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BOOK III - THE CHOICE: CHAPTER 3
On the upper terrace a dozen lacqueys with wax lights hastened out to
receive the travellers. A laughing group followed, headed by a tall
vivacious woman covered with jewels, whom Odo guessed to be the
Procuratessa Bra. The Marquess, hastening forward, kissed the lady's
hand, and turned to summon the actors, who hung back at the farther end
of the terrace. The light from the windows and from the lacquey's tapers
fell full on the motley band, and Odo, roused to the singularity of his
position, was about to seek shelter behind the Pantaloon when he heard a
cry of recognition, and Mirandolina, darting out of the Procuratessa's
circle, fell at that lady's feet with a whispered word.
The Procuratessa at once advanced with a smile of surprise and bade the
Cavaliere Valsecca welcome. Seeing Odo's embarrassment, she added that
his Highness of Monte Alloro had already apprised her of the cavaliere's
coming, and that she and her husband had the day before despatched a
messenger to Venice to enquire if he were already there to invite him to
the villa. At the same moment a middle-aged man with an air of careless
kindly strength emerged from the house and greeted Odo.
"I am happy," said he bowing, "to receive at Bellocchio a member of the
princely house of Pianura; and your excellency will no doubt be as
well-pleased as ourselves that accident enables us to make acquaintance
without the formalities of an introduction."
This, then, was the famous Procuratore Bra, whose house had given three
Doges to Venice, and who was himself regarded as the most powerful if
not the most scrupulous noble of his day. Odo had heard many tales of
his singularities, for in a generation of elegant triflers his figure
stood out with the ruggedness of a granite boulder in a clipped and
gravelled garden. To hereditary wealth and influence he added a love of
power seconded by great political sagacity and an inflexible will. If
his means were not always above suspicion they at least tended to
statesmanlike ends, and in his public capacity he was faithful to the
highest interests of the state. Reports differed as to his private use
of his authority. He was noted for his lavish way of living, and for a
hospitality which distinguished him from the majority of his class, who,
however showy in their establishments, seldom received strangers, and
entertained each other only on the most ceremonious occasions. The
Procuratore kept open house both in Venice and on the Brenta, and in his
drawing-rooms the foreign traveller was welcomed as freely as in Paris
or London. Here, too, were to be met the wits, musicians and literati
whom a traditional morgue still excluded from many aristocratic houses.
Yet in spite of his hospitality (or perhaps because of it) the
Procuratore, as Odo knew, was the butt of the very poets he entertained,
and the worst satirised man in Venice. It was his misfortune to be in
love with his wife; and this state of mind (in itself sufficiently
ridiculous) and the shifts and compromises to which it reduced him, were
a source of endless amusement to the humorists. Nor were graver rumours
wanting; for it was known that the Procuratore, so proof against other
persuasions, was helpless in his wife's hands, and that honest men had
been undone and scoundrels exalted at a nod of the beautiful
Procuratessa. That lady, as famous in her way as her husband, was noted
for quite different qualities; so that, according to one satirist, her
hospitality began where his ended, and the Albergo Bra (the nickname
their palace went by) was advertised in the lampoons of the day as
furnishing both bed and board. In some respects, however, the tastes of
the noble couple agreed, both delighting in music, wit, good company,
and all the adornments of life; while, with regard to their private
conduct, it doubtless suffered by being viewed through the eyes of a
narrow and trivial nobility, apt to look with suspicion on any deviation
from the customs of their class. Such was the household in which Odo
found himself unexpectedly included. He learned that his hosts were in
the act of entertaining the English Duke who had captured his burchiello
that morning; and having exchanged his travelling-dress for a more
suitable toilet he was presently conducted to the private theatre where
the company had gathered to witness an improvised performance by
Mirandolina and the newly-arrived actors.
The Procuratessa at once beckoned him to the row of gilt armchairs where
she sat with the noble Duke and several ladies of distinction. The
little theatre sparkled with wax-lights reflected in the facets of glass
chandeliers and in the jewels of the richly-habited company, and Odo was
struck by the refined brilliancy of the scene. Before he had time to
look about him the curtains of the stage were drawn back, and
Mirandolina flashed into view, daring and radiant as ever, and dressed
with an elegance which spoke well for the liberality of her new
protector. She was as much at her ease as before the vulgar audience of
Vercelli, and spite of the distinguished eyes fixed upon her, her smiles
and sallies were pointedly addressed to Odo. This made him the object of
the Procuratessa's banter, but had an opposite effect on the Marquess,
who fixed him with an irritated eye and fidgeted restlessly in his seat
as the performance went on.
