 | Tales of the grotesque and arabesque |  |
THE VISIONARY.
To meet thee in that hollow vale.
[Exequy on the death of his wife, by Henry King, Bishop of
Chichester.]
Ill-fated and mysterious man! Bewildered in the
brilliancy of thine own imagination, and fallen in the
flames of thine own youth! Again in fancy I behold
thee! Once more thy form hath risen before
me!—not—oh not as thou art—in the cold valley
and shadow—but as thou shouldst be—squandering
away a life of magnificent meditation in that city of
dim visions, thine own Venice—which is a star beloved
elysium of the sea, and the wide windows of
whose Palladian palaces look down with a deep and
bitter meaning upon the secrets of her silent waters.
Yes! I repeat it—as thou shouldst be. There are
surely other worlds than this—other thoughts than
the thoughts of the multitude—other speculations
than the speculations of the sophist. Who then shall
call thy conduct into question? who blame thee for
as a wasting away of life, which were but the overflowings
of thine everlasting energies?
It was at Venice, beneath the covered archway
there called the Ponte di Sospiri, that I met for the
third or fourth time the person of whom I speak. It
is with a confused recollection that I bring to mind
the circumstances of that meeting. Yet I remember
—ah! how should I forget?—the deep midnight,
the Bridge of Sighs, the beauty of woman, and the
demon of romance, who stalked up and down the
narrow canal.
It was a night of unusual gloom. The great clock
of the piazza had sounded the fifth hour of the Italian
evening. The square of the Campanile lay silent and
deserted, and the lights in the old Ducal Palace were
dying fast away. I was returning home from the
Piazetta, by way of the Grand Canal. But as my
gondola arrived opposite the mouth of the canal San
Marco, a female voice from its recesses broke suddenly
upon the night, in one wild, hysterical and long
continued shriek. Startled at the sound, I sprang
upon my feet: while the gondolier, letting slip his
single oar, lost it in the pitchy darkness beyond a
chance of recovery, and we were consequently left
to the guidance of the current which here sets from
the greater into the smaller channel. Like some
huge and sable-feathered condor, we were slowly
drifting down towards the Bridge of Sighs, when a
thousand flambeaux flashing from the windows, and
down the staircases of the Ducal Palace, turned
day.
A child, slipping from the arms of its own mother,
had fallen from an upper window of the lofty structure
into the deep and dim canal. The quiet waters
had closed placidly over their victim; and, although
my own gondola was the only one in sight, many a
stout swimmer, already in the stream, was seeking
in vain upon the surface, the treasure which was to
be found, alas! only within the abyss. Upon the
broad black marble flagstones at the entrance of the
palace, and a few steps above the water, stood a
figure which none who then saw can have ever since
forgotten. It was the Marchesa Aphrodite—the
adoration of all Venice—the gayest of the gay—
the most lovely where all were beautiful—but still
the young wife of the old and intriguing Mentoni—
and the mother of that fair child, her first and only
one, who now deep beneath the murky water, was
thinking in bitterness of heart upon her sweet caresses,
and exhausting its little life in struggles to call
upon her name.
She stood alone. Her small, bare, and silvery feet
gleamed in the black mirror of marble beneath her.
Her hair, not as yet more than half loosened for the
night from its ball-room array, clustered amid a
shower of diamonds, round and round her classical
head, in curls like the young hyacinth. A snowy-white
and gauze-like drapery seemed to be nearly
the sole covering to her delicate form—but the mid-summer
and no motion—no shadow of motion in the statue-like
form itself, stirred even the folds of that raiment
of very vapor which hung around it as the heavy
marble hangs around the Niobe. Yet—strange to
say!—her large lustrous eyes were not turned downwards
upon that grave wherein her brightest hope lay
buried—but riveted in a widely different direction!
The prison of the Old Republic is, I think, the stateliest
building in all Venice—but how could that
lady gaze so fixedly upon it, when beneath her lay
stifling her only child? You dark, gloomy niche, too,
yawns right opposite her chamber window—what,
then, could there be in its shadows—in its architecture—in
its ivy-wreathed and solemn cornices that
the Marchesa di Mentoni had not wondered at a
thousand times before? Nonsense! Who does not
remember that, at such a time as this, the eye, like a
shattered mirror, multiplies the images of its sorrow,
and sees in innumerable far off places, the wo which
is close at hand.
