mere mortal supper, and could

not forbear smiling at the fancies she had been indulging, and at her

conviction of the serious displeasure, which Madame Montoni would have

expressed, could she have been made acquainted with them.

After supper, her aunt sat late, but Montoni did not return, and she at

length retired to rest. If Emily had admired the magnificence of the

saloon, she was not less surprised, on observing the half-furnished and

forlorn appearance of the apartments she passed in the way to her

chamber, whither she went through long suites of noble rooms, that

seemed, from their desolate aspect, to have been unoccupied for many

years. On the walls of some were the faded remains of tapestry; from

others, painted in fresco, the damps had almost withdrawn both colours

and design. At length she reached her own chamber, spacious, desolate,

and lofty, like the rest, with high lattices that opened towards the

Adriatic. It brought gloomy images to her mind, but the view of the

Adriatic soon gave her others more airy, among which was that of the

sea-nymph, whose delights she had before amused herself with picturing;

and, anxious to escape from serious reflections, she now endeavoured to

throw her fanciful ideas into a train, and concluded the hour with

composing the following lines:

THE SEA-NYMPH

Down, down a thousand fathom deep,

Among the sounding seas I go;

Play round the foot of ev’ry steep

Whose cliffs above the ocean grow.

There, within their secret cares,

I hear the mighty rivers roar;

And guide their streams through Neptune’s waves

To bless the green earth’s inmost shore:

And bid the freshen’d waters glide,

For fern-crown’d nymphs of lake, or brook,

Through winding woods and pastures wide,

And many a wild, romantic nook.

For this the nymphs, at fall of eave,

Oft dance upon the flow’ry banks,

And sing my name, and garlands weave

To bear beneath the wave their thanks.

In coral bow’rs I love to lie,

And hear the surges roll above,

And through the waters view on high

The proud ships sail, and gay clouds move.

And oft at midnight’s stillest hour,

When summer seas the vessel lave,

I love to prove my charmful pow’r

While floating on the moonlight wave.

And when deep sleep the crew has bound,

And the sad lover musing leans

O’er the ship’s side, I breathe around

Such strains as speak no mortal means!

O’er the dim waves his searching eye

Sees but the vessel’s lengthen’d shade;

Above—the moon and azure sky;

Entranc’d he hears, and half afraid!

Sometimes, a single note I swell,

That, softly sweet, at distance dies;

Then wake the magic of my shell,

And choral voices round me rise!

The trembling youth, charm’d by my strain,

Calls up the crew, who, silent, bend

O’er the high deck, but list in vain;

My song is hush’d, my wonders end!

Within the mountain’s woody bay,

Where the tall bark at anchor rides,

At twilight hour, with tritons gay,

I dance upon the lapsing tides:

And with my sister-nymphs I sport,

Till the broad sun looks o’er the floods;

Then, swift we seek our crystal court,

Deep in the wave, ’mid Neptune’s woods.

In cool arcades and glassy halls

We pass the sultry hours of noon,

Beyond wherever sunbeam falls,

Weaving sea-flowers in gay festoon.

The while we chant our ditties sweet

To some soft shell that warbles near;

Join’d by the murmuring currents, fleet,

That glide along our halls so clear.

There, the pale pearl and sapphire blue,

And ruby red, and em’rald green,

Dart from the domes a changing hue,

And sparry columns deck the scene.

When the dark storm scowls o’er the deep,

And long, long peals of thunder sound,

On some high cliff my watch I keep

O’er all the restless seas around:

Till on the ridgy wave afar

Comes the lone vessel, labouring slow,

Spreading the white foam in the air,

With sail and top-mast bending low.

Then, plunge I ’mid the ocean’s roar,

My way by quiv’ring lightnings shown,

To guide the bark to peaceful shore,

And hush the sailor’s fearful groan.

And if too late I reach its side

To save it from the ’whelming surge,

I call my dolphins o’er the tide,

To bear the crew where isles emerge.

Their mournful spirits soon I cheer,

While round the desert coast I go,

With warbled songs they faintly hear,

Oft as the stormy gust sinks low.

My music leads to lofty groves,

That wild upon the sea-bank wave;

Where sweet fruits bloom, and fresh spring roves,

And closing boughs the tempest brave.

Then, from the air spirits obey

My potent voice they love so well,

And, on the clouds, paint visions gay,

While strains more sweet at distance swell.

And thus the lonely hours I cheat,

Soothing the ship-wreck’d sailor’s heart,

Till from the waves the storms retreat,

And o’er the east the day-beams dart.

Neptune for this oft binds me fast

To rocks below, with coral chain,

Till all the tempest’s over-past,

And drowning seamen cry in vain.

Whoe’er ye are that love my lay,

Come, when red sunset tints the wave,

To the still sands, where fairies play;

There, in cool seas, I love to lave.