The Project Gutenberg Etext of Zanoni, by Edward Bulwer Lytton


Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check
the copyright laws for your country before posting these files!!

Please take a look at the important information in this header.
We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an
electronic path open for the next readers.  Do not remove this.


**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts**

**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971**

*These Etexts Prepared By Hundreds of Volunteers and Donations*

Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get Etexts, and
further information is included below.  We need your donations.


Title:  Zanoni

Author:  Edward Bulwer Lytton

June, 2001 [Etext #2664]


The Project Gutenberg Etext of Zanoni, by Edward Bulwer Lytton
*****This file should be named zanon10.txt or zanon10.zip*****

Corrected EDITIONS of our etexts get a new NUMBER, zanon11.txt
VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, zanon10a.txt


This etext was prepared by Dave Ceponis and Sue Asscher.

Project Gutenberg Etexts are usually created from multiple editions,
all of which are in the Public Domain in the United States, unless a
copyright notice is included.  Therefore, we usually do NOT keep
these books in compliance with any particular paper edition.


We are now trying to release all our books one month in advance
of the official release dates, for time for better editing.

Please note:  neither this list nor its contents are final till
midnight of the last day of the month of any such announcement.
The official release date of all Project Gutenberg Etexts is at
Midnight, Central Time, of the last day of the stated month.  A
preliminary version may often be posted for suggestion, comment
and editing by those who wish to do so.  To be sure you have an
up to date first edition [xxxxx10x.xxx] please check file sizes
in the first week of the next month.  Since our ftp program has
a bug in it that scrambles the date [tried to fix and failed] a
look at the file size will have to do, but we will try to see a
new copy has at least one byte more or less.


Information about Project Gutenberg (one page)

We produce about two million dollars for each hour we work.  The
fifty hours is one conservative estimate for how long it we take
to get any etext selected, entered, proofread, edited, copyright
searched and analyzed, the copyright letters written, etc.  This
projected audience is one hundred million readers.  If our value
per text is nominally estimated at one dollar then we produce $2
million dollars per hour this year as we release thirty-six text
files per month, or 432 more Etexts in 1999 for a total of 2000+
If these reach just 10% of the computerized population, then the
total should reach over 200 billion Etexts given away this year.

The Goal of Project Gutenberg is to Give Away One Trillion Etext
Files by the December 31, 2001.  [10,000 x 100,000,000=Trillion]
This is ten thousand titles each to one hundred million readers,
which is only ~5% of the present number of computer users.

At our revised rates of production, we will reach only one-third
of that goal by the end of 2001, or about 3,333 Etexts unless we
manage to get some real funding; currently our funding is mostly
from Michael Hart's salary at Carnegie-Mellon University, and an
assortment of sporadic gifts; this salary is only good for a few
more years, so we are looking for something to replace it, as we
don't want Project Gutenberg to be so dependent on one person.

We need your donations more than ever!


All donations should be made to "Project Gutenberg/CMU": and are
tax deductible to the extent allowable by law.  (CMU = Carnegie-
Mellon University).

For these and other matters, please mail to:

Project Gutenberg
P. O. Box  2782
Champaign, IL 61825

When all other email fails try our Executive Director:
Michael S. Hart <hart@pobox.com>

We would prefer to send you this information by email.

******

To access Project Gutenberg etexts, use any Web browser
to view http://promo.net/pg.  This site lists Etexts by
author and by title, and includes information about how
to get involved with Project Gutenberg.  You could also
download our past Newsletters, or subscribe here.  This
is one of our major sites, please email hart@pobox.com,
for a more complete list of our various sites.

To go directly to the etext collections, use FTP or any
Web browser to visit a Project Gutenberg mirror (mirror
sites are available on 7 continents; mirrors are listed
at http://promo.net/pg).

Mac users, do NOT point and click, typing works better.

Example FTP session:

ftp sunsite.unc.edu
login: anonymous
password: your@login
cd pub/docs/books/gutenberg
cd etext90 through etext99
dir [to see files]
get or mget [to get files. . .set bin for zip files]
GET GUTINDEX.??  [to get a year's listing of books, e.g.,
GUTINDEX.99]
GET GUTINDEX.ALL [to get a listing of ALL books]

***

**Information prepared by the Project Gutenberg legal advisor**

(Three Pages)


***START**THE SMALL PRINT!**FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS**START***
Why is this "Small Print!" statement here?  You know: lawyers.
They tell us you might sue us if there is something wrong with
your copy of this etext, even if you got it for free from
some one other than us, and even if what's wrong is not our
fault.  So, among other things, this "Small Print!" statement
disclaims most of our liability to you.  It also tells you how
you can distribute copies of this etext if you want to.