Many steps above the Marchesa, and within the
arch of the water-gate, stood in full dress, the Satyrlike
figure of Mentoni himself. He was occasionally
occupied in thrumming a guitar, and seemed ennuied
to the very death, as at intervals he gave directions
for the recovery of his child. Stupified and aghast,
I had myself no power to move from the upright
position I had assumed upon first hearing the shriek,
and must have presented to the eyes of the agitated
pale countenance and rigid limbs, I floated down
among them in that funereal gondola.
All efforts proved in vain. Many of the most
energetic in the search were relaxing their exertions,
and yielding to a gloomy sorrow. There seemed but
little hope for the child—but now, from the interior
of that dark niche which has been already mentioned
as forming a part of the Old Republican prison, and
as fronting the lattice of the Marchesa, a figure,
muffled in a cloak, stepped out within reach of the
light, and, pausing a moment upon the verge of the
giddy descent, plunged headlong into the canal. As,
in an instant afterwards, he stood with the still living
and breathing child within his grasp, upon the marble
flagstones by the side of the Marchesa, his cloak,
heavy with the drenching water, became unfastened,
and, falling in folds about his feet, discovered to the
wonder-stricken spectators, the graceful person of a
very young man, with the sound of whose name the
greater part of Europe was then ringing.
No word spoke the deliverer. But the Marchesa!
She will now receive her child—she will press it to
her heart—she will cling to its little form, and
smother it with her caresses. Alas! another's arms
have taken it from the stranger—another's arms
have taken it away, and borne it afar off, unnoticed,
into the palace! And the Marchesa! Her lip—
her beautiful lip trembles: tears are gathering in her
eyes—those eyes which, like Pliny's own Acanthus,
are “soft and almost liquid.” Yes! tears are gathering
throughout the soul, and the statue has started into
life! The pallor of the marble countenance, the
swelling of the marble bosom, the very purity of the
marble feet, we behold suddenly flushed over with a
tide of ungovernable crimson; and a slight shudder
quivers about her delicate frame, as a gentle air at
Napoli about the rich silver lilies in the grass. Why
should that lady blush? To this demand there is no
answer—except that, having left in the eager haste
and terror of a mother's heart, the privacy of her
own boudoir, she has neglected to enthral her tiny
feet in their slippers, and utterly forgotten to throw
over her Venitian shoulders that drapery which is
their due. What other possible reason could there
have been for her so blushing?—for the glance of
those wild appealing eyes?—for the unusual tumult
of that throbbing bosom?—for the convulsive pressure
of that trembling hand?—that hand which fell, as
Mentoni turned into the palace, accidentally, upon
the hand of the stranger. What reason could there
have been for the low—the singularly low tone of
those unmeaning words which the lady uttered hurriedly
in bidding him adieu? “Thou hast conquered”—she
said, or the murmurs of the water
deceived me—“thou hast conquered—one hour
after sunrise—we shall meet—so let it be.”
* * * * * *
The tumult had subsided, the lights had died away
recognised, stood alone upon the flags. He shook
with inconceivable agitation, and his eye glanced
around in search of a gondola. I could not do less
than offer him the service of my own; and he accepted
the civility. Having obtained an oar at the
water-gate, we proceeded together to his residence,
while he rapidly recovered his self-possession, and
spoke of our former slight acquaintance in terms of
great apparent cordiality.
There are some subjects upon which I take pleasure
in being minute. The person of the stranger—let
me call him by this title, who to all the world was
still a stranger—the person of the stranger is one
of these subjects. In height he might have been
below rather than above the medium size: although
there were moments of intense passion when his
frame actually expanded and belied the assertion.
The light, almost slender symmetry of his figure,
promised more of that ready activity which he
evinced at the Bridge of Sighs, than of that Herculean
strength which he has been known to wield
without an effort, upon occasions of more dangerous
emergency. With the mouth and chin of a deity—
singular, wild, full, liquid eyes, whose shadows varied
from pure hazel to intense and brilliant jet—and a
profusion of glossy, black hair, from which a forehead,
rather low than otherwise, gleamed forth at
intervals all light and ivory—his were features than
which I have seen none more classically regular,
except, perhaps, the marble ones of the Emperor
one of those which all men have seen at some period
of their lives, and have never afterwards seen again.
It had no peculiar—I wish to be perfectly understood—it
had no settled predominant expression to
be fastened upon the memory; a countenance seen
and instantly forgotten—but forgotten with a vague
and never-ceasing desire of recalling it to mind. Not
that the spirit of each rapid passion failed, at any
time, to throw its own distinct image upon the mirror
of that face—but that the mirror, mirror-like, retained
no vestige of the passion, when the passion
had departed.
