University of Virginia Library

4. CHAPTER IV.

The frowning battlements of St. Angelo were
brightened with the glare of lamps across the Tiber,
and the dark breast of the river was laced with bars of
gold like the coat of a captain of dragoons. Here and
there lay a boat in mid-stream, and while the drift of
the current was counteracted by an occasional stroke
at the oar, the boatman listened to the heavenly strains
of a waltz, dying and triumphing in alternate cadences
upon the breath of night and the pope's band. A
platform was built out over the river, forming a continuation
of the stage; the pit was floored over, and
all draped like a Persian harem; and thus began a
masquerade at the Teatro della Pergola at Rome,
which stands, if you will take the trouble to remember,
close by the bridge and castle of St. Angelo upon
the bank of the “yellow Tiber.”

The entrance of the crowd to the theatre was like a
procession intended to represent the things of which
we are commanded not to make graven images, nor
to bow down and worship them. There was the likeness
of everything in heaven above and on the earth
beneath, and in the waters under the earth. There
were angels, devils, serpents, birds, beasts, fishes, and
fair women—of which none except the last occasioned
much transgression of the commandment. Oddly
enough, the fishes waltzed—and so did the beasts and
fair women, the serpents and birds—pairing off as they
came within sound of the music, with a defiance of
natural antipathies which would have driven a naturalist
out of his senses.

A chariot drove up with the crest of the Cesarini
on the pannel, and out of it stepped rather a stiff figure
dressed as a wandering palmer, with serge and scallopshells,
followed by a masked hunchback whose costume,
even to the threadbare spot on the ridge of his
deformity, was approved, by the loungers at the door,
in a general “bravissimo.” They entered the dressing-room,
and the cloak-keeper was not surprised
when the lump was withdrawn in the shape of a pad
of wool, and by the aid of a hood and petticoat of
black silk, the deformed was transformed into a slender
domino, undistinguished but for the grace and elasticity
of her movements. The attendant was surprised,
however, when having stepped aside to deposite
the pad given in charge to her, she turned and saw the
domino flitting from the room, but the hunchback
with his threadbare hump still leaning on the palmer's
arm!

“Santissima Vergine!” she exclaimed, pulling out
her cross and holding it between herself and Giulio,
“the fiend—the unholy fiend!”

Donna Bettina laughed under her palmer's cowl,
and drawing Giulio's arm within her own, they mingled
in the masquerade.

The old count Cesarini arrived a few minutes after
in one of the equipages of the Malaspina, accompanied
by a red-cross knight in a magnificent armor, his
sword-hilt sparkling with diamonds, and the bars of
his visor half-drawn, yet showing a beard of jetty and
curling black, and a mouth of the most regular, yet
unpleasant beauty. The upper part of his face was
quite concealed, yet the sneer on his lips promised a
cold and unfeeling eye.

“As a hunchback, did you say, count?”

“It was her whim,” answered Cesarini. “She has
given alms to a poor sculptor with that deformity till
her brain is filled with it. Pray the saints to affect
not your offspring, Lamba!”

Malaspina surveyed himself in the long mirror at
the entrance of the saloon, and smiled back incredulously
with his white teeth.

“I gave Bettina strict orders not to leave her side,”
said Cesarini. “You will find the old donna by her
palmer's dress. The saints speed your suite, Lamba!
I will await you in the card-room when the dance
wearies you!”

It was not for some time after the two old nobles
had affianced their children, that Cesarini had found
a fitting opportunity to break the subject to his daughter.
When he did so, somewhat to his embarrassment,
Violanta listened to it without surprise; and
after hearing all he had to say upon the honorable descent,
large fortune, and courtly accomplishments of
the young count Lamba, she only permitted her father
to entertain any future hope on the subject, upon
the condition, that, till she was of age, her proposed
husband should not even be presented to her. For
this victory over the most cherished ambition of the
old count, Violanta was indebted partly to the holy
see, and partly to some qualities in her own character,
of which her father knew the force. He was aware
with what readiness the cardinal would seize upon the
slightest wish she might express to take the veil and
bring her possessions into the church, and he was
sufficiently acquainted with the qualities of a Cesarini,
not to drive one of their daughters to extremity.