When the curtain fell the Procuratessa led the company to the circular
saloon which, as in most villas of the Venetian mainland, formed the
central point of the house. If Odo had been charmed by the graceful
decorations of the theatre, he was dazzled by the airy splendour of this
apartment. Dance-music was pouring from the arched recesses above the
doorways, and chandeliers of coloured Murano glass diffused a soft
brightness over the pilasters of the stuccoed walls, and the floor of
inlaid marbles on which couples were rapidly forming for the
contradance. His eye, however, was soon drawn from these to the ceiling
which overarched the dancers with what seemed like an Olympian revel
reflected in sunset clouds. Over the gilt balustrade surmounting the
cornice lolled the figures of fauns, bacchantes, nereids and tritons,
hovered over by a cloud of amorini blown like rose-leaves across a rosy
sky, while in the centre of the dome Apollo burst in his chariot through
the mists of dawn, escorted by a fantastic procession of the human
races. These alien subjects of the sun--a fur-clad Laplander, a turbaned
figure on a dromedary, a blackamoor and a plumed American Indian--were
in turn surrounded by a rout of Maenads and Silenuses, whose flushed
advance was checked by the breaking of cool green waves, through which
boys wreathed with coral and seaweed disported themselves among shoals
of flashing dolphins. It was as though the genius of Pleasure had poured
all the riches of his inexhaustible realm on the heads of the revellers
below.
The Procuratessa brought Odo to earth by remarking that it was a
master-piece of the divine Tiepolo he was admiring. She added that at
Bellocchio all formalities were dispensed with, and begged him to
observe that, in the rooms opening into the saloon, recreations were
provided for every taste. In one of these apartments silver trays were
set out with sherbets, cakes, and fruit cooled in snow, while in another
stood gaming-tables around which the greater number of the company were
already gathering for tresette. A third room was devoted to music; and
hither Mirandolina, who was evidently allowed a familiarity of
intercourse not accorded to the other comedians, had withdrawn with the
pacified Marquess, and perched on the arm of a high gilt chair was
pinching the strings of a guitar and humming the first notes of a
boatman's song...
After completing the circuit of the rooms Odo stepped out on the
terrace, which was now bathed in the whiteness of a soaring moon. The
colonnades detached against silver-misted foliage, the gardens
spectrally outspread, seemed to enclose him in a magic circle of
loveliness which the first ray of daylight must dispel. He wandered on,
drawn to the depths of shade on the lower terraces. The hush grew
deeper, the murmur of the river more mysterious. A yew-arbour invited
him and he seated himself on the bench niched in its inmost dusk. Seen
through the black arch of the arbour the moonlight lay like snow on
parterres and statues. He thought of Maria Clementina, and of the
delight she would have felt in such a scene as he had just left. Then
the remembrance of Mirandolina's blandishments stole over him and spite
of himself he smiled at the Marquess's discomfiture. Though he was in no
humour for an intrigue his fancy was not proof against the romance of
his surroundings, and it seemed to him that Miranda's eyes had never
been so bright or her smile so full of provocation. No wonder Frattanto
followed her like a lost soul and the Marquess abandoned Rome and
Baalbec to sit at the feet of such a teacher! Had not that light
philosopher after all chosen the true way and guessed the Sphinx's
riddle? Why should today always be jilted for tomorrow, sensation
sacrificed to thought?
As he sat revolving these questions the yew-branches seemed to stir, and
from some deeper recess of shade a figure stole to his side. He started,
but a hand was laid on his lips and he was gently forced back into his
seat. Dazzled by the outer moonlight he could just guess the outline of
the figure pressed against his own. He sat speechless, yielding to the
charm of the moment, till suddenly he felt a rapid kiss and the visitor
vanished as mysteriously as she had come. He sprang up to follow, but
inclination failed with his first step. Let the spell of mystery remain
unbroken! He sank down on the seat again lulled by dreamy musings...
When he looked up the moonlight had faded and he felt a chill in the
air. He walked out on the terrace. The moon hung low and the tree-tops
were beginning to tremble. The villa-front was grey, with oblongs of
yellow light marking the windows of the ball-room. As he looked up at
it, the dance-music ceased and not a sound was heard but the stir of the
foliage and the murmur of the river against its banks. Then, from a
loggia above the central portico, a woman's clear contralto notes took
flight:
Before the yellow dawn is up,
With pomp of shield and shaft,
Drink we of Night's fast-ebbing cup
One last delicious draught.
The shadowy wine of Night is sweet,
With subtle slumbrous fumes
Crushed by the Hours' melodious feet
From bloodless elder-blooms...