*BEFORE!* YOU USE OR READ THIS ETEXT
By using or reading any part of this PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm
etext, you indicate that you understand, agree to and accept
this "Small Print!" statement.  If you do not, you can receive
a refund of the money (if any) you paid for this etext by
sending a request within 30 days of receiving it to the person
you got it from.  If you received this etext on a physical
medium (such as a disk), you must return it with your request.

ABOUT PROJECT GUTENBERG-TM ETEXTS
This PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm etext, like most PROJECT GUTENBERG-
tm etexts, is a "public domain" work distributed by Professor
Michael S. Hart through the Project Gutenberg Association at
Carnegie-Mellon University (the "Project").  Among other
things, this means that no one owns a United States copyright
on or for this work, so the Project (and you!) can copy and
distribute it in the United States without permission and
without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules, set forth
below, apply if you wish to copy and distribute this etext
under the Project's "PROJECT GUTENBERG" trademark.

To create these etexts, the Project expends considerable
efforts to identify, transcribe and proofread public domain
works.  Despite these efforts, the Project's etexts and any
medium they may be on may contain "Defects".  Among other
things, Defects may take the form of incomplete, inaccurate or
corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other
intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged
disk or other etext medium, a computer virus, or computer
codes that damage or cannot be read by your equipment.

LIMITED WARRANTY; DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES
But for the "Right of Replacement or Refund" described below,
[1] the Project (and any other party you may receive this
etext from as a PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm etext) disclaims all
liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including
legal fees, and [2] YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE OR
UNDER STRICT LIABILITY, OR FOR BREACH OF WARRANTY OR CONTRACT,
INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE
OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE
POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.

If you discover a Defect in this etext within 90 days of
receiving it, you can receive a refund of the money (if any)
you paid for it by sending an explanatory note within that
time to the person you received it from.  If you received it
on a physical medium, you must return it with your note, and
such person may choose to alternatively give you a replacement
copy.  If you received it electronically, such person may
choose to alternatively give you a second opportunity to
receive it electronically.

THIS ETEXT IS OTHERWISE PROVIDED TO YOU "AS-IS".  NO OTHER
WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, ARE MADE TO YOU AS
TO THE ETEXT OR ANY MEDIUM IT MAY BE ON, INCLUDING BUT NOT
LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A
PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

Some states do not allow disclaimers of implied warranties or
the exclusion or limitation of consequential damages, so the
above disclaimers and exclusions may not apply to you, and you
may have other legal rights.

INDEMNITY
You will indemnify and hold the Project, its directors,
officers, members and agents harmless from all liability, cost
and expense, including legal fees, that arise directly or
indirectly from any of the following that you do or cause:
[1] distribution of this etext, [2] alteration, modification,
or addition to the etext, or [3] any Defect.

DISTRIBUTION UNDER "PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm"
You may distribute copies of this etext electronically, or by
disk, book or any other medium if you either delete this
"Small Print!" and all other references to Project Gutenberg,
or:

[1]  Only give exact copies of it.  Among other things, this
     requires that you do not remove, alter or modify the
     etext or this "small print!" statement.  You may however,
     if you wish, distribute this etext in machine readable
     binary, compressed, mark-up, or proprietary form,
     including any form resulting from conversion by word pro-
     cessing or hypertext software, but only so long as
     *EITHER*:

     [*]  The etext, when displayed, is clearly readable, and
          does *not* contain characters other than those
          intended by the author of the work, although tilde
          (~), asterisk (*) and underline (_) characters may
          be used to convey punctuation intended by the
          author, and additional characters may be used to
          indicate hypertext links; OR

     [*]  The etext may be readily converted by the reader at
          no expense into plain ASCII, EBCDIC or equivalent
          form by the program that displays the etext (as is
          the case, for instance, with most word processors);
          OR

     [*]  You provide, or agree to also provide on request at
          no additional cost, fee or expense, a copy of the
          etext in its original plain ASCII form (or in EBCDIC
          or other equivalent proprietary form).

[2]  Honor the etext refund and replacement provisions of this
     "Small Print!" statement.