With some embarrassment the old count made a
clean breast to Malaspina and his son, and was exhausting
language in regrets, when he was relieved by
an assurance from Lamba that the difficulty increased
his zest for the match, and that, with Cesarini's permission,
he would find opportunities to encounter her
in her walks as a stranger, and make his way after the
romantic taste which he supposed was alone at the bottom
of her refusal For success in this, Count Lamba
relied on his personal beauty and on that address in
the arts of adventure which is acquired by a residence
in France.

Since his duel, Amieri had been confined to his
bed with a violent fever, dangerously aggravated by
the peculiar nature of his calamity. The love of the
pencil was the breath of his soul, and in all his
thoughts of Violanta, it was only as a rival of the
lofty fame of painters who had made themselves the
companions of kings, that he could imagine himself a
claimant for her love. It seemed to him that his
nerveless hand had shut out heaven's entire light.

Giulio had watched by his friend with the faithful
fondness of a woman, and had gathered from his moments
of delirium, what Biondo had from delicacy to
Violanta never revealed to his second, Lenzoni—the
cause of his quarrel with Malaspina. Touched with
this chivalric tenderness toward his sister, the kind
Giulio hung over him with renewed affection, and
when, in subsequent ravings, the maimed youth betrayed
the real sting of his misfortune—the death of
his hopes of her love—the unambitious brother resolved

in his heart that if he could aid him by service
or sacrifice, by influence with Violanta, or by making
the almost desperate attempt to establish his own
claims to the name and fortunes of Cesarini, he would
devote himself to his service heart and soul.

During the confinement of Amieri to his room, the
young countess had of course been unable to visit her
brother, and as he scarce left the patient's side for a
moment, their intercourse for two or three weeks had
been entirely interrupted. On the first day the convalescent
youth could walk out, she had stolen to the
studio, and heard from Giulio the whole history of
the duel and its consequences. When he had finished
his narrative, Violanta sat, for a few minutes, lost in
thought.

“Giulio!” she said at last, with a gayety of tone
which startled him.

“Violanta!”

“Did you ever remark that our voices are very
much alike?”

“Biondo often says so.”

“And you have a foot almost as small as mine.”

“I have not the proportions of a man, Violanta!”

“Nay, brother, but I mean that—that—we might
pass for each other, if we were masked. Our height
is the same. Stand up, Giulio”'

“You would not mock me!” said the melancholy
youth with a faint smile, as he rose and set his bent
back beside the straight and lithe form of his sister.

“Listen to me, amato-bene!” she replied, sitting
down and drawing him upon her knee, after satisfying
himself that there was no perceptible difference in
their height. “Put your arm about my neck, and
love me while I tell you of my little plot.”

Giulio impressed a kiss upon the clear, alabaster
forehead of the beautiful girl, and looked into her face
inquiringly.

“There is to be a masquerade at La Pergola,” she
said—“a superb masquerade given to some prince!
And I am to go, Giulio mio!”

“Well,” answered the listener, sadly.

“But do you not seem surprised that I am permitted
to go! Shall I tell you the reason why papa gave me
permission?”

“If you will, Violanta!”

“A little bird told me that Malaspina means to be
there!”

“And you will go to meet him?”

“You shall go to meet him, and I —” she hesitated
and cast down the long dark fringes of her eyes;
“I will meet Biondo!”

Giulio clasped her passionately to his heart.

“I see!—I see!” he cried, springing upon his feet,
as he anticipated the remaining circumstances of the
plot. “We shall be two bunchback—they will little
think that we are two Cesarini. Dear, noble Violanta!
you will speak kindly to Biondo. Send Bettina for
the clothes, carina mia! You will get twin masks in
the Corso. And, Violanta?”

“What, Giulio?”

“Tell Bettina to breathe no word of our project to
Amieri! I will persuade him to go but to see you
dance! Poor Amieri! Dear, dear sister! Farewell
now! He will be returning, and you must be gone.
The Holy Virgin guard you, my Violanta!”