The days at Bellocchio passed in a series of festivities. The mornings
were spent in drinking chocolate, strolling in the gardens and visiting
the fish-ponds, meanders and other wonders of the villa; thence the
greater number of guests were soon drawn to the card-tables, from which
they rose only to dine; and after an elaborate dinner prepared by a
French cook the whole company set out to explore the country or to
exchange visits with the hosts of the adjoining villas. Each evening
brought some fresh diversion: a comedy or an operetta in the miniature
theatre, an al fresco banquet on the terrace or a ball attended by the
principal families of the neighbourhood. Odo soon contrived to reassure
the Marquess as to his designs upon Miranda, and when Coeur-Volant was
not at cards the two young men spent much of their time together. The
Marquess was never tired of extolling the taste and ingenuity with which
the Venetians planned and carried out their recreations. "Nature
herself," said he, "seems the accomplice of their merry-making, and in
no other surroundings could man's natural craving for diversion find so
graceful and poetic an expression."
The scene on which they looked out seemed to confirm his words. It was
the last evening of their stay at Bellocchio, and the Procuratessa had
planned a musical festival on the river. Festoons of coloured lanterns
wound from the portico to the water; and opposite the landing lay the
Procuratore's Bucentaur, a great barge hung with crimson velvet. In the
prow were stationed the comedians, in airy mythological dress, and as
the guests stepped on board they were received by Miranda, a rosy Venus
who, escorted by Mars and Adonis, recited an ode composed by Cantapresto
in the Procuratessa's honour. A banquet was spread in the deck-house,
which was hung with silk arras and Venetian mirrors, and, while the
guests feasted, dozens of little boats hung with lights and filled with
musicians flitted about the Bucentaur like a swarm of musical
fireflies...
The next day Odo accompanied the Procuratessa to Venice. Had he been a
traveller from beyond the Alps he could hardly have been more unprepared
for the spectacle that awaited him. In aspect and customs Venice
differed almost as much from other Italian cities as from those of the
rest of Europe. From the fanciful stone embroidery of her churches and
palaces to a hundred singularities in dress and manners--the
full-bottomed wigs and long gowns of the nobles, the black mantles and
head-draperies of the ladies, the white masks worn abroad by both sexes,
the publicity of social life under the arcades of the Piazza, the
extraordinary freedom of intercourse in the casini, gaming-rooms and
theatres--the city proclaimed, in every detail of life and architecture,
her independence of any tradition but her own. This was the more
singular as Saint Mark's square had for centuries been the meeting-place
of East and West, and the goal of artists, scholars and pleasure-seekers
from all parts of the world. Indeed, as Coeur-Volant pointed out, the
Venetian customs almost appeared to have been devised for the
convenience of strangers. The privilege of going masked at almost all
seasons and the enforced uniformity of dress, which in itself provided a
kind of incognito, made the place singularly favourable to every kind of
intrigue and amusement; while the mild temper of the people and the
watchfulness of the police prevented the public disorders that such
license might have occasioned. These seeming anomalies abounded on every
side. From the gaming-table where a tinker might set a ducat against a
prince it was but a few steps to the Broglio, or arcade under the ducal
palace, into which no plebeian might intrude while the nobility walked
there. The great ladies, who were subject to strict sumptuary laws, and
might not display their jewels or try the new French fashions but on the
sly, were yet privileged at all hours to go abroad alone in their
gondolas. No society was more haughty and exclusive in its traditions,
yet the mask leveled all classes and permitted, during the greater part
of the year, an equality of intercourse undreamed of in other cities;
while the nobles, though more magnificently housed than in any other
capital of Europe, generally sought amusement at the public casini or
assembly-rooms instead of receiving company in their own palaces. Such
were but a few of the contradictions in a city where the theatres were
named after the neighbouring churches, where there were innumerable
religious foundations but scarce an ecclesiastic to be met in company,
and where the ladies of the laity dressed like nuns, while the nuns in
the aristocratic convents went in gala habits and with uncovered heads.
No wonder that to the bewildered stranger the Venetians seemed to keep
perpetual carnival and Venice herself to be as it were the mere stage of
some huge comic interlude.
To Odo the setting was even more astonishing than the performance. Never
had he seen pleasure and grace so happily allied, all the arts of life
so combined in the single effort after enjoyment. Here was not a mere
tendency to linger on the surface, but the essence of superficiality
itself; not an ignoring of what lies beneath, but an elimination of it;
as though all human experience should be beaten thin and spread out
before the eye like some brilliant tenuous plaque of Etruscan gold. And
in this science of pleasure--mere jeweller's work though it were--the
greatest artists had collaborated, each contributing his page to the
philosophy of enjoyment in the form of some radiant allegory flowering
from palace wall or ceiling like the enlarged reflection of the life
beneath it. Nowhere was the mind arrested by a question or an idea.
