University of Virginia Library

9. CHAPTER IX.

As with the old gouvernante, a few days after
Norman's domiciliation, they leaned from the marble
balcony of a terrace overlooking the garden,
her father kissed Antonia, and laid his hand on her
head—that very original and bright piece of nature's
workmanship which had caused the rhapsody of the
young sculptor.

“I have ordered the rooms to be warmed for
Mr. Montfort to-day, to see the pictures; will you
not go with him and the signora?”

Such a cicerone!

`Oh yes, my father!” (how the melody of the
Italian melted from those lips), “Signore Angelo
is to bring home my bust this morning, and I will
let Signore Montfort be the judge, if he will stay
away from the Pitti and spend the morning with us.”

Signore Montfort bowed. Perhaps the study of
painting had improved his eye, but he could not fail
to see, and to feel, how lovely and graceful was this
rare young creature; how light her step; how warm
and tender her eyes; her voice, how musical; her
form, how fair. He had hitherto met her without
attentively regarding her—she had passed before

his eyes as some bright cloud in the sky, some
gorgeous bird through the grove, or a soft-hued seashell
on the marble beach. As they commenced
their round—she, with her beaming and lovely face,
like one of Raphael's Madonas, and the wrinkled
old gouvernante by her side—a sudden kindness
stirred in his heart, a sense of her excellence and
surpassing charms. Years had glided away since
he had been the companion of woman—years of
severe solitude and gloom; and now that nameless
light, that exquisite spell which, to those gifted with
the keen perception of female character and beauty,
the form of an innocent, unshaded girl often conjures
up, was shed upon him. He thought of his
sister, and—of Flora. From that moment an airy
link was thrown around him. The careless girl
had touched upon one of the deepest chords of his
soul; and while he yielded, with a half melancholy
delight, to its slow-fading vibrations, he felt that his
guileless and light-hearted companion was no longer
to him only a cloud or a seashell. It was not love,
but it touched him for a moment with something of
love's fervour. It was the echo of that blissful
voice, sent back upon his heart from the hollow solitudes
of his later years.

The signora was soon tired, and left her charge
to the guidance of Mr. Montfort, and she led him,
for the first time, through her father's magnificent
palace.

The building was one of those striking, immense,
and durable edifices bequeathed to the Italian
nobles by their wealthy and warlike ancestors.
On approaching it, the stranger, especially from
the north and west, would not be so much impressed
with its splendour as with its dimensions
for a dwelling. The elegant comfort of a London
or a New-York mansion, the neat, beautiful steps

and doorway, which in the two latter form the
principal entrance, the carpeted halls, and the
comfortable air of home, felt even in the exterior,
were all wanting here. The entrance was a high,
gloomy arch, through which alike horsemen, pedestrian,
and carriage passed into the lofty court.
From this arch, heavy steps of stone or marble
led the eye up along a cheerless, broad passage,
stately, dismal, and comfortless. In niches and
on pedestals stood sculptured forms, their spirited
attitudes strangely contrasted with their deathly
faces and voiceless lips, some defaced by time or
chance, and covered with dust never disturbed.
Here a Mars, threatening the world, bereft of
arms; and there a Venus, as simpering and conscious
of her charms as if the enmity of the three
sisters had yet left her an unbroken nose; while
on each turn in the stairway reposed colossal
sphinxes and couchant lions of Egyptian and
oriental granite. The whole edifice, seen from
the street or the court, more resembled a prison
than a palace, as the reader of poetry and romance
is apt to imagine one; and even after mounting
some distance up the steps, the stranger, untaught
in the fashions of the continent, wonders whether
the vast structure, with its cumbrous strength and
lonely grandeur, is really inhabited, or whether it
is not appropriated merely to some public purpose
—chambers of council, or tribunals of justice.
Lose yourself in the capitol at Washington, and
fancy it a family residence of some prince or
potentate.