Upon leaving him on the night of our adventure,
he solicited me, in what I thought an urgent manner,
to call upon him very early the next morning. Shortly
after sunrise, I found myself accordingly at his
Palazzo, one of those huge piles of gloomy, yet fantastic
grandeur, which tower above the waters of the
Grand Canal in the vicinity of the Rialto. I was
shown up a broad winding staircase of mosaics, into
an apartment whose unparalleled splendor burst
through the opening door with an actual glare,
making me sick and dizzy with luxuriousness.
I knew my acquaintance to be wealthy. Report
had spoken of his possessions in terms which I had
even ventured to call terms of ridiculous exaggeration.
But as I gazed about me, I could not bring myself to
believe that the wealth of any subject in Europe could
have supplied the far more than imperial magnificence
which burned and blazed around.
Although, as I say, the sun had arisen, yet the
room was still brilliantly lighted up. I judged from
this circumstance, as well as from an air of exhaustion
in the countenance of my friend, that he had not retired
to bed during the whole of the preceding night.
In the architecture and embellishments of the chamber,
the evident design had been to dazzle and astound.
Little attention had been paid to the decora of what
is technically called keeping, or to the proprieties of
nationality. The eye wandered from object to object,
and rested upon none—neither the grotesques
of the Greek painters—nor the sculptures of the
best Italian days—nor the huge carvings of untutored
Egypt. Rich draperies in every part of the
room trembled to the vibration of low, melancholy
music, whose unseen origin undoubtedly lay in the
recesses of the crimson trelliss work which tapestried
the ceiling. The senses were oppressed by mingled
and conflicting perfumes, reeking up from strange
convolute censers, which seemed actually endued
with a monstrous vitality, as their particolored fires
writhed up and down, and around about their extravagant
proportions. The rays of the newly risen sun
poured in upon the whole, through windows formed
each of a single pane of crimson-tinted glass. Glancing
to and fro, in a thousand reflections, from curtains
which rolled from their cornices like cataracts of
molten silver, the beams of natural glory mingled at
length fitfully with the artificial light, and lay weltering
in subdued masses upon a carpet of rich, liquid looking
been at work. A chaos—a wilderness of beauty
lay before me. A sense of dreamy and incoherent
grandeur took possession of my soul, and I remained
within the door-way speechless.
Ha! ha! ha!—ha! ha! ha!—laughed the proprietor,
motioning me to a seat, and throwing himself
back at full length upon an ottoman. “I see,” said
he, perceiving that I could not immediately reconcile
myself to the bienseance of so singular a welcome—
“I see you are astonished at my apartment—at my
statues—my pictures—my originality of conception
in architecture and upholstery—absolutely drunk,
eh? with my magnificence. But pardon me, my dear
sir, (here his tone of voice dropped to the very spirit
of cordiality,) pardon me, my dear sir, for my uncharitable
laughter. You appeared so utterly astonished.
Besides, some things are so completely
ludicrous that a man must laugh or die. To die
laughing must be the most glorious of all glorious
deaths! Sir Thomas More—a very fine man was Sir
Thomas More—Sir Thomas More died laughing, you
remember. Also there is a long list of characters who
came to the same magnificent end, in the Absurdities
of Ravisius Textor. Do you know, however,” continued
he musingly—“that at Sparta (which is now
Palæochori), at Sparta, I say, to the west of the
citadel, among a chaos of scarcely visible ruins, is a
kind of socle upon which are still legible the letters
ΑΑΕΜ. They are undoubtedly part of ΓΕΑΑΕΜΑ. Now
at Sparta were a thousand temples and shrines to a
strange that the altar of Laughter should have survived
all the others! But in the present instance”
—he resumed, with a singular alteration of voice and
manner—“in the present instance I have no right to
be merry at your expense. You might well have
been amazed. Europe cannot produce anything so
fine as this, my little regal cabinet. My other apartments
are by no means of the same order—mere
ultras of fashionable insipidity. This is better than
fashion—is it not? Yet this has but to be seen to
become the rage—that is with those who could afford
it at the cost of their entire patrimony. I have
guarded, however, against any such profanation.
With one exception you are the only human being
besides myself, who has been admitted within the
mysteries of these imperial precincts.”
