_
BOOK II - THE NEW LIGHT: CHAPTER 4
Professor Orazio Vivaldi, after filling with distinction the chair of
Philosophy at the University of Turin, had lately resigned his office
that he might have leisure to complete a long-contemplated work on the
Origin of Civilisation. His house was the meeting-place of a society
calling itself of the Honey-Bees and ostensibly devoted to the study of
the classical poets, from whose pages the members were supposed to cull
mellifluous nourishment; but under this guise the so-called literati had
for some time indulged in free discussion of religious and scientific
questions. The Academy of the Honey-Bees comprised among its members all
the independent thinkers of Turin: doctors of law, of philosophy and
medicine, chemists, philologists and naturalists, with one or two
members of the nobility, who, like Alfieri, felt, or affected, an
interest in the graver problems of life, and could be trusted not to
betray the true character of the association.
These details Odo learned the next day from Alfieri; who went on to say
that, owing to the increased vigilance of the government, and to the
banishment of several distinguished men accused by the Church of
heretical or seditious opinions, the Honey-Bees had of late been obliged
to hold their meetings secretly, it being even rumoured that Vivaldi,
who was their president, had resigned his professorship and withdrawn
behind the shelter of literary employment in order to elude the
observation of the authorities. Men had not yet forgotten the fate of
the Neapolitan historian, Pietro Giannone, who for daring to attack the
censorship and the growth of the temporal power had been driven from
Naples to Vienna, from Vienna back to Venice, and at length, at the
prompting of the Holy See, lured across the Piedmontese frontier by
Charles Emmanuel of Savoy, and imprisoned for life in the citadel of
Turin. The memory of his tragic history--most of all, perhaps, of his
recantation and the "devout ending" to which solitude and persecution
had forced the freest spirit of his day--hovered like a warning on the
horizon of thought and constrained political speculation to hide itself
behind the study of fashionable trifles. Alfieri had lately joined the
association of the Honey-Bees, and the Professor, at his suggestion, had
invited Odo, for whose discretion his friend declared himself ready to
answer. The Honey-Bees were in fact desirous of attracting young men of
rank who felt an interest in scientific or economic problems; for it was
hoped that in this manner the new ideas might imperceptibly permeate the
class whose privileges and traditions presented the chief obstacle to
reform. In France, it was whispered, free-thinkers and political
agitators were the honoured guests of the nobility, who eagerly embraced
their theories and applied them to the remedy of social abuses. Only by
similar means could the ideals of the Piedmontese reformers be realised;
and in those early days of universal illusion none appeared to suspect
the danger of arming inexperienced hands with untried weapons. Utopia
was already in sight; and all the world was setting out for it as for
some heavenly picnic ground.
Of Vivaldi himself, Alfieri spoke with extravagant admiration. His
affable exterior was said to conceal the moral courage of one of
Plutarch's heroes. He was a man after the antique pattern, ready to lay
down fortune, credit and freedom in the defence of his convictions. "An
Agamemnon," Alfieri exclaimed, "who would not hesitate to sacrifice his
daughter to obtain a favourable wind for his enterprise!"
The metaphor was perhaps scarcely to Odo's taste; but at least it gave
him the chance for which he had waited. "And the daughter?" he asked.
"The lovely doctoress?" said Alfieri carelessly. "Oh, she's one of your
prodigies of female learning, such as our topsy-turvy land produces: an
incipient Laura Bassi or Gaetana Agnesi, to name the most distinguished
of their tribe; though I believe that hitherto her father's good sense
or her own has kept her from aspiring to academic honours. The beautiful
Fulvia is a good daughter, and devotes herself, I'm told, to helping
Vivaldi in his work; a far more becoming employment for one of her age
and sex than defending Latin theses before a crew of ribald students."