Thought slunk away like an unmasked guest at the ridotto. Sensation
ruled supreme, and each moment was an iridescent bubble fresh-blown from
the lips of fancy.
Odo brought to the spectacle the humour best fitted for its enjoyment.
His weariness and discouragement sought refuge in the emotional
satisfaction of the hour. Here at least the old problem of living had
been solved, and from the patrician taking the air in his gondola to the
gondolier himself, gambling and singing on the water-steps of his
master's palace, all seemed equally satisfied with the solution. Now if
ever was the time to cry "halt!" to the present, to forget the travelled
road and take no thought for the morrow...
The months passed rapidly and agreeably. The Procuratessa was the most
amiable of guides, and in her company Odo enjoyed the best that Venice
had to offer, from the matchless music of the churches and hospitals to
the petits soupers in the private casini of the nobility; while
Coeur-Volant and Castelrovinato introduced him to scenes where even a
lady of the Procuratessa's intrepidity might not venture.
Such a life left little time for thoughtful pleasures; nor did Odo find
in the society about him any sympathy with his more personal tastes. At
first he yielded willingly enough to the pressure of his surroundings,
glad to escape from thoughts of the past and speculations about the
future; but it was impossible for him to lose his footing in such an
element, and at times he felt the lack of such companionship as de
Crucis had given him. There was no society in Venice corresponding with
the polished circles of Milan or Naples, or with the academic class in
such University towns as Padua and Pavia. The few Venetians destined to
be remembered among those who had contributed to the intellectual
advancement of Italy vegetated in obscurity, suffering not so much from
religious persecution--for the Inquisition had little power in
Venice--as from the incorrigible indifference of a society which ignored
all who did not contribute to its amusement. Odo indeed might have
sought out these unhonoured prophets, but that all the influences about
him set the other way, and that he was falling more and more into the
habit of running with the tide. Now and then, however, a vague ennui
drove him to one of the bookshops which, throughout Italy were the chief
meeting-places of students and authors. On one of these occasions the
dealer invited him into a private room where he kept some rare volumes,
and here Odo was surprised to meet Andreoni, the liberal bookseller of
Pianura.
Andreoni at first seemed somewhat disconcerted by the meeting; but
presently recovering his confidence, he told Odo that he had been
recently banished from Pianura, the cause of his banishment being the
publication of a book on taxation that was supposed to reflect on the
fiscal system of the duchy. Though he did not name the author, Odo at
once suspected Gamba; but on his enquiring if the latter had also been
banished, Andreoni merely replied that he had been dismissed from his
post, and had left Pianura. The bookseller went on to say that he had
come to Venice with the idea of setting up his press either there or in
Padua, where his wife's family lived. Odo was eager to hear more; but
Andreoni courteously declined to wait on him at his lodgings, on the
plea that it might harm them both to be seen together. They agreed,
however, to meet in San Zaccaria after low mass the next morning, and
here Andreoni gave Odo a fuller report of recent events in the duchy.
It appeared that in the incessant see-saw of party influences the Church
had once more gained on the liberals. Trescorre was out of favour, the
Dominican had begun to show his hand more openly, and the Duke, more
than ever apprehensive about his health, was seeking to conciliate
heaven by his renewed persecution of the reformers. In the general
upheaval even Crescenti had nearly lost his place; and it was rumoured
that he kept it only through the intervention of the Pope, who had
represented to the Duke that the persecution of a scholar already famous
throughout Europe would reflect little credit on the Church.
As for Gamba, Andreoni, though unwilling to admit a knowledge of his
exact whereabouts, assured Odo that he was well and had not lost
courage. At court matters remained much as usual. The Duchess,
surrounded by her familiars, had entered on a new phase of mad
expenditure, draining the exchequer to indulge her private whims,
filling her apartments with mountebanks and players, and borrowing from
courtiers and servants to keep her creditors from the door. Trescorre
was no longer able to check her extravagance, and his influence with the
Duke being on the wane, the court was once more the scene of unseemly
scandals and disorders.
The only new figure to appear there since Odo's departure was that of
the little prince's governor, who had come from Rome a few months
previously to superintend the heir's education, which was found to have
been grievously neglected under his former masters. This was an
ecclesiastic, an ex-Jesuit as some said, but without doubt a man of
parts, and apparently of more tolerant views than the other churchmen
about the court.
"But," Andreoni added, "your excellency may chance to recall him; for he
is the same abate de Crucis who was sent to Pianura by the Holy Office
to arrest the German astrologer."
Odo heard him with surprise. He had had no news of de Crucis since their
parting in Rome, where, as he supposed, the latter was to remain for
some years in the service of Prince Bracciano. Odo was at a loss to
conceive how or why the Jesuit had come to Pianura; but, whatever his
reasons for being there, it was certain that his influence must make
itself felt far beyond the range of his immediate duties. Whether this
influence would be exerted for good or ill it was impossible to
forecast; but much as Odo admired de Crucis, he could not forget that
the Jesuit, by his own avowal, was still the servant of the greatest
organised opposition to moral and intellectual freedom that the world
had ever known. That this opposition was not always actively manifested
Odo was well aware. He knew that the Jesuit spirit moved in many
directions and that its action was often more beneficial than that of
its opponents; but it remained an incalculable element in the
composition of human affairs, and one the more to be feared since, in
ceasing to have a material existence, it had acquired the dread
pervasiveness of an idea.
With the Epiphany the wild carnival-season set in. Nothing could surpass
the excesses of this mad time. All classes seemed bitten by the
tarantula of mirth, every gondola hid an intrigue, the patrician's
tabarro concealed a noble lady, the feminine hood and cloak a young
spark bent on mystification, the friar's habit a man of pleasure and the
nun's veil a lady of the town. The Piazza swarmed with merry-makers of
all degrees. The square itself was taken up by the booths of hucksters,
rope-dancers and astrologers, while promenaders in travesty thronged the
arcades, and the ladies of the nobility, in their white masks and black
zendaletti, surveyed the scene from the windows of the assembly-rooms in
the Procuratie, or, threading the crowd on the arms of their gallants,
visited the various peep-shows and flocked about the rhinoceros
exhibited in a great canvas tent in the Piazzetta. The characteristic
contrasts of Venetian life seemed to be emphasised by the vagaries of
the carnival, and Odo never ceased to be diverted by the sight of a long
line of masqueraders in every kind of comic disguise kneeling devoutly
before the brilliantly-lit shrine of the Virgin under the arches of the
Procuratie, while the friar who led their devotions interrupted his
litany whenever the quack on an adjoining platform began to bawl through
a tin trumpet the praise of his miraculous pills.
The mounting madness culminated on Giovedi Grasso, the last Thursday
before Lent, when the Piazzetta became the scene of ceremonies in which
the Doge himself took part. These opened with the decapitation of three
bulls: a rite said to commemorate some long-forgotten dispute between
the inveterate enemies, Venice and Aquileia. The bulls, preceded by
halberdiers and trumpeters, and surrounded by armed attendants, were led
in state before the ducal palace, and the executioner, practised in his
bloody work, struck off each head with a single stroke of his huge
sword. This slaughter was succeeded by pleasanter sights, such as the
famous Vola, or flight of a boy from the bell-tower of Saint Mark's to a
window of the palace, where he presented a nosegay to his Serenity and
was caught up again to his airy vaulting-ground. After this ingenious
feat came another called the "Force of Hercules," given by a band of
youths who, building themselves into a kind of pyramid, shifted their
postures with inexhaustible agility, while bursts of fireworks wove
yellow arches through the midday light. Meanwhile the crowds in the
streets fled this way and that as a throng of uproarious young fellows
drove before them the bulls that were to be baited in the open squares;
and wherever a recessed doorway or the angle of a building afforded
shelter from the rout, some posture-maker or ballad-singer had gathered
a crowd about his carpet.
Ash Wednesday brought about a dramatic transformation. Every travesty
laid aside, every tent and stall swept away, the people again gathered
in the Piazza to receive the ashes of penitence on their heads, the
churches now became the chief centres of interest. Venice was noted for
her sacred music and for the lavish illumination of her favourite
shrines and chapels; and few religious spectacles were more impressive
than the Forty Hours' devotion in the wealthier churches of the city.
All the magic of music, painting and sculpture were combined in the
service of religion, and Odo's sense of the dramatic quality of the
Catholic rites found gratification in the moving scenes where, amid the
imperishable splendours of his own creation, man owned himself but dust.
Never before had he been so alive to the symbolism of the penitential
season, so awed by the beauty and symmetry of that great structure of
the Liturgical Year that leads the soul up, step by step, to the awful
heights of Calvary. The very carelessness of those about him seemed to
deepen the solemnity of the scenes enacted--as though the Church, after
all her centuries of dominion, were still, as in those early days, but a
voice crying in the wilderness.