But the first disappointment is much more than
compensated by the uncounted wealth lavished
within. Long halls, floored with tesselated and
glassy marbles; ceilings vaulted, loaded with
heavy bassreliefs, or painted with bright-gleaming

and radiant frescoes; immense mirrors, which, in
one room, appeared to constitute the whole breadth
of the walls; windows reaching from floor to ceiling,
and composed of enormous slabs of plate-glass
leading forth upon marble balconies, and to scented
groves of orange and lemon. The rooms were
heavily curtained, and draped with silks and velvet,
of all hues and kinds—here one cerulean as
heaven—there another draped with a forest green
—a third flushed with a mellow and a sunshiny
glory, from crimson velvet linked and fastened
with studs and knots of gold. About twenty-five
rooms on one floor, and those set apart mostly for
the mere pomp of display, led the wondering and
dazzled visiter from curiosity to curiosity, and
from splendour to splendour—now over carpets of
matchless beauty, now over mosaic floors, whose
glittering surface spread beneath the feet like ice.
The intruder at once fears to trust himself upon
their slippery smoothness, or to tread upon their
pictured beauties. Some dozen rooms were completely
crowded with paintings, each one by a
master, and many chefs d'œuvres of the immortal
authors. The stern cliffs of Rosa, the melting
sunshine of Claude; Raphael's exquisite and gentle
grace, and the winning softness of Guido; but
who can enumerate the treasures of an Italian
gallery of paintings? At frequent intervals stood
statues of classic beauty, and often of ancient
workmanship. Other furniture corresponded to
that already described: a profusion of the most
costly clocks and vases; a wilderness of bronze,
crystal, gold, marble, and alabaster; a thousand
exquisite shapes of classic lore; tables of untold
value, inlaid with sparks of gems, brilliantly disposed
in the polished and gleaming slabs, to resemble
flowers, insects, shells, &c.; ivory ornaments,
wrought by Cellini; boxes, altars, and
cases of amber: while, not unfrequently, the doors,
cornices, and walls themselves, were incrusted
with jasper, porphyry, and verd-antique. Scarcely
the eye believed the splendour real, half-deeming
each bright image but the gaud of some theatrical
show, so prodigal, costly, unused, and useless
appeared the waste and riot of magnificence. The
knees ache in traversing the long apartments, and
the eyes are wearied in attempting to analyze
their bewildering and wanton brightness. But,
however dazzled for a moment, you are still soon
fatigued with this monotonous and unmeaning
grandeur. So much unnecessary parade seems
strained and idle, if not ridiculous and vulgar. If
you have seen the simple dwelling of Ariosto, and
his little garden, or the humble retreat of Petrarch,
among the green Euganean hills, or the damp cell
of poor Tasso, in the madhouse at Ferrara, you
regard this princely pomp with something of sarcasm.
In a country, too, where every narrow
street and golden vineyard; every palace, step,
and fountain-pedestal; every mountain-peak and
cathedral floor; every place, indeed, of any description,
not guarded perforce by the insolence of
aristocracy or the bayonet of despotism, is haunted
and swarmed with all the forms of loathsome and
blasted misery that ever humanity produced;—this
blaze of rank, power, and abundance shows not
only absurd, but shocking and cruel.

But Norman was an old traveller, and these
thoughts had passed away with his first impressions
of Europe. Now he trod the princely halls
with admiration; and as the fair girl, leaning on his
arm, pointed out, with a pure and sweet familiarity,
each theme of praise in picture or statue, he forgot
his taciturn gloom, and displayed in his manner and

conversation all the unwonted admiration which
she inspired.

In the course of their long ramble through the
superb halls of paintings—the good old signora
seizing every possible occasion to throw herself
down upon one of the luxurious fauteuils, and the
antiquated cicerone waiting at a respectful distance,
till the memory of Antonia should need
assistance from his more practised experience
(which, by-the-way, rarely happened)—several incidents
conspired to render her to Norman an object
of interest. In the first place, he found her
quite a proficient in his native tongue; and he
enjoyed the quiet pleasure of following the delightful
accent upon her unaccustomed lips. You really
love your language while hearing it spoken
indifferently well by an agreeable young girl in a
foreign country. Antonia had studied it with zeal,
and music was nothing to her charming errors and
timid hesitation. A being so pure and lovely was
enough at all times to win the eye of the student,
bathed as his spirit was in the fervour of poetry,
and while watching and gently aiding her along the
path of a new language, he found himself half-unconsciously
yielding to the gentle anxieties, and
half-playful, half-tender alarms of a happy mother,
scarcely trusting the first uncertain steps of a beautiful
child. He felt that the sportive communion
thus increasing between them would have been
dangerous in other years. But the image of Flora
had to him the sacred sadness of buried love; and
he sighed to look down on Antonia, and think how
cold and dead his heart was; that her radiant face,
her guileless spirit, could now waken in his breast
only those vain regrets, that tender anguish, which,
in the triumphs of study, he had nearly forgotten.

He was struck, too, with the blended artlessness

and intelligence of her nature; with her antique
opinions and utter ignorance of the world, so
strangely contrasted with her high cultivation upon
certain accomplishments.

They were engaged before a celebrated painting;
and while Norman was smiling, with a heart more
at rest than it had been for years, upon the engaging
and animated face of his guide—even as one
out of the brawling, battling world gazes on a newly-unfolded
rosebud, wondering how the inert soil
could yield a thing so fair and tender—he beheld a
third person, in the habit of a priest, close by his
side. He had apparently approached a few moments
before, with the stealthy pace of a cat, and
now stood smiling upon them as they lingered before
the broad painting, their shadows lengthened
on the glittering and pictured floor.

“The fair Antonia,” he said, “has not welcomed
her instructer, who has just returned from Pisa.
Anxiety to see my dear child has brought me unbidden
into her presence.”

“Oh, Father Ambrose! dear, dear Father Ambrose!
How good! how kind! Have you speeded
well in your journey? Is your sick friend recovered?
Will you remain with us now?”

The priest smiled.

“If I had as many mouths as the Hydra, yours
would find work for them all.”

“Oh, then, I know your poor friend is well, or
else you would not smile; and all a girl's idle
questions are answered without a word. But,
Father Ambrose, know Signore Montfort, my
father's most esteemed friend and guest. He has
supplied your place; for he is learned as you, and
I am his debtor for much, much wisdom: and
Signore Montfort will already have conjectured
that this is our honoured Father Ambrose, whom
we have spoken of in his absence often.”

The holy man turned his face upon Norman,
and the keen eye of the latter detected, or imagined
that he did so, a certain scarce perceptible ripple
that crossed its singular smoothness. The eye
perused his face a moment with a sinister but
brief shade of displeasure. Norman returned the
gaze with an interest which surprised him. Where
had he seen those features? Where had that insinuating
smile before crossed his observation?
Had he met him before indeed? What unquiet
association stirred at his heart as he encountered
the glance of those small but keen eyes? He
replied briefly, and took occasion the subsequent
moment, while the intruder was engaged in conversation
with Antonia, to note him more narrowly.
He was small, but beautifully formed, with a white
slender hand, black eyes and hair, and a silent
smile of singular sweetness. His voice was soft
and musical, and he had the power of modulating
it to harmonize with the secretest chords vibrating
in the bosoms of those he addressed. Yet, with his
intelligent and classical cast of features—the wavy
and raven hair parted on that white round brow,
the almost feminine yet voluptuous mouth, and
snowy teeth gleaming through—with all the graces
of his person and manner, there was about him
something wily and insincere, something which no
sooner fastened admiration than it awakened distrust.
There was, besides, that on his features
which impressed Norman powerfully with a sense
of the past—which, dimly and mysteriously, awakened
in his bosom thrilling associations and vague
presentiments. The object of his new interest
soon departed, stealing away with the same noiseless
tread with which he had entered, and lifting a
heavy curtain of crimson velvet which hung broadly
against the wall, disappeared through the door concealed

behind. To Norman he seemed to vanish:
an unaccountable foreboding, a feeling of superstition,
a willingness to abandon himself to his sudden
emotion, as to an omen, crept over him, and he
longed to be alone. Of Antonia he inquired into
the history of the person he had seen.

“Oh!” she said, “it is the good Father Ambrose—the
kindest—the best—the dearest—the
holiest. He was the friend of my father—oh, a
long, long time ago: before I was born.”

“A long, long time indeed,” said Norman, smiling
at the earnest and becoming enthusiasm which
marked her every word and action, and again looking
on the beautiful child; for she seemed only
wavering on the fairy limits between girlish simplicity
and woman's deeper imagination.

“Seventeen years full, this spring,” said the
signora, who, having rested herself, had now joined
them—“full seventeen years; and a good girl she
is, too, signore,” and the old woman smoothed
down the tresses of her head affectionately as she
spoke; “and knows as little of the world as a
wild rose.”

A sigh from behind attracted their attention. It
was the young sculptor with the bust. The snowy
image rested on a marble table, before an immense
mirror. The artist stood by its side, leaning
against a column, his arms folded upon his bosom.
For a long time—while all admired his work—he
seemed to be forgotten; and Antonia, leaning on
Norman's arm with a familiar girlishness, and looking
up with each word confidingly into his face,
little dreamed the pang each random glance, each
gentle and neglectful tone, shot to a heart—though
cast in life's rougher and gloomier paths, yet all as
high, and soft, and passionate as her own.

“How strange,” she said at length, “Signore
Angelo has gone!”

“Those poor artists,” said the gouvernante, arranging
her lace cap, “are always so eccentric.”