In this Odo was of one mind with him; for though Italy was used to the
spectacle of the Improvisatrice and the female doctor of philosophy, it
is doubtful if the character was one in which any admirer cared to see
his divinity figure. Odo, at any rate, felt a distinct satisfaction in
learning that Fulvia Vivaldi had thus far made no public display of her
learning. How much pleasanter to picture her as her father's aid,
perhaps a sharer in his dreams: a vestal cherishing the flame of Liberty
in the secret sanctuary of the goddess! He scarce knew as yet of what
his feeling for the girl was compounded. The sentiment she had roused
was one for which his experience had no name: an emotion in which awe
mingled with an almost boyish sense of fellowship, sex as yet lurking
out of sight as in some hidden ambush. It was perhaps her association
with a world so unfamiliar and alluring that lent her for the moment her
greatest charm. Odo's imagination had been profoundly stirred by what he
had heard and seen at the meeting of the Honey-Bees. That impatience
with the vanity of his own pursuits and with the injustice of existing
conditions, which hovered like a phantom at the feast of life, had at
last found form and utterance. Parini's satires and the bitter mockery
of the "Frusta Letteraria" were but instruments of demolition; but the
arguments of the Professor's friends had that constructive quality so
appealing to the urgent temper of youth. Was the world in ruins? Then
here was a plan to rebuild it. Was humanity in chains? Behold the angel
on the threshold of the prison!
Odo, too impatient to await the next reunion of the Honey-Bees, sought
out and frequented those among the members whose conversation had
chiefly attracted him. They were grave men, of studious and retiring
habit, leading the frugal life of the Italian middle-class, a life in
dignified contrast to the wasteful and aimless existence of the
nobility. Odo's sensitiveness to outward impressions made him peculiarly
alive to this contrast. None was more open than he to the seducements of
luxurious living, the polish of manners, the tacit exclusion of all that
is ugly or distressing; but it seemed to him that fine living should be
but the flower of fine feeling, and that such external graces, when they
adorned a dull and vapid society, were as incongruous as the royal
purple on a clown. Among certain of his new friends he found a
clumsiness of manner somewhat absurdly allied with an attempt at Roman
austerity; but he was fair-minded enough to see that the middle-class
doctor or lawyer who tries to play the Cicero is, after all, a more
respectable figure than the Marquess who apes Caligula or Commodus.
Still, his lurking dilettantism made him doubly alive to the elegance of
the Palazzo Tournanches when he went thither from a coarse meal in the
stuffy dining-parlour of one of his new acquaintances; as he never
relished the discourse of the latter more than after an afternoon in the
society of the Countess's parasites.
Alfieri's allusions to the learned ladies for whom Italy was noted made
Odo curious to meet the wives and daughters of his new friends; for he
knew it was only in their class that women received something more than
the ordinary conventual education; and he felt a secret desire to
compare Fulvia Vivaldi with other young girls of her kind. Learned
ladies he met, indeed; for though the women-folk of some of the
philosophers were content to cook and darn for them (and perhaps
secretly burn a candle in their behalf to Saint Thomas Aquinas or Saint
Dominick, refuters of heresy), there were others who aspired to all the
honours of scholarship, and would order about their servant-girls in
Tuscan, and scold their babies in Ciceronian Latin. Among these fair
grammarians, however, he met none that wore her learning lightly. They
were forever tripping in the folds of their doctors' gowns, and
delivering their most trivial views ex cathedra; and too often the poor
philosophers, their lords and fathers, cowered under their harangues
like frightened boys under the tongue of a schoolmaster.
It was in fact only in the household of Orazio Vivaldi that Odo found
the simplicity and grace of living for which he longed. Alfieri had
warned him not to visit the Professor too often, since the latter, being
under observation, might be compromised by the assiduity of his friends.
Odo therefore waited for some days before presenting himself, and when
he did so it was at the angelus, when the streets were crowded and a
man's comings and goings the less likely to be marked. He found Vivaldi
reading with his daughter in the long library where the Honey-Bees held
their meetings; but Fulvia at once withdrew, nor did she show herself
again during Odo's visit. It was clear that, proud of her as Vivaldi
was, he had no wish to parade her attainments, and that in her daily
life she maintained the Italian habit of seclusion; but to Odo she was
everywhere present in the quiet room with its well-ordered books and
curiosities, and the scent of flowers rising through the shuttered
windows. He was sensible of an influence permeating even the inanimate
objects about him, so that they seemed to reflect the spirit of those
who dwelt there. No room had given him this sense of companionship since
he had spent his boyish holidays in the old Count Benedetto's
apartments; but it was of another, intangible world that his present
surroundings spoke. Vivaldi received him kindly and asked him to repeat
his visit; and Odo returned as often as he thought prudent.