The Easter bells ushered in the reign of another spirit. If the carnival
folly was spent, the joy of returning life replaced it. After the winter
diversions of cards, concerts and theatres, came the excursions to the
island-gardens of the lagoon and the evening promenade of the fresca on
the Grand Canal. Now the palace-windows were hung with awnings, the
oleanders in the balconies grew rosy against the sea-worn marble, and
yellow snap-dragons blossomed from the crumbling walls. The market-boats
brought early fruits and vegetables from the Brenta and roses and
gilly-flowers from the Paduan gardens; and when the wind set from shore
it carried with it the scent of lime-blossoms and flowering fields. Now
also was the season when the great civic and religious processions took
place, dyeing the water with sunset hues as they swept from the steps of
the Piazzetta to San Giorgio, the Redentore or the Salute. In the
fashionable convents the nuns celebrated the festivals of their patron
saints with musical and dramatic entertainments to which secular
visitors were invited. These entertainments were a noted feature of
Venetian life, and the subject of much scandalous comment among visitors
from beyond the Alps. The nuns of the stricter orders were as closely
cloistered as elsewhere; but in the convents of Santa Croce, Santa
Chiara, and a few others, mostly filled by the daughters of the
nobility, an unusual liberty prevailed. It was known that the inmates
had taken the veil for family reasons, and to the indulgent Venetian
temper it seemed natural that their seclusion should be made as little
irksome as possible. As a rule the privileges accorded to the nuns
consisted merely in their being allowed to receive visits in the
presence of a lay-sister, and to perform in concerts on the feast-days
of the order; but some few convents had a name for far greater license,
and it was a common thing for the noble libertine returned from Italy to
boast of his intrigue with a Venetian nun.
Odo, in the Procuratessa's train, had of course visited many of the
principal convents. Whether it were owing to the malicious pleasure of
contrasting their own state with that of their cloistered sisters, or to
the discreet shelter which the parlour afforded to their private
intrigues, the Venetian ladies were exceedingly partial to these visits.
The Procuratessa was no exception to the rule, and as was natural to one
of her complexion, she preferred the convents where the greatest freedom
prevailed. Odo, however, had hitherto found little to tempt him in these
glimpses of forbidden fruit. The nuns, though often young and pretty,
had the insipidity of women secluded from the passions and sorrows of
life without being raised above them; and he preferred the frank
coarseness of the Procuratessa's circle to the simpering graces of the
cloister.
Even Coeur-Volant's mysterious boast of a conquest he had made among the
sisters failed to excite his friend's curiosity. The Marquess, though
still devoted to Miranda, was too much the child of his race not to seek
variety in his emotions; indeed he often declared that the one fault of
the Italian character was its unimaginative fidelity in love-affairs.
"Does a man," he asked, "dine off one dish at a gourmet's banquet? And
why should I restrict myself to one course at the most richly-spread
table in Europe? One must love at least two women to appreciate either;
and, did the silly creatures but know it, a rival becomes them like a
patch."
Sister Mary of the Crucifix, he went on to explain, possessed the very
qualities that Miranda lacked. The daughter of a rich nobleman of
Treviso, she was skilled in music, drawing and all the operations of the
needle, and was early promised in marriage to a young man whose estates
adjoined her father's. The jealousy of a younger sister, who was
secretly in love with the suitor, caused her to accuse Coeur-Volant's
mistress of misconduct and thus broke off the marriage; and the unhappy
girl, repudiated by her bridegroom, was at once despatched to a convent
in Venice. Enraged at her fate, she had repeatedly appealed to the
authorities to release her; but her father's wealth and influence
prevailed against all her efforts. The abbess, however, felt such pity
for her that she was allowed more freedom than the other nuns, with whom
her wit and beauty made her a favourite in spite of her exceptional
privileges. These, as Coeur-Volant hinted, included the liberty of
leaving the convent after night-fall to visit her friends; and he
professed to be one of those whom she had thus honoured. Always eager to
have his good taste ratified by the envy of his friends, he was urgent
with Odo to make the lady's acquaintance, and it was agreed that, on the
first favourable occasion, a meeting should take place at Coeur-Volant's
casino. The weeks elapsed, however, without Odo's hearing further of the
matter, and it had nearly passed from his mind when one August day he
received word that the Marquess hoped for his company that evening.
He was in that mood of careless acquiescence when any novelty invites,
and the heavy warmth of the summer night seemed the accomplice of his
humour. Cloaked and masked, he stepped into his gondola and was swept
rapidly along the Grand Canal and through winding channels to the
Giudecca. It was close on midnight and all Venice was abroad. Gondolas
laden with musicians and hung with coloured lamps lay beneath the palace
windows or drifted out on the oily reaches of the lagoon. There was no
moon, and the side-canals were dark and noiseless but for the hundreds
of caged nightingales that made every byway musical. As his prow slipped
past garden walls and under the blackness of low-ached bridges Odo felt
the fathomless mystery of the Venetian night: not the open night of the
lagoons, but the secret dusk of nameless waterways between blind windows
and complaisant gates.
At one of these his gondola presently touched. The gate was cautiously
unbarred and Odo found himself in a strip of garden preceding a low
pavilion in which not a light was visible. A woman-servant led him
indoors and the Marquess greeted him on the threshold.
"You are late!" he exclaimed. "I began to fear you would not be here to
receive our guests with me."
"Your guests?" Odo repeated. "I had fancied there was but one."
The Marquess smiled. "My dear Mary of the Crucifix," he said, "is too
well-born to venture out alone at this late hour, and has prevailed on
her bosom friend to accompany her.--Besides," he added with his
deprecating shrug, "I own I have had too recent an experience of your
success to trust you alone with my enchantress; and she has promised to
bring the most fascinating nun in the convent to protect her from your
wiles."
As he spoke he led Odo into a room furnished in the luxurious style of a
French boudoir. A Savonnerie carpet covered the floor, the lounges and
easy-chairs were heaped with cushions, and the panels hung with pastel
drawings of a lively or sentimental character. The windows toward the
garden were close-shuttered, but those on the farther side of the room
stood open on a starlit terrace whence the eye looked out over the
lagoon to the outer line of islands.
"Confess," cried Coeur-Volant, pointing to a table set with delicacies
and flanked by silver wine-coolers, "that I have spared no pains to do
my goddess honour and that this interior must present an agreeable
contrast to the whitewashed cells and dismal refectory of her convent!
No passion," he continued, with his quaint didactic air, "is so
susceptible as love to the influence of its surroundings; and principles
which might have held out against a horse-hair sofa and soupe a l'oignon
have before now been known to succumb to silk cushions and champagne."
He received with perfect good-humour the retort that if he failed in his
designs his cook and his upholsterer would not be to blame; and the
young men were still engaged in such banter when the servant returned to
say that a gondola was at the water-gate. The Marquess hastened out and
presently reappeared with two masked and hooded figures. The first of
these, whom he led by the hand, entered with the air of one not
unaccustomed to her surroundings; but the other hung back, and on the
Marquess's inviting them to unmask, hurriedly signed to her friend to
refuse.
"Very well, fair strangers," said Coeur-Volant with a laugh; "if you
insist on prolonging our suspense we shall avenge ourselves by
prolonging yours, and neither my friend nor I will unmask till you are
pleased to set us the example."
The first lady echoed his laugh. "Shall I own," she cried, "that I
suspect in this unflattering compliance a pretext to conceal your
friend's features from me as long as possible? For my part," she
continued, throwing back her hood, "the mask of hypocrisy I am compelled
to wear in the convent makes me hate every form of disguise, and with
all my defects I prefer to be known as I am." And with that she detached
her mask and dropped the cloak from her shoulders.
The gesture revealed a beauty of the laughing sensuous type best suited
to such surroundings. Sister Mary of the Crucifix, in her sumptuous gown
of shot-silk, with pearls wound through her reddish hair and hanging on
her bare shoulders, might have stepped from some festal canvas of
Bonifazio's. She had laid aside even the light gauze veil worn by the
nuns in gala habit, and no vestige of her calling showed itself in dress
or bearing.
"Do you accept my challenge, cavaliere?" she exclaimed, turning on Odo a
glance confident of victory.
The Marquess meanwhile had approached the other nun with the intention
of inducing her to unmask; but as Sister Mary of the Crucifix advanced
to perform the same service for his friend, his irrepressible jealousy
made him step hastily between them.
"Come cavaliere," he cried, drawing Odo gaily toward the unknown nun,
"since you have induced one of our fair guests to unmask perhaps you may
be equally successful with the other, who appears provokingly
indifferent to my advances."
The masked nun had in fact retreated to a corner of the room and stood
there, drawing her cloak about her, rather in the attitude of a
frightened child than in that of a lady bent on a gallant adventure.
Sister Mary of the Crucifix approached her playfully. "My dear Sister
Veronica," said she, throwing her arm about the other's neck, "hesitates
to reveal charms which she knows must cast mine in the shade; but I am
not to be outdone in generosity, and if the Marquess will unmask his
friend I will do the same by mine."
As she spoke she deftly pinioned the nun's hands and snatched off her
mask with a malicious laugh. The Marquess, entering into her humour,
removed Odo's at the same instant, and the latter, turning with a laugh,
found himself face to face with Fulvia Vivaldi. He grew white, and Mary
of the Crucifix sprang forward to catch her friend.
"Good God! What is this?" gasped the Marquess, staring from one to the
other.
A glance of entreaty from Fulvia checked the answer on Odo's lips, and
for a moment there was silence in the room; then Fulvia, breaking away
from her companion, fled out on the terrace. The other was about to
follow; but Odo, controlling himself, stepped between them.
"Madam," said he in a low voice, "I recognise in your companion a friend
of whom I have long had no word. Will you pardon me if I speak with her
alone?"
Sister Mary drew back with a meaning sparkle in her handsome eyes. "Why,
this," she cried, not without a touch of resentment, "is the prettiest
ending imaginable; but what a sly creature, to be sure, to make me think
it was her first assignation!"
Odo, without answering, hastened out on the terrace. It was so dark
after the brightly lit room that for a moment he did not distinguish the
figure which had sprung to the low parapet above the water; and he
stumbled forward just in time to snatch Fulvia back to safety.
"This is madness!" he cried, as she hung upon him trembling.
"The boat," she stammered in a strange sobbing voice--"the boat should
be somewhere below--"
"The boat lies at the water-gate on the other side," he answered.
She drew away from him with a gesture of despair. The struggle with
Sister Mary had disordered her hair and it fell on her white neck in
loosened strands. "My cloak--my mask--" she faltered vaguely, clasping
her hands across her bosom; then suddenly dropped to a seat and burst
into tears. Once before--but in how different a case!--he had seen her
thus thrilled with weeping. Then fate had thrown him humbled at her
feet, now it was she who cried him mercy in every line of her bowed head
and shaken breast; and the thought of that other meeting flooded his
heart with pity.
He knelt before her, seeking her hands. "Fulvia, why do you shrink from
me?" he whispered. But she shook her head and wept on.
At last her sobs subsided and she rose to her feet. "I must go back,"
said she in a low tone, and would have passed him.
"Back? To the convent?"
"To the convent," she said after him; but she made no farther effort to
move.
The question that tortured him sprang forth. "You have taken the vows?"
"A month since," she answered.
He hid his face in his hands and for a moment both were silent. "And you
have no other word for me--none?" he faltered at last.
She fixed him with a hard bright stare. "Yes--one," she cried; "keep a
place for me among your gallant recollections."
"Fulvia!" he said with sudden strength, and caught her by the arm.
"Let me pass!" she cried.
"No, by heaven!" he retorted; "not till you listen to me--not till you
tell me how it is that I come upon you here!--Ah, child," he broke out,
"do you fancy I don't see how little you belong in such scenes? That I
don't know you are here through some dreadful error? Fulvia," he
pleaded, "will you never trust me?" And at the word he burned with
blushes in the darkness.
His voice, perhaps, rather than what he said, seemed to have struck a
yielding fibre. He felt her arm tremble in his hold; but after a moment
she said with cruel distinctness: "There was no error. I came knowingly.
It was the company and not the place I was deceived in."
Odo drew back with a start; then, as if in spite of himself, he broke
into a laugh. "By the saints," said he, almost joyously, "I am sorry to
be where I am not wanted; but since no better company offers, will you
not make the best of mine and suffer me to hand you in to supper with
our friends?" And with a low bow he offered her his arm.
The effect was instantaneous. He saw her catch at the balustrade for
support.
"Sancta simplicitas!" he exulted, "and did you think to play the part at
such short notice?" He fell at her feet and covered her hands with
kisses. "My Fulvia! My poor child! come with me, come away from here,"
he entreated. "I know not what mad hazard has brought us thus together,
but I thank God on my knees for the encounter. You shall tell me all or
nothing, as you please--you shall presently dismiss me at your
convent-gate, and never see me again if you so will it--but till then, I
swear, you are in my charge, and no human power shall come between us!"
As he ended the Marquess's voice called gaily through the open window:
"Friends, the burgundy is uncorked! Will you not join us in a glass of
good French wine?"
Fulvia flung herself upon Odo. "Yes--yes; away--take me away from here!"
she cried, clinging to him. She had gathered her cloak about her and
drawn the hood over her disordered hair. "Away! Away!" she repeated. "I
cannot see them again. Good God, is there no other way out?"
With a gesture he warned her to be silent and drew her along the terrace
in the shadow of the house. The gravel creaked beneath their feet, and
she shook at the least sound; but her hand lay in his like a child's and
he felt himself her master. At the farther end of the terrace a flight
of steps led to a narrow strip of shore. He helped her down and after
listening a moment gave a whistle. Presently they heard a low plash of
oars and saw the prow of a gondola cautiously rounding the angle of the
terrace. The water was shallow and the boatmen proceeded slowly and at
length paused a few yards from the land.
"We can come no nearer," one of them called; "what is it?"
"Your mistress is unwell and wishes to return," Odo answered; and
catching Fulvia in his arms he waded out with her to the gondola and
lifted her over the side. "To Santa Chiara!" he ordered, as he laid her
on the cushions beneath the felze; and the boatmen, recognising her as
one of their late fares, without more ado began to row rapidly toward
the city.
Content of BOOK III - THE CHOICE: CHAPTER 3 [Edith Wharton's novel: The Valley Of Decision]
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