I bowed in acknowledgment: for the overpowering
sense of splendor and perfume, and music, together
with the unexpected eccentricity of his address and
manner, prevented me from expressing in words my
appreciation of what I might have construed into a
compliment.
“Here”—he resumed, arising and leaning on my
arm as he sauntered around the apartment—“here
are paintings from the Greeks to Cimabué, and from
Cimabué to the present hour. Many are chosen, as
you see, with little deference to the opinions of Virtû.
They are all, however, fitting tapestry for a chamber
such as this. Here too, are some chéf d'œuvres of
men, celebrated in their day, whose very names the
perspicacity of the academies has left to silence
and to me. What think you”—said he, turning
abruptly as he spoke—“what think you of this
Madonna della Pietà?
“It is Guido's own!” I said, with all the enthusiasm
of my nature, for I had been poring intently over its
surpassing loveliness. “It is Guido's own!—how
could you have obtained it?—she is undoubtedly in
painting what the Venus is in sculpture.”
“Ha!” said he thoughtfully, “the Venus?—the
beautiful Venus?—the Venus of the Medici?—she
of the gilded hair? Part of the left arm (here his
voice dropped so as to be heard with difficulty), and
all the right are restorations, and in the coquetry of
that right arm lies, I think, the quintessence of all
affectation. The Apollo, too!—is a copy—there
can be no doubt of it—blind fool that I am, who
cannot behold the boasted inspiration of the Apollo!
I cannot help—pity me!—I cannot help preferring
the Antinous. Was it not Socrates who said that the
statuary found his statue in the block of marble?
Then Michæl Angelo was by no means original in
his couplet—
Chèun marmo solo in se non circunscriva.' ”
* * * * * * * *
It has been, or should be remarked, that, in the
manner of the true gentleman, we are always aware
of a difference from the bearing of the vulgar, without
being at once precisely able to determine in what
such difference consists. Allowing the remark to
have applied in its full force to the outward demeanor
of my acquaintance, I felt it, on that eventful morning,
still more fully applicable to his moral temperament
and character. Nor can I better define that
peculiarity of spirit which seemed to place him so esentially
apart from all other human beings, than by
calling it a habit of intense and continual thought,
pervading even his most trivial actions—intruding
upon his moments of dalliance—and interweaving
itself with his very flashes of merriment—like adders
which writhe from out the eyes of the grinning masks
in the cornices around the temples of Persepolis.
I could not help, however, repeatedly observing,
through the mingled tone of levity and solemnity
with which he rapidly descanted upon matters of
little importance, a certain air of trepidation—a deree
of nervous unction in action and in speech—an
unquiet excitability of manner which appeared to me
at all times unaccountable, and upon some occasions
even filled me with alarm. Frequently, too, pausing
in the middle of a sentence whose commencement he
had apparently forgotten, he seemed to be listening in
the deepest attention, as if either in momentary expectation
of a visiter, or to sounds which must have
had existence in his imagination alone.
It was during one of these reveries or pauses of apparent
abstraction, that, in turning over a page of the
poet and scholar Politian's beautiful tragedy “The
Orfeo,” (the first native Italian tragedy,) which lay
near me upon an ottoman, I discovered a passage
underlined in pencil. It was a passage towards the
end of the third act—a passage of the most heart-stirring
excitement—a passage which, although
tainted with impurity, no man shall read without a
thrill of novel emotion—no woman without a
sigh. The whole page was blotted with fresh tears,
and, upon the opposite interleaf, were the following
lines, written in a hand so very different from the peculiar
characters of my acquaintance, that I had
some difficulty in recognising it as his own.
For which my soul did pine—
A green isle in the sea, love,
A fountain and a shrine,
All wreathed around about with flowers;
And the flowers—they all were mine.
But the dream—it could not last;
And the star of Hope did rise
But to be overcast.
A voice from out the Future cries
“Onward!”—while o'er the Past
(Dim gulf!) my spirit hovering lies,
Mute, motionless, aghast!
Ambition—all—is o'er.
“No more—no more—no more,”
(Such language holds the solemn sea
To the sands upon the shore,)
Shall bloom the thunder-blasted tree,
Or the stricken eagle soar!
And all my hours are trances;
And all my nightly dreams
Are where thy dark eye glances,
And where thy footstep gleams,
In what ethereal dances,
By what Italian streams.
Alas! for that accursed time
They bore thee o'er the billow,
From Love to titled age and crime,
And an unholy pillow—
From me, and from our misty clime,
Where weeps the silver willow.