The Professor's conversation engaged him deeply. Vivaldi's familiarity
with French speculative literature, and with its sources in the
experiential philosophy of the English school, gave Odo his first clear
conception of the origin and tendency of the new movement. This
coordination of scattered ideas was aided by his readings in the
Encyclopaedia, which, though placed on the Index in Piedmont, was to be
found behind the concealed panels of more than one private library. From
his talks with Alfieri, and from the pages of Plutarch, he had gained a
certain insight into the Stoical view of reason as the measure of
conduct, and of the inherent sufficiency of virtue as its own end. He
now learned that all about him men were endeavouring to restore the
human spirit to that lost conception of its dignity; and he longed to
join the band of new crusaders who had set out to recover the tomb of
truth from the forces of superstition. The distinguishing mark of
eighteenth-century philosophy was its eagerness to convert its
acquisitions in every branch of knowledge into instruments of practical
beneficence; and this quality appealed peculiarly to Odo, who had ever
been moved by abstract theories only as they explained or modified the
destiny of man. Vivaldi, pleased by his new pupil's eagerness to learn,
took pains to set before him this aspect of the struggle.
"You will now see," he said, after one of their long talks about the
Encyclopaedists, "why we who have at heart the mental and social
regeneration of our countrymen are so desirous of making a concerted
effort against the established system. It is only by united action that
we can prevail. The bravest mob of independent fighters has little
chance against a handful of disciplined soldiers, and the Church is
perfectly logical in seeing her chief danger in the Encyclopaedia's
systematised marshalling of scattered truths. As long as the attacks on
her authority were isolated, and as it were sporadic, she had little to
fear even from the assaults of genius; but the most ordinary intellect
may find a use and become a power in the ranks of an organised
opposition. Seneca tells us the slaves in ancient Rome were at one time
so numerous that the government prohibited their wearing a distinctive
dress lest they should learn their strength and discover that the city
was in their power; and the Church knows that when the countless spirits
she has enslaved without subduing have once learned their number and
efficiency they will hold her doctrines at their mercy.--The Church
again," he continued, "has proved her astuteness in making faith the
gift of grace and not the result of reason. By so doing she placed
herself in a position which was well-nigh impregnable till the school of
Newton substituted observation for intuition and his followers showed
with increasing clearness the inability of the human mind to apprehend
anything outside the range of experience. The ultimate claim of the
Church rests on the hypothesis of an intuitive faculty in man. Disprove
the existence of this faculty, and reason must remain the supreme test
of truth. Against reason the fabric of theological doctrine cannot long
hold out, and the Church's doctrinal authority once shaken, men will no
longer fear to test by ordinary rules the practical results of her
teaching. We have not joined the great army of truth to waste our time
in vain disputations over metaphysical subtleties. Our aim is, by
freeing the mind of man from superstition to relieve him from the
practical abuses it entails. As it is impossible to examine any fiscal
or industrial problem without discovering that the chief obstacle to
improvement lies in the Church's countless privileges and exemptions, so
in every department of human activity we find some inveterate wrong
taking shelter under the claim of a divinely-revealed authority. This
claim demolished, the stagnant current of human progress will soon burst
its barriers and set with a mighty rush toward the wide ocean of truth
and freedom..."
That general belief in the perfectibility of man which cheered the
eighteenth-century thinkers in their struggle for intellectual liberty
coloured with a delightful brightness this vision of a renewed humanity.
It threw its beams on every branch of research, and shone like an
aureole round those who laid down fortune and advancement to purchase
the new redemption of mankind. Foremost among these, as Odo now learned,
were many of his own countrymen. In his talks with Vivaldi he first
explored the course of Italian thought and heard the names of the great
jurists, Vico and Gravina, and of his own contemporaries, Filangieri,
Verri and Beccaria. Vivaldi lent him Beccaria's famous volume and
several numbers of the "Caffe," the brilliant gazette which Verri and
his associates were then publishing in Milan, and in which all the
questions of the day, theological, economic and literary, were discussed
with a freedom possible only under the lenient Austrian rule.
"Ah," Vivaldi cried, "Milan is indeed the home of the free spirit, and
were I not persuaded that a man's first duty is to improve the condition
of his own city and state, I should long ago have left this unhappy
kingdom; indeed I sometimes fancy I may yet serve my own people better
by proclaiming the truth openly at a distance than by whispering it in
their midst."
