THE ASSIGNATION
Stay for me there! I will not fail. 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 ownimagination, and fallen in the flames of thine own youth! Again in fancyI behold thee! Once more thy form hath risen before me!--not--oh notas thou art--in the cold valley and shadow--but as thou _shouldstbe_--squandering away a life of magnificent meditation in that city ofdim visions, thine own Venice--which is a star-beloved Elysium of thesea, and the wide windows of whose Palladian palaces look down with adeep and bitter meaning upon the secrets of her silent waters. Yes! Irepeat it--as thou _shouldst be_. There are surely other worldsthan this--other thoughts than the thoughts of the multitude--otherspeculations than the speculations of the sophist. Who then shall callthy conduct into question? who blame thee for thy visionary hours, ordenounce those occupations as a wasting away of life, which were but theoverflowings of thine everlasting energies?
It was at Venice, beneath the covered archway there called the _Ponte diSospiri_, that I met for the third or fourth time the person of whomI speak. It is with a confused recollection that I bring to mindthe circumstances of that meeting. Yet I remember--ah! how should Iforget?--the deep midnight, the Bridge of Sighs, the beauty of woman,and the Genius of Romance that stalked up and down the narrow canal.
It was a night of unusual gloom. The great clock of the Piazza hadsounded the fifth hour of the Italian evening. The square of theCampanile lay silent and deserted, and the lights in the old DucalPalace were dying fast away. I was returning home from the Piazetta, byway of the Grand Canal. But as my gondola arrived opposite the mouthof the canal San Marco, a female voice from its recesses broke suddenlyupon 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 achance of recovery, and we were consequently left to the guidance of thecurrent which here sets from the greater into the smaller channel.Like some huge and sable-feathered condor, we were slowly drifting downtowards the Bridge of Sighs, when a thousand flambeaux flashing from thewindows, and down the staircases of the Ducal Palace, turned all at oncethat deep gloom into a livid and preternatural day.
A child, slipping from the arms of its own mother, had fallen from anupper window of the lofty structure into the deep and dim canal. Thequiet waters had closed placidly over their victim; and, although my owngondola was the only one in sight, many a stout swimmer, already in thestream, was seeking in vain upon the surface, the treasure which wasto be found, alas! only within the abyss. Upon the broad black marbleflagstones at the entrance of the palace, and a few steps above thewater, stood a figure which none who then saw can have ever sinceforgotten. It was the Marchesa Aphrodite--the adoration of allVenice--the gayest of the gay--the most lovely where all werebeautiful--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, deepbeneath the murky water, was thinking in bitterness of heart upon hersweet caresses, and exhausting its little life in struggles to call uponher name.
She stood alone. Her small, bare, and silvery feet gleamed in theblack mirror of marble beneath her. Her hair, not as yet more thanhalf loosened for the night from its ball-room array, clustered, amida shower of diamonds, round and round her classical head, in curls likethose of the young hyacinth. A snowy-white and gauze-like drapery seemedto be nearly the sole covering to her delicate form; but the mid-summerand midnight air was hot, sullen, and still, and no motion in thestatue-like form itself, stirred even the folds of that raiment of veryvapor which hung around it as the heavy marble hangs around the Niobe.Yet--strange to say!--her large lustrous eyes were not turned downwardsupon that grave wherein her brightest hope lay buried--but riveted in awidely different direction! The prison of the Old Republic is, I think,the stateliest building in all Venice--but how could that lady gaze sofixedly upon it, when beneath her lay stifling her only child? Yon dark,gloomy niche, too, yawns right opposite her chamber window--what,then, _could_ there be in its shadows--in its architecture--in itsivy-wreathed and solemn cornices--that the Marchesa di Mentoni had notwondered at a thousand times before? Nonsense!--Who does not rememberthat, at such a time as this, the eye, like a shattered mirror,multiplies the images of its sorrow, and sees in innumerable far-offplaces, the woe which is close at hand?
