 | V. Inklings of adventure |  |
5. V.
The green lamps glittering by thousands amid the
foliage of the Boboli had attained their full brightness,
and the long-lived Italian day had died over the distant
mountains of Carrara, leaving its inheritance of light
apparently to the stars, who, on their fields of deepening
blue, sparkled, each one like the leader of an unseen
host in the depths of heaven, himself the foremost
and the most radaint. The night was balmy and voluptuous.
The music of the Ducal band swelled forth
from the perfumed apartments on the air. A single
nightingale, far back in the wilderness of the garden,
poured from his melodious heart a chant of the most
passionate melancholy. The sentinel of the bodyguard
stationed at the limit of the spray of the fountain
leaned on his halberd and felt his rude senses melt in
the united spells of luxury and nature. The ministers
of a monarch's pleasure had done their utmost to prepare
a scene of royal delight, and night and summer
had flung in their enchantments when ingenuity was
exhausted.
The dark architectural mass of the Pitti, pouring a
blaze of light scarce endurable from its deeply sunk
windows, looked like the side of an enchanted mountain
laid open for the revels of sorcery. The aigrette
and plume passed by; the tiara and the jewel upon
the breast; the gaily dressed courtiers and glittering
dames; and to that soldier at his dewy post, it seemed
like the realized raving of the improvisatore when he
Malice and Hate, and the light and perfume that might
have fed an angel's heart with love, but deepened in
many a beating bosom the consuming fires of Envy.
With the gold key of office on his cape, the Grand
Chamberlain stood at the feet of the Dowager Grand
Duchess, and by a sign to the musicians, hidden in a
latticed gallery behind the Corinthian capital of the
hall, retarded or accelerated the soft measure of the
waltz. On a raised seat in the rear of the chairs of
state, sat the ladies of honor and the noble dames
nearest allied to royal blood; one solitary and privileged
intruder alone sharing the elevated place—the
Lady Geraldine. Dressed in white, her hair wound
about her head in the simplest form, yet developing
its divine shape with the clear outline of statuary, her
eyes lambent with purity and sweetness, heavily fringed
with lashes a shade darker than the light auburn
braided on her temples, and the tint of the summer's
most glowing rose turned out from the thread-like
parting of her lips; she was a vision of loveliness to
take into the memory, as the poet enshrines in his soul
the impossible shape of his ideal, and consumes youth
and age searching in vain for its like. Fair Lady Geraldine!
thou wilt read these passionate words from
one whose worship of thy intoxicating loveliness has
never before found utterance, but if this truly told tale
should betray the hand that has dared to describe thy
beauty, in thy next orisons to St. Mary of Pity, breathe
from those bright lips a prayer that he may forget
thee!
By the side of the Lady Geraldine, but behind the
chair of the Grand Duchess, who listened to his conversation
with singular delight, stood a slight young
man of uncommon personal beauty, a stranger apparently
to every other person present. His brilliant uniform
alone betrayed him to be in the Russian diplomacy,
reigning Queen of the court, and the more powerful
and inaccessible queen of beauty, marked him as an
object of keen and universal curiosity. By the time
the fifth mazurka had concluded its pendulous refrain,
the Grand Chamberlain had tolerably well circulated
the name and rank of Count Basil Spirifort, the renowned
wit and elegant of Paris, newly appointed to
the Court of His Royal Highness of Tuscany. Fair
eyes wandered amid his sunny curls, and beating bosoms
hushed their pulses as he passed.
Count Basil knew the weight of a first impression.
Count Basil knew also the uses of contempt. Upon
the first principle he kept his place between the Grand
Duchess and Lady Geraldine, exerting his deeply studied
art of pleasing to draw upon himself their exclusive
attention. Upon the second principle, he was perfectly
unconscious of the presence of another human
being, and neither the gliding step of the small-eared
Princess S— in the waltz, nor the stately advance
of the last female of the Medici in the mazurka, distracted
his large blue eyes a moment from their idleness.
With one hand on the eagle-hilt of his sword,
and his side leant against the high cushion of red velvet
honored by the pressure of the Lady Geraldine, he
gazed up into that beaming face, when not bending
respectfully to the Duchess, and drank steadfastly from
her beauty, as the lotus cup drinks light from the sun.
The new Secretary had calculated well. In the
deep recess of the window looking toward San Miniato,
stood a lady nearly hidden from view by the muslin
curtains just stirring with the vibration of the music,
who gazed on the immediate circle of the Grand Duchess
with an interest that was not attempted to be disguised.