It was a surprise to Odo to learn that the new ideas had already taken
such hold in Italy, and that some of the foremost thinkers on scientific
and economic subjects were among his own countrymen. Like all
eighteenth-century Italians of his class he had been taught to look to
France as the source of all culture, intellectual and social; and he was
amazed to find that in jurisprudence, and in some of the natural
sciences, Italy led the learning of Europe.
Once or twice Fulvia showed herself for a moment; but her manner was
retiring and almost constrained, and her father always contrived an
excuse for dismissing her. This was the more noticeable as she continued
to appear at the meetings of the Honey-Bees, where she joined freely in
the conversation, and sometimes diverted the guests by playing on the
harpsichord or by recitations from the poets; all with such art and
grace, and withal so much simplicity, that it was clear she was
accustomed to the part. Odo was thus driven to the not unflattering
conclusion that she had been instructed to avoid his company; and after
the first disappointment he was too honest to regret it. He was deeply
drawn to the girl; but what part could she play in the life of a man of
his rank? The cadet of an impoverished house, it was unlikely that he
would marry; and should he do so, custom forbade even the thought of
taking a wife outside of his class. Had he been admitted to free
intercourse with Fulvia, love might have routed such prudent counsels;
but in the society of her father's associates, where she moved, as in a
halo of learning, amid the respectful admiration of middle-aged
philosophers and jurists, she seemed as inaccessible as a young Minerva.
Odo, at first, had been careful not to visit Vivaldi too often; but the
Professor's conversation was so instructive, and his library so
inviting, that inclination got the better of prudence, and the young man
fell into the habit of turning almost daily down the lane behind the
Corpus Domini. Vivaldi, too proud to betray any concern for his personal
safety, showed no sign of resenting the frequency of these visits;
indeed, he received Odo with an increasing cordiality that, to an older
observer, might have betokened an effort to hide his apprehension.
One afternoon, escaping later than usual from the Valentino, Odo had
again bent toward the quiet quarter behind the palace. He was afoot,
with a cloak over his laced coat, and the day being Easter Monday the
streets were filled with a throng of pleasure-seekers amid whom it
seemed easy enough for a man to pass unnoticed. Odo, as he crossed the
Piazza Castello, thought it had never presented a gayer scene. Booths
with brightly-striped awnings had been set up under the arcades, which
were thronged with idlers of all classes; court-coaches dashed across
the square or rolled in and out of the palace-gates; and the Palazzo
Madama, lifting against the sunset its ivory-tinted columns and statues,
seemed rather some pictured fabric of Claude's or Bibbiena's than an
actual building of brick and marble. The turn of a corner carried him
from this spectacle into the solitude of a by-street where his own tread
was the only sound. He walked on carelessly; but suddenly he heard what
seemed an echo of his step. He stopped and faced about. No one was in
sight but a blind beggar crouching at the side-door of the Corpus
Domini. Odo walked on, listening, and again he heard the step, and again
turned to find himself alone. He tried to fancy that his ear had tricked
him; but he knew too much of the subtle methods of Italian espionage not
to feel a secret uneasiness. His better judgment warned him back; but
the desire to spend a pleasant hour prevailed. He took a turn through
the neighbouring streets, in the hope of diverting suspicion, and ten
minutes later was at the Professor's gate.
It opened at once, and to his amazement Fulvia stood before him. She had
thrown a black mantle over her head, and her face looked pale and vivid
in the fading light. Surprise for a moment silenced Odo, and before he
could speak the girl, without pausing to close the gate, had drawn him
toward her and flung her arms about his neck. In the first disorder of
his senses he was conscious only of seeking her lips; but an instant
later he knew it was no kiss of love that met his own, and he felt her
tremble violently in his arms. He saw in a flash that he was on unknown
ground; but his one thought was that Fulvia was in trouble and looked to
him for aid. He gently freed himself from her hold and tried to shape a
soothing question; but she caught his arm and, laying a hand over his
mouth, drew him across the garden and into the house. The lower floor
stood dark and empty. He followed Fulvia up the stairs and into the
library, which was also empty. The shutters stood wide, admitting the
evening freshness and a drowsy scent of jasmine from the garden.
Odo could not control a thrill of strange anticipation as he found
himself alone in this silent room with the girl whose heart had so
lately beat against his own. She had sunk into a chair, with her face
hidden, and for a moment or two he stood before her without speaking.
Then he knelt at her side and took her hands with a murmur of
endearment.
At his touch she started up. "And it was I," she cried, "who persuaded
my father that he might trust you!" And she sank back sobbing.
Odo rose and moved away, waiting for her overwrought emotion to subside.
At length he gently asked, "Do you wish me to leave you?"
She raised her head. "No," she said firmly, though her lip still
trembled; "you must first hear an explanation of my conduct; though it
is scarce possible," she added, flushing to the brow, "that you have not
already guessed the purpose of this lamentable comedy."
"I guess nothing," he replied, "save that perhaps I may in some way
serve you."
"Serve me?" she cried, with a flash of anger through her tears. "It is a
late hour to speak of service, after what you have brought on this
house!"
Odo turned pale. "Here indeed, madam," said he, "are words that need an
explanation."
"Oh," she broke forth, "and you shall have it; though I think to any
other it must be writ large upon my countenance." She rose and paced the
floor impetuously. "Is it possible," she began again, "you do not yet
perceive the sense of that execrable scene? Or do you think, by feigning
ignorance, to prolong my humiliation? Oh," she said, pausing before him,
her breast in a tumult, her eyes alight, "it was I who persuaded my
father of your discretion and prudence, it was through my influence that
he opened himself to you so freely; and is this the return you make?
Alas, why did you leave your fashionable friends and a world in which
you are so fitted to shine, to bring unhappiness on an obscure household
that never dreamed of courting your notice?"
As she stood before him in her radiant anger, it went hard with Odo not
to silence with a kiss a resentment that he guessed to be mainly
directed against herself; but he controlled himself and said quietly:
"Madam, I were a dolt not to perceive that I have had the misfortune to
offend; but when or how, I swear to heaven I know not; and till you
enlighten me I can neither excuse nor defend myself."
She turned pale, but instantly recovered her composure. "You are right,"
she said; "I rave like a foolish girl; but indeed I scarce know if I am
in my waking senses"--She paused, as if to check a fresh rush of
emotion. "Oh, sir," she cried, "can you not guess what has happened? You
were warned, I believe, not to frequent this house too openly; but of
late you have been an almost daily visitor, and you never come here but
you are followed. My father's doctrines have long been under suspicion,
and to be accused of perverting a man of your rank must be his ruin. He
was too proud to tell you this, and profiting today by his absence, and
knowing that if you came the spies would be at your heels, I resolved to
meet you at the gate, and welcome you in such a way that our enemies
should be deceived as to the true cause of your visits."
Her voice wavered on the last words, but she faced him proudly, and it
was Odo whose gaze fell. Never perhaps had he been conscious of cutting
a meaner figure; yet shame was so blent in him with admiration for the
girl's nobility and courage, that compunction was swept away in the
impulse that flung him at her feet.
"Ah," he cried, "I have been blind indeed, and what you say abases me to
earth. Yes, I was warned that my visits might compromise your father;
nor had I any pretext for returning so often but my own selfish pleasure
in his discourse; or so at least," he added in a lower voice, "I chose
to fancy--but when we met just now at the gate, if you acted a comedy,
believe me, I did not; and if I have come day after day to this house,
it is because, unknowingly, I came for you."
The words had escaped him unawares, and he was too sensible of their
untimeliness not to be prepared for the gesture with which she cut him
short.
"Oh," said she, in a tone of the liveliest reproach, "spare me this last
affront if you wish me to think the harm you have already done was done
unknowingly!"
Odo rose to his feet, tingling under the rebuke. "If respect and
admiration be an affront, madam," he said, "I cannot remain in your
presence without offending, and nothing is left me but to withdraw; but
before going I would at least ask if there is no way of repairing the
harm that my over-assiduity has caused."
She flushed high at the question. "Why, that," she said, "is in part, I
trust, already accomplished; indeed," she went on with an effort, "it
was when I learned the authorities suspected you of coming here on a
gallant adventure that I devised the idea of meeting you at the gate;
and for the rest, sir, the best reparation you can make is one that will
naturally suggest itself to a gentleman whose time must already be so
fully engaged."
And with that she made him a deep reverence, and withdrew to the inner
room.
Content of BOOK II - THE NEW LIGHT: CHAPTER 4 [Edith Wharton's novel: The Valley Of Decision]
_