Many steps above the Marchesa, and within the arch of the water-gate,stood, in full dress, the Satyr-like figure of Mentoni himself. He wasoccasionally occupied in thrumming a guitar, and seemed _ennuye_ to thevery death, as at intervals he gave directions for the recovery of hischild. Stupified and aghast, I had myself no power to move from theupright position I had assumed upon first hearing the shriek, and musthave presented to the eyes of the agitated group a spectral and ominousappearance, as with pale countenance and rigid limbs, I floated downamong them in that funereal gondola.
All efforts proved in vain. Many of the most energetic in the searchwere relaxing their exertions, and yielding to a gloomy sorrow. Thereseemed but little hope for the child; (how much less than for themother!) but now, from the interior of that dark niche which has beenalready mentioned as forming a part of the Old Republican prison, andas fronting the lattice of the Marchesa, a figure muffled in a cloak,stepped out within reach of the light, and, pausing a moment upon theverge of the giddy descent, plunged headlong into the canal. As, in aninstant afterwards, he stood with the still living and breathingchild within his grasp, upon the marble flagstones by the side of theMarchesa, his cloak, heavy with the drenching water, became unfastened,and, falling in folds about his feet, discovered to the wonder-strickenspectators the graceful person of a very young man, with the sound ofwhose name the greater part of Europe was then ringing.
No word spoke the deliverer. But the Marchesa! She will now receiveher child--she will press it to her heart--she will cling to its littleform, and smother it with her caresses. Alas! _another's_ arms havetaken it from the stranger--_another's_ arms have taken it away, andborne it afar off, unnoticed, into the palace! And the Marchesa! Herlip--her beautiful lip trembles: tears are gathering in her eyes--thoseeyes which, like Pliny's acanthus, are ”soft and almost liquid.” Yes!tears are gathering in those eyes--and see! the entire woman thrillsthroughout the soul, and the statue has started into life! The pallorof the marble countenance, the swelling of the marble bosom, the verypurity of the marble feet, we behold suddenly flushed over with a tideof ungovernable crimson; and a slight shudder quivers about her delicateframe, as a gentle air at Napoli about the rich silver lilies in thegrass.
Why _should_ that lady blush! To this demand there is no answer--exceptthat, 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 tinyfeet in their slippers, and utterly forgotten to throw over her Venetianshoulders that drapery which is their due. What other possible reasoncould there have been for her so blushing?--for the glance of those wildappealing eyes? for the unusual tumult of that throbbing bosom?--for theconvulsive pressure of that trembling hand?--that hand which fell,as Mentoni turned into the palace, accidentally, upon the hand of thestranger. What reason could there have been for the low--the singularlylow tone of those unmeaning words which the lady uttered hurriedly inbidding him adieu? ”Thou hast conquered,” she said, or the murmurs ofthe water deceived me; ”thou hast conquered--one hour after sunrise--weshall meet--so let it be!”
* * * * *
The tumult had subsided, the lights had died away within the palace,and the stranger, whom I now recognized, stood alone upon the flags. Heshook with inconceivable agitation, and his eye glanced around in searchof 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 hisself-possession, and spoke of our former slight acquaintance in terms ofgreat apparent cordiality.
There are some subjects upon which I take pleasure in being minute. Theperson of the stranger--let me call him by this title, who to all theworld was still a stranger--the person of the stranger is one of thesesubjects. In height he might have been below rather than above themedium size: although there were moments of intense passion when hisframe actually _expanded_ and belied the assertion. The light, almostslender symmetry of his figure, promised more of that ready activitywhich he evinced at the Bridge of Sighs, than of that Herculean strengthwhich he has been known to wield without an effort, upon occasions ofmore dangerous emergency. With the mouth and chin of a deity--singular,wild, full, liquid eyes, whose shadows varied from pure hazel to intenseand brilliant jet--and a profusion of curling, black hair, from whicha forehead of unusual breadth gleamed forth at intervals all light andivory--his were features than which I have seen none more classicallyregular, except, perhaps, the marble ones of the Emperor Commodus. Yethis countenance was, nevertheless, one of those which all men have seenat some period of their lives, and have never afterwards seen again. Ithad no peculiar--it had no settled predominant expression to be fastenedupon the memory; a countenance seen and instantly forgotten--butforgotten with a vague and never-ceasing desire of recalling it to mind.Not that the spirit of each rapid passion failed, at any time, tothrow its own distinct image upon the mirror of that face--but thatthe mirror, mirror-like, retained no vestige of the passion, when thepassion had departed.