On her first entrance into the hall, the Marchesa
del Marmore had recognised in the new minion
of favor her impassioned lover of the lagoon, her slighted
of surprise was over, she looked on the form which
she had found beautiful even in the disguise of poverty,
and, forgetting her insulting repulse when he would
have claimed in public the smile she had given him
when unobserved, she recalled with delight every syllable
he had murmured in her ear, and every look she
had called forth in the light of a Venetian moon. The
man who had burned upon the altar of her vanity the
most intoxicating incense—who had broken through
the iron rules of convention and ceremony, to throw
his homage at her feet—who had portrayed so incomparably
(she believed) with his love-inspired pencil
the features imprinted on his heart---this chancewon
worshipper, this daring but gifted plebeian, as she
had thought him, had suddenly shot into her sphere
and become a legitimate object of love; and, beautified
by the splendor of dress, and distinguished by the
preference and favor of those incomparably above her,
he seemed tenfold, to her eyes, the perfection of adorable
beauty. As she remembered his eloquent devotion
to herself, and saw the interest taken in him by a woman
whom she hated and had calumniated—a woman who
she believed stood between her and all the light of existence—she
anticipated the triumph of taking him from
her side—of exhibiting him to the world as a falcon seduced
from his first quarry—and never doubting that
so brilliant a favorite would control the talisman of the
paradise she had so long wished to enter, she panted
for the moment when she should catch his eye and
draw him from his lure, and already heard the Chamberlain's
voice in her ear commanding her presence
after the ball in the saloon of Hercules.
The Marchesa had been well observed from the first
by the wily diplomate. A thorough adept in the art
(so necessary to his profession) of seeing without appearing
to see, he had scarce lost a shade of the varying
fancied him perfectly unconscious of her presence, he
read her tell-tale features as if they had given utterance
to her thoughts. He saw, with secret triumph,
the effect of his brilliant position upon her proud and
vain heart; watched her while she made use of her
throng of despised admirers to create a sensation near
him and attract his notice; and when the ball wore on,
and he was still in unwearied and exclusive attendance
upon the Lady Geraldine, he gazed after her with a
momentary curl of triumph on his lip, as she took up
her concealed position in the embayed window, and
abandoned herself to the bitter occupation of watching
the happiness of her rival. The Lady Geraldine had
never been so animated since her first appearance at
the Court of Tuscany.
It was past midnight when the Grand Duke, flushed
and tired with dancing, came to the side of the Lady
Geraldine. Count Basil gave place, and, remaining a
moment in nominal obedience to the Sovereign's polite
request which he was too politic to construe literally,
he looked down the dance with the air of one who has
turned his back on all that could interest him, and,
passing close to the concealed position of the Marchesa,
stepped out upon the balcony.
The air was cool, and the fountain played refreshingly
below. The Count Basil was one of those minds
which never have so much leisure for digression as
when they are most occupied. A love, as deep and
profound as the abysses of his soul, was weaving thread
for thread with a revenge worthy of a Mohican; yet,
after trying in vain to count eight in the Pleiades, he
raised himself upon the marble balustrade, and perfectly
anticipating the interruption to his solitude which
presently occurred, began to speculate aloud on the
dead and living at that hour beneath the roof of the
Pitti.
“A painter's mistress,” he said, “immortal in the
touch of her paramour's pencil, is worshipped for centuries
on these walls by the pilgrims of art; while the
warm perfection of all loveliness---the purest and divinest
of high-born women---will perish utterly with the
eyes that have seen her! The Bella of Titian, the
Fornarina of Raffaelle---peasant-girls of Italy---have,
at this moment, more value in this royal palace than
the breathing forms that inhabit it! The Lady Geraldine
herself, to whom the Sovereign offers at this moment
his most flattering homage, would be less a loss
to him than either! Yet they despise the gods of the
pencil who may thus make them immortal! The dull
blood in their noble veins, that never bred a thought
beyond the instincts of their kind, would look down,
forsooth, on the inventive and celestial ichor that inflames
the brain, and prompts the fiery hand of the
painter! How long will this very sovereign live in the
memories of men? The murderous Medici, the ambitious
cardinals, the abandoned women of an age gone
by, hang in imperishable colors on his walls; while of
him, the lord of this land of genius, there is not a bust
or a picture that would bring a sequin in the market-place!
They would buy genius in these days like
wine, and throw aside the flask in which it ripened.
Raffaelle and Buonarotti were companions for a pope
and his cardinals;---Titian was an honored guest for
the Doge. The stimulus to immortalize these noble
friends was in the love they bore them; and the secret
of their power to do it lay half in the knowledge of their
characters, gained by daily intimacy. Painters were
princes then, as they are beggars now; and the princely
art is beggared as well!”
The Marchesa del Marmore stepped out upon the
balcony, leaning on the arm of the Grand Chamberlain.
The soliloquizing Secretary had foretold to himself
both her coming and her companion.
“Monsieur le Comte,” said the Chamberlain, “La
Marchesa del Marmore wishes for the pleasure of your
acquaintance.”
Count Basil bowed low, and in that low and musical
tone of respectful devotion which, real or counterfeit,
made him irresistible to a woman who had a soul to be
thrilled, he repeated the usual nothings upon the beauty
of the night; and when the Chamberlain returned to
his duties, the Marchesa walked forth with her companion
to the cool and fragrant alleys of the garden,
and, under the silent and listening stars, implored forgiveness
for her pride; and, with the sudden abandonment
peculiar to the clime, poured into his ear the
passionate and weeping avowal of her sorrow and love.
“Those hours of penitence in the embayed window,”
thought Count Basil, “were healthy for your soul.”
And as she walked by his side, leaning heavily on his
arm, and half-dissolved in a confiding tenderness, his
thoughts reverted to another and a far sweeter voice;
and while the caressing words of the Marchesa fell on
an un-listening ear, his footsteps insensibly turned back
to the lighted hall.
| V. Inklings of adventure | |