That these lines were written in English—a language
with which I had not believed their author
acquainted—afforded me little matter for surprise.
I was too well aware of the extent of his acquirements,
and of the singular pleasure he took in concealing
them from observation, to be astonished at any similar
discovery; but the place of date, I must confess,
occasioned me no little amazement. It had been
originally written London, and afterwards carefully
overscored—but not, however, so effectually, as to
conceal the word from a scrutinizing eye. I say
this occasioned me no little amazement; for I well
friend, I particularly inquired if he had at any time
met in London the Marchesa di Mentoni, (who for
some years previous to her marriage had resided in
that city,) when his answer, if I mistake not, gave
me to understand that he had never visited the
metropolis of Great Britain. I might as well here
mention, that I have more than once heard, (without
of course giving credit to a report involving so many
improbabilities,) that the person of whom I speak was
not only by birth, but in education an Englishman.
* * * * * * * *
“There is one painting,” said he, without being
aware of my notice of the tragedy—“there is still
one painting which you have not seen.” And throwing
aside a drapery, he discovered a full length porrait
of the Marchesa Aphrodite.
Human art could have done no more in the delineation
of her superhuman beauty. The same ethereal
figure which stood before me the preceding night
upon the steps of the Ducal Palace, stood before me
once again. But in the expression of the countenance,
which was beaming all over with smiles, there still
lurked (incomprehensible anomaly!) that fitful stain
of melancholy which will ever be found inseparable
from the perfection of the beautiful. Her right arm
lay folded over her bosom. With her left she pointed
downwards to a curiously fashioned vase. One small,
fairy foot, alone visible, barely touched the earth—
which seemed to encircle and enshrine her loveliness,
floated a pair of the most delicately imagined wings.
My glance fell from the painting to the figure of my
friend, and the vigorous words of Chapman's Bussy
D'Ambois quivered instinctively upon my lips—
There like a Roman statue! He will stand
Till Death hath made him marble!”
“Come!” he said at length, turning towards a
table of richly enamelled and massive silver, upon
which were a few goblets fantastically stained, toether
with two large Etruscan vases, fashioned in
the same extraordinary model as that in the foreround
of the portrait, and filled with what I suposed
to be Johannisberger. “Come!” he said abruptly,
“let us drink! It is early—but let us
drink—It is indeed early,” he continued thoughtfully
as a cherub with a heavy golden hammer,
made the apartment ring with the first hour after
sunrise—“It is indeed early, but what matters it?
let us drink! Let us pour out an offering to the
solemn sun, which these gaudy lamps and censers
are so eager to subdue!” And, having made me
pledge him in a bumper, he swallowed in rapid sucession
several goblets of the wine.
“To dream,” he continued, resuming the tone of
his desultory conversation, as he held up to the rich
dream has been the business of my life. I have therefore
framed for myself, as you see, a bower of dreams.
In the heart of Venice could I have erected a better?
You behold around you, it is true, a medley of architectural
embellishments. The chastity of Ionia is
offended by antediluvian devices, and the sphynxes
of Egypt are stretching upon carpets of gold. Yet
the effect is incongruous to the timid alone. Prorieties
of place, and especially of time, are the bugears
which terrify mankind from the contemplation
of the magnificent. Once I was myself a decorist:
but that sublimation of folly has palled upon my soul.
All this is now the fitter for my purpose. Like these
arabesque censers, my spirit is writhing in fire, and
the delirium of this scene is fashioning me for the
wilder visions of that land of real dreams whither I
am now rapidly departing.” Thus saying, he conessed
the power of the wine, and threw himself at
full length upon an ottoman.
A quick step was now heard upon the staircase,
and a loud knock at the door rapidly succeeded. I
was hastening to anticipate a second disturbance,
when a page of Mentoni's household burst into the
room, and faltered out, in a voice choking with emotion,
the incoherent words, “My mistress!—my
mistress l—poisoned!—poisoned! Oh beautiful—
Oh beautiful Aphrodite!”
Bewildered, I flew to the ottoman, and endeavored
to arouse the sleeper to a sense of the startling intelligence.
livid—his lately beaming eyes were riveted in death.
I staggered back towards the table—my hand fell
upon a cracked and blackened goblet—and a conciousness
of the entire and terrible truth flashed suddenly
over my soul.
| Tales of the grotesque and arabesque | |