Upon leaving him on the night of our adventure, he solicited me, inwhat I thought an urgent manner, to call upon him _very_ early thenext morning. Shortly after sunrise, I found myself accordingly at hisPalazzo, one of those huge structures of gloomy, yet fantastic pomp,which tower above the waters of the Grand Canal in the vicinity of theRialto. I was shown up a broad winding staircase of mosaics, into anapartment whose unparalleled splendor burst through the opening doorwith an actual glare, making me blind and dizzy with luxuriousness.
I knew my acquaintance to be wealthy. Report had spoken of hispossessions in terms which I had even ventured to call terms ofridiculous exaggeration. But as I gazed about me, I could not bringmyself to believe that the wealth of any subject in Europe could havesupplied the princely magnificence which burned and blazed around.
Although, as I say, the sun had arisen, yet the room was stillbrilliantly lighted up. I judge from this circumstance, as well as froman air of exhaustion in the countenance of my friend, that he hadnot retired to bed during the whole of the preceding night. In thearchitecture and embellishments of the chamber, the evident designhad been to dazzle and astound. Little attention had been paid to the_decora_ of what is technically called _keeping_, or to the proprietiesof nationality. The eye wandered from object to object, and rested uponnone--neither the _grotesques_ of the Greek painters, nor the sculpturesof the best Italian days, nor the huge carvings of untutored Egypt. Richdraperies in every part of the room trembled to the vibration of low,melancholy music, whose origin was not to be discovered. The senses wereoppressed by mingled and conflicting perfumes, reeking up from strangeconvolute censers, together with multitudinous flaring and flickeringtongues of emerald and violet fire. The rays of the newly risen sunpoured in upon the whole, through windows, formed each of a single paneof crimson-tinted glass. Glancing to and fro, in a thousand reflections,from curtains which rolled from their cornices like cataracts of moltensilver, the beams of natural glory mingled at length fitfully with theartificial light, and lay weltering in subdued masses upon a carpet ofrich, liquid-looking cloth of Chili gold.
”Ha! ha! ha!--ha! ha! ha!”--laughed the proprietor, motioning me toa seat as I entered the room, and throwing himself back at full-lengthupon an ottoman. ”I see,” said he, perceiving that I could notimmediately reconcile myself to the _bienseance_ of so singular awelcome--”I see you are astonished at my apartment--at my statues--mypictures--my originality of conception in architecture and upholstery!absolutely drunk, eh, with my magnificence? But pardon me, my dearsir, (here his tone of voice dropped to the very spirit of cordiality,)pardon me 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 ofall glorious deaths! Sir Thomas More--a very fine man was Sir ThomasMore--Sir Thomas More died laughing, you remember. Also in the_Absurdities_ of Ravisius Textor, there is a long list of characters whocame to the same magnificent end. Do you know, however,” continued hemusingly, ”that at Sparta (which is now Palae; ochori,) at Sparta, I say,to the west of the citadel, among a chaos of scarcely visible ruins, isa kind of _socle_, upon which are still legible the letters _AAEM_. Theyare undoubtedly part of _PEAAEMA_. Now, at Sparta were a thousand templesand shrines to a thousand different divinities. How exceedingly strangethat the altar of Laughter should have survived all the others! But inthe present instance,” he resumed, with a singular alteration of voiceand manner, ”I have no right to be merry at your expense. You might wellhave been amazed. Europe cannot produce anything so fine as this, mylittle regal cabinet. My other apartments are by no means of the sameorder--mere _ultras_ of fashionable insipidity. This is better thanfashion--is it not? Yet this has but to be seen to become the rage--thatis, with those who could afford it at the cost of their entirepatrimony. I have guarded, however, against any such profanation.With one exception, you are the only human being besides myself and my_valet_, who has been admitted within the mysteries of these imperialprecincts, since they have been bedizzened as you see!”
I bowed in acknowledgment--for the overpowering sense of splendor andperfume, and music, together with the unexpected eccentricity ofhis address and manner, prevented me from expressing, in words, myappreciation of what I might have construed into a compliment.
”Here,” he resumed, arising and leaning on my arm as he sauntered aroundthe apartment, ”here are paintings from the Greeks to Cimabue, and fromCimabue to the present hour. Many are chosen, as you see, with littledeference to the opinions of Virtu. They are all, however, fittingtapestry for a chamber such as this. Here, too, are some _chefsd'oeuvre_ of the unknown great; and here, unfinished designs by men,celebrated in their day, whose very names the perspicacity of theacademies has left to silence and to me. What think you,” said he,turning abruptly as he spoke--”what think you of this Madonna dellaPieta?”
”It is Guido's own!” I said, with all the enthusiasm of my nature, for Ihad been poring intently over its surpassing loveliness. ”It is Guido'sown!--how _could_ you have obtained it?--she is undoubtedly in paintingwhat the Venus is in sculpture.”
”Ha!” said he thoughtfully, ”the Venus--the beautiful Venus?--the Venusof the Medici?--she of the diminutive head and the gilded hair? Part ofthe 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 rightarm lies, I think, the quintessence of all affectation. Give _me_ theCanova! The Apollo, too, is a copy--there can be no doubt of it--blindfool that I am, who cannot behold the boasted inspiration of the Apollo!I cannot help--pity me!--I cannot help preferring the Antinous. Was itnot Socrates who said that the statuary found his statue in the block ofmarble? Then Michael Angelo was by no means original in his couplet--
'Non ha l'ottimo artista alcun concetto Che un marmo solo in se non circunscriva.'”
It has been, or should be remarked, that, in the manner of the truegentleman, we are always aware of a difference from the bearing of thevulgar, without being at once precisely able to determine in what suchdifference consists. Allowing the remark to have applied in its fullforce to the outward demeanor of my acquaintance, I felt it, on thateventful morning, still more fully applicable to his moral temperamentand character. Nor can I better define that peculiarity of spirit whichseemed to place him so essentially 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 momentsof dalliance--and interweaving itself with his very flashes ofmerriment--like adders which writhe from out the eyes of the grinningmasks in the cornices around the temples of Persepolis.
I could not help, however, repeatedly observing, through the mingledtone of levity and solemnity with which he rapidly descanted uponmatters of little importance, a certain air of trepidation--a degree ofnervous _unction_ in action and in speech--an unquiet excitability ofmanner which appeared to me at all times unaccountable, and upon someoccasions even filled me with alarm. Frequently, too, pausing in themiddle of a sentence whose commencement he had apparently forgotten,he seemed to be listening in the deepest attention, as if either inmomentary expectation of a visiter, or to sounds which must have hadexistence 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'sbeautiful tragedy ”The Orfeo,” (the first native Italian tragedy,)which lay near me upon an ottoman, I discovered a passage underlined inpencil. It was a passage towards the end of the third act--a passage ofthe most heart-stirring excitement--a passage which, although taintedwith impurity, no man shall read without a thrill of novel emotion--nowoman without a sigh. The whole page was blotted with fresh tears; and,upon the opposite interleaf, were the following English lines,written in a hand so very different from the peculiar characters of myacquaintance, that I had some difficulty in recognising it as his own:--
Thou wast that all to me, love, For which my soul did pine-- A green isle in the sea, love, A fountain and a shrine, All wreathed with fairy fruits and flowers; And all the flowers were mine. Ah, dream too bright to last! Ah, starry Hope, that didst arise But to be overcast! A voice from out the Future cries, ”Onward!”--but o'er the Past (Dim gulf!) my spirit hovering lies, Mute--motionless--aghast! For alas! alas! with me The light of life 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! Now all my hours are trances; And all my nightly dreams Are where the 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 hadnot believed their author acquainted--afforded me little matter forsurprise. I was too well aware of the extent of his acquirements, and ofthe singular pleasure he took in concealing them from observation, tobe astonished at any similar discovery; but the place of date, I mustconfess, occasioned me no little amazement. It had been originallywritten _London_, and afterwards carefully overscored--not, however, soeffectually as to conceal the word from a scrutinizing eye. I say, thisoccasioned me no little amazement; for I well remember that, in a formerconversation with a friend, I particularly inquired if he had at anytime met in London the Marchesa di Mentoni, (who for some years previousto her marriage had resided in that city,) when his answer, if I mistakenot, gave me to understand that he had never visited the metropolis ofGreat Britain. I might as well here mention, that I have more thanonce heard, (without, of course, giving credit to a reportinvolving so many improbabilities,) that the person of whom I speak, wasnot only by birth, but in education, an _Englishman_.
* * * * *
”There is one painting,” said he, without being aware of my notice ofthe tragedy--”there is still one painting which you have not seen.” Andthrowing aside a drapery, he discovered a full-length portrait of theMarchesa Aphrodite.
Human art could have done no more in the delineation of hersuperhuman beauty. The same ethereal figure which stood before me thepreceding night upon the steps of the Ducal Palace, stood before me onceagain. But in the expression of the countenance, which was beaming allover with smiles, there still lurked (incomprehensible anomaly!) thatfitful stain of melancholy which will ever be found inseparable from theperfection of the beautiful. Her right arm lay folded over her bosom.With her left she pointed downward to a curiously fashioned vase.One small, fairy foot, alone visible, barely touched the earth; and,scarcely discernible in the brilliant atmosphere which seemed toencircle and enshrine her loveliness, floated a pair of the mostdelicately imagined wings. My glance fell from the painting to thefigure of my friend, and the vigorous words of Chapman's _BussyD'Ambois_, quivered instinctively upon my lips:
”He is up 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 enamelledand massive silver, upon which were a few goblets fantasticallystained, together with two large Etruscan vases, fashioned in the sameextraordinary model as that in the foreground of the portrait, andfilled with what I supposed to be Johannisberger. ”Come,” he said,abruptly, ”let us drink! It is early--but let us drink. It is _indeed_early,” he continued, musingly, as a cherub with a heavy golden hammermade the apartment ring with the first hour after sunrise: ”It is_indeed_ early--but what matters it? let us drink! Let us pour out anoffering to yon solemn sun which these gaudy lamps and censers areso eager to subdue!” And, having made me pledge him in a bumper, heswallowed in rapid succession several goblets of the wine.
”To dream,” he continued, resuming the tone of his desultoryconversation, as he held up to the rich light of a censer one of themagnificent vases--”to dream has been the business of my life. I havetherefore framed for myself, as you see, a bower of dreams. In the heartof Venice could I have erected a better? You behold around you, it istrue, a medley of architectural embellishments. The chastity of Ioniais offended by antediluvian devices, and the sphynxes of Egypt areoutstretched upon carpets of gold. Yet the effect is incongruous tothe timid alone. Proprieties of place, and especially of time, arethe bugbears which terrify mankind from the contemplation of themagnificent. Once I was myself a decorist; but that sublimation of follyhas palled upon my soul. All this is now the fitter for my purpose. Likethese arabesque censers, my spirit is writhing in fire, and the deliriumof this scene is fashioning me for the wilder visions of that landof real dreams whither I am now rapidly departing.” He here pausedabruptly, bent his head to his bosom, and seemed to listen to a soundwhich I could not hear. At length, erecting his frame, he lookedupwards, and ejaculated the lines of the Bishop of Chichester:
_”Stay for me there! I will not fail_ _To meet thee in that hollow vale.”_
In the next instant, confessing the power of the wine, he threw himselfat full-length upon an ottoman.
A quick step was now heard upon the staircase, and a loud knock atthe door rapidly succeeded. I was hastening to anticipate a seconddisturbance, when a page of Mentoni's household burst into the room, andfaltered out, in a voice choking with emotion, the incoherent words,”My mistress!--my mistress!--Poisoned!--poisoned! Oh, beautiful--oh,beautiful Aphrodite!”
Bewildered, I flew to the ottoman, and endeavored to arouse the sleeperto a sense of the startling intelligence. But his limbs were rigid--hislips were livid--his lately beaming eyes were riveted in _death_.I staggered back towards the table--my hand fell upon a cracked andblackened goblet--and a consciousness of the entire and terrible truthflashed suddenly over my soul.