[3]  Pay a trademark license fee to the Project of 20% of the
     net profits you derive calculated using the method you
     already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  If you
     don't derive profits, no royalty is due.  Royalties are
     payable to "Project Gutenberg Association/Carnegie-Mellon
     University" within the 60 days following each
     date you prepare (or were legally required to prepare)
     your annual (or equivalent periodic) tax return.

WHAT IF YOU *WANT* TO SEND MONEY EVEN IF YOU DON'T HAVE TO?
The Project gratefully accepts contributions in money, time,
scanning machines, OCR software, public domain etexts, royalty
free copyright licenses, and every other sort of contribution
you can think of.  Money should be paid to "Project Gutenberg
Association / Carnegie-Mellon University".

*END*THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END*





This etext was prepared by Dave Ceponis and Sue Asscher.





ZANONI

BY

EDWARD BULWER LYTTON


(PLATE:  "Thou art good and fair," said Viola.
Drawn by P. Kauffmann, etched by Deblois.)


DEDICATORY EPISTLE
First prefixed to the Edition of 1845


TO

JOHN GIBSON, R.A., SCULPTOR.

In looking round the wide and luminous circle of our great living
Englishmen, to select one to whom I might fitly dedicate this
work,--one who, in his life as in his genius, might illustrate
the principle I have sought to convey; elevated by the ideal
which he exalts, and serenely dwelling in a glorious existence
with the images born of his imagination,--in looking round for
some such man, my thoughts rested upon you.  Afar from our
turbulent cabals; from the ignoble jealousy and the sordid strife
which degrade and acerbate the ambition of Genius,--in your Roman
Home, you have lived amidst all that is loveliest and least
perishable in the past, and contributed with the noblest aims,
and in the purest spirit, to the mighty heirlooms of the future.
Your youth has been devoted to toil, that your manhood may be
consecrated to fame:  a fame unsullied by one desire of gold.
You have escaped the two worst perils that beset the artist in
our time and land,--the debasing tendencies of commerce, and the
angry rivalries of competition.  You have not wrought your marble
for the market,--you have not been tempted, by the praises which
our vicious criticism has showered upon exaggeration and
distortion, to lower your taste to the level of the hour; you
have lived, and you have laboured, as if you had no rivals but in
the dead,--no purchasers, save in judges of what is best.  In the
divine priesthood of the beautiful, you have sought only to
increase her worshippers and enrich her temples.  The pupil of
Canova, you have inherited his excellences, while you have
shunned his errors,--yours his delicacy, not his affectation.
Your heart resembles him even more than your genius:  you have
the same noble enthusiasm for your sublime profession; the same
lofty freedom from envy, and the spirit that depreciates; the
same generous desire not to war with but to serve artists in your
art; aiding, strengthening, advising, elevating the timidity of
inexperience, and the vague aspirations of youth.  By the
intuition of a kindred mind, you have equalled the learning of
Winckelman, and the plastic poetry of Goethe, in the intimate
comprehension of the antique.  Each work of yours, rightly
studied, is in itself a CRITICISM, illustrating the sublime
secrets of the Grecian Art, which, without the servility of
plagiarism, you have contributed to revive amongst us; in you we
behold its three great and long-undetected principles,--
simplicity, calm, and concentration.

But your admiration of the Greeks has not led you to the bigotry
of the mere antiquarian, nor made you less sensible of the
unappreciated excellence of the mighty modern, worthy to be your
countryman,--though till his statue is in the streets of our
capital, we show ourselves not worthy of the glory he has shed
upon our land.  You have not suffered even your gratitude to
Canova to blind you to the superiority of Flaxman.  When we
become sensible of our title-deeds to renown in that single name,
we may look for an English public capable of real patronage to
English Art,--and not till then.

I, artist in words, dedicate, then, to you, artist whose ideas
speak in marble, this well-loved work of my matured manhood.  I
love it not the less because it has been little understood and
superficially judged by the common herd:  it was not meant for
them.  I love it not the more because it has found enthusiastic
favorers amongst the Few.  My affection for my work is rooted in
the solemn and pure delight which it gave me to conceive and to
perform.  If I had graven it on the rocks of a desert, this
apparition of my own innermost mind, in its least-clouded
moments, would have been to me as dear; and this ought, I
believe, to be the sentiment with which he whose Art is born of
faith in the truth and beauty of the principles he seeks to
illustrate, should regard his work.  Your serener existence,
uniform and holy, my lot denies,--if my heart covets.  But our
true nature is in our thoughts, not our deeds:  and therefore, in
books--which ARE his thoughts--the author's character lies bare
to the discerning eye.  It is not in the life of cities,--in the
turmoil and the crowd; it is in the still, the lonely, and more
sacred life, which for some hours, under every sun, the student
lives (his stolen retreat from the Agora to the Cave), that I
feel there is between us the bond of that secret sympathy, that
magnetic chain, which unites the everlasting brotherhood of whose
being Zanoni is the type.

E.B.L.
London, May, 1845.


INTRODUCTION.

One of the peculiarities of Bulwer was his passion for occult
studies.  They had a charm for him early in life, and he pursued
them with the earnestness which characterised his pursuit of
other studies.  He became absorbed in wizard lore; he equipped
himself with magical implements,--with rods for transmitting
influence, and crystal balls in which to discern coming scenes
and persons; and communed with spiritualists and mediums.  The
fruit of these mystic studies is seen in "Zanoni" and "A strange
Story," romances which were a labour of love to the author, and
into which he threw all the power he possessed,--power re-
enforced by multifarious reading and an instinctive appreciation
of Oriental thought.  These weird stories, in which the author
has formulated his theory of magic, are of a wholly different
type from his previous fictions, and, in place of the heroes and
villains of every day life, we have beings that belong in part to
another sphere, and that deal with mysterious and occult
agencies.  Once more the old forgotten lore of the Cabala is
unfolded; the furnace of the alchemist, whose fires have been
extinct for centuries, is lighted anew, and the lamp of the
Rosicrucian re-illumined.  No other works of the author,
contradictory as have been the opinions of them, have provoked
such a diversity of criticism as these.  To some persons they
represent a temporary aberration of genius rather than any
serious thought or definite purpose; while others regard them as
surpassing in bold and original speculation, profound analysis of
character, and thrilling interest, all of the author's other
works.  The truth, we believe, lies midway between these
extremes.  It is questionable whether the introduction into a
novel of such subjects as are discussed in these romances be not
an offence against good sense and good taste; but it is as
unreasonable to deny the vigour and originality of their author's
conceptions, as to deny that the execution is imperfect, and, at
times, bungling and absurd.

It has been justly said that the present half century has
witnessed the rise and triumphs of science, the extent and
marvels of which even Bacon's fancy never conceived,
simultaneously with superstitions grosser than any which Bacon's
age believed.  "The one is, in fact, the natural reaction from
the other.  The more science seeks to exclude the miraculous, and
reduce all nature, animate and inanimate, to an invariable law of
sequences, the more does the natural instinct of man rebel, and
seek an outlet for those obstinate questionings, those 'blank
misgivings of a creature moving about in worlds not realised,'
taking refuge in delusions as degrading as any of the so-called
Dark Ages."  It was the revolt from the chilling materialism of
the age which inspired the mystic creations of "Zanoni" and "A
Strange Story."  Of these works, which support and supplement
each other, one is the contemplation of our actual life through a
spiritual medium, the other is designed to show that, without
some gleams of the supernatural, man is not man, nor nature
nature.

In "Zanoni" the author introduces us to two human beings who have
achieved immortality:  one, Mejnour, void of all passion or
feeling, calm, benignant, bloodless, an intellect rather than a
man; the other, Zanoni, the pupil of Mejnour, the representative
of an ideal life in its utmost perfection, possessing eternal
youth, absolute power, and absolute knowledge, and withal the
fullest capacity to enjoy and to love, and, as a necessity of
that love, to sorrow and despair.  By his love for Viola Zanoni
is compelled to descend from his exalted state, to lose his
eternal calm, and to share in the cares and anxieties of
humanity; and this degradation is completed by the birth of a
child.  Finally, he gives up the life which hangs on that of
another, in order to save that other, the loving and beloved
wife, who has delivered him from his solitude and isolation.
Wife and child are mortal, and to outlive them and his love for
them is impossible.  But Mejnour, who is the impersonation of
thought,--pure intellect without affection,--lives on.

Bulwer has himself justly characterised this work, in the
Introduction, as a romance and not a romance, as a truth for
those who can comprehend it, and an extravagance for those who
cannot.  The most careless or matter-of-fact reader must see that
the work, like the enigmatical "Faust," deals in types and
symbols; that the writer intends to suggest to the mind something
more subtle and impalpable than that which is embodied to the
senses.  What that something is, hardly two persons will agree.
The most obvious interpretation of the types is, that in Zanoni
the author depicts to us humanity, perfected, sublimed, which
lives not for self, but for others; in Mejnour, as we have before
said, cold, passionless, self-sufficing intellect; in Glyndon,
the young Englishman, the mingled strength and weakness of human
nature; in the heartless, selfish artist, Nicot, icy, soulless
atheism, believing nothing, hoping nothing, trusting and loving
nothing; and in the beautiful, artless Viola, an exquisite
creation, pure womanhood, loving, trusting and truthful.  As a
work of art the romance is one of great power.  It is original in
its conception, and pervaded by one central idea; but it would
have been improved, we think, by a more sparing use of the
supernatural.  The inevitable effect of so much hackneyed
diablerie--of such an accumulation of wonder upon wonder--is to
deaden the impression they would naturally make upon us.  In
Hawthorne's tales we see with what ease a great imaginative
artist can produce a deeper thrill by a far slighter use of the
weird and the mysterious.

The chief interest of the story for the ordinary reader centres,
not in its ghostly characters and improbable machinery, the
scenes in Mejnour's chamber in the ruined castle among the
Apennines, the colossal and appalling apparitions on Vesuvius,
the hideous phantom with its burning eye that haunted Glyndon,
but in the loves of Viola and the mysterious Zanoni, the blissful
and the fearful scenes through which they pass, and their final
destiny, when the hero of the story sacrifices his own "charmed
life" to save hers, and the Immortal finds the only true
immortality in death.  Among the striking passages in the work
are the pathetic sketch of the old violinist and composer,
Pisani, with his sympathetic "barbiton" which moaned, groaned,
growled, and laughed responsive to the feelings of its master;
the description of Viola's and her father's triumph, when "The
Siren," his masterpiece, is performed at the San Carlo in Naples;
Glyndon's adventure at the Carnival in Naples; the death of his
sister; the vivid pictures of the Reign of Terror in Paris,
closing with the downfall of Robespierre and his satellites; and
perhaps, above all, the thrilling scene where Zanoni leaves Viola
asleep in prison when his guards call him to execution, and she,
unconscious of the terrible sacrifice, but awaking and missing
him, has a vision of the procession to the guillotine, with
Zanoni there, radiant in youth and beauty, followed by the sudden
vanishing of the headsman,--the horror,--and the "Welcome" of her
loved one to Heaven in a myriad of melodies from the choral hosts
above.

"Zanoni" was originally published by Saunders and Otley, London,
in three volumes 12mo., in 1842.  A translation into French, made
by M.  Sheldon under the direction of P. Lorain, was published in
Paris in the "Bibliotheque des Meilleurs Romans Etrangers."

W.M.


PREFACE TO THE EDITION OF 1853.

As a work of imagination, "Zanoni" ranks, perhaps, amongst the
highest of my prose fictions.  In the Poem of "King Arthur,"
published many years afterwards, I have taken up an analogous
design, in the contemplation of our positive life through a
spiritual medium; and I have enforced, through a far wider
development, and, I believe, with more complete and enduring
success, that harmony between the external events which are all
that the superficial behold on the surface of human affairs, and
the subtle and intellectual agencies which in reality influence
the conduct of individuals, and shape out the destinies of the
world.  As man has two lives,--that of action and that of
thought,--so I conceive that work to be the truest representation
of humanity which faithfully delineates both, and opens some
elevating glimpse into the sublimest mysteries of our being, by
establishing the inevitable union that exists between the plain
things of the day, in which our earthly bodies perform their
allotted part, and the latent, often uncultivated, often
invisible, affinities of the soul with all the powers that
eternally breathe and move throughout the Universe of Spirit.

I refer those who do me the honour to read "Zanoni" with more
attention than is given to ordinary romance, to the Poem of "King
Arthur," for suggestive conjecture into most of the regions of
speculative research, affecting the higher and more important
condition of our ultimate being, which have engaged the students
of immaterial philosophy in my own age.

Affixed to the "Note" with which this work concludes, and which
treats of the distinctions between type and allegory, the reader
will find, from the pen of one of our most eminent living
writers, an ingenious attempt to explain the interior or typical
meanings of the work now before him.


INTRODUCTION.

It is possible that among my readers there may be a few not
unacquainted with an old-book shop, existing some years since in
the neighbourhood of Covent Garden; I say a few, for certainly
there was little enough to attract the many in those precious
volumes which the labour of a life had accumulated on the dusty
shelves of my old friend D--.  There were to be found no popular
treatises, no entertaining romances, no histories, no travels, no
"Library for the People," no "Amusement for the Million."  But
there, perhaps, throughout all Europe, the curious might discover
the most notable collection, ever amassed by an enthusiast, of
the works of alchemist, cabalist, and astrologer.  The owner had
lavished a fortune in the purchase of unsalable treasures.  But
old D-- did not desire to sell.  It absolutely went to his heart
when a customer entered his shop:  he watched the movements of
the presumptuous intruder with a vindictive glare; he fluttered
around him with uneasy vigilance,--he frowned, he groaned, when
profane hands dislodged his idols from their niches.  If it were
one of the favourite sultanas of his wizard harem that attracted
you, and the price named were not sufficiently enormous, he would
not unfrequently double the sum.  Demur, and in brisk delight he
snatched the venerable charmer from your hands; accede, and he
became the picture of despair,--nor unfrequently, at the dead of
night, would he knock at your door, and entreat you to sell him
back, at your own terms, what you had so egregiously bought at
his.  A believer himself in his Averroes and Paracelsus, he was
as loth as the philosophers he studied to communicate to the
profane the learning he had collected.

It so chanced that some years ago, in my younger days, whether of
authorship or life, I felt a desire to make myself acquainted
with the true origin and tenets of the singular sect known by the
name of Rosicrucians.  Dissatisfied with the scanty and
superficial accounts to be found in the works usually referred to
on the subject, it struck me as possible that Mr. D--'s
collection, which was rich, not only in black-letter, but in
manuscripts, might contain some more accurate and authentic
records of that famous brotherhood,--written, who knows? by one
of their own order, and confirming by authority and detail the
pretensions to wisdom and to virtue which Bringaret had arrogated
to the successors of the Chaldean and Gymnosophist.  Accordingly
I repaired to what, doubtless, I ought to be ashamed to confess,
was once one of my favourite haunts.  But are there no errors and
no fallacies, in the chronicles of our own day, as absurd as
those of the alchemists of old?  Our very newspapers may seem to
our posterity as full of delusions as the books of the alchemists
do to us; not but what the press is the air we breathe,--and
uncommonly foggy the air is too!

On entering the shop, I was struck by the venerable appearance of
a customer whom I had never seen there before.  I was struck yet
more by the respect with which he was treated by the disdainful
collector.  "Sir," cried the last, emphatically, as I was turning
over the leaves of the catalogue,--"sir, you are the only man I
have met, in five-and-forty years that I have spent in these
researches, who is worthy to be my customer.  How--where, in this
frivolous age, could you have acquired a knowledge so profound?
And this august fraternity, whose doctrines, hinted at by the
earliest philosophers, are still a mystery to the latest; tell me
if there really exists upon the earth any book, any manuscript,
in which their discoveries, their tenets, are to be learned?"

At the words, "august fraternity," I need scarcely say that my
attention had been at once aroused, and I listened eagerly for
the stranger's reply.

"I do not think," said the old gentleman, "that the masters of
the school have ever consigned, except by obscure hint and
mystical parable, their real doctrines to the world.  And I do
not blame them for their discretion."

Here he paused, and seemed about to retire, when I said, somewhat
abruptly, to the collector, "I see nothing, Mr. D--, in this
catalogue which relates to the Rosicrucians!"

"The Rosicrucians!" repeated the old gentleman, and in his turn
he surveyed me with deliberate surprise.  "Who but a Rosicrucian
could explain the Rosicrucian mysteries!  And can you imagine
that any members of that sect, the most jealous of all secret
societies, would themselves lift the veil that hides the Isis of
their wisdom from the world?"

"Aha!" thought I, "this, then, is 'the august fraternity' of
which you spoke.  Heaven be praised!  I certainly have stumbled
on one of the brotherhood."

"But," I said aloud, "if not in books, sir, where else am I to
obtain information?  Nowadays one can hazard nothing in print
without authority, and one may scarcely quote Shakespeare without
citing chapter and verse.  This is the age of facts,--the age of
facts, sir."

"Well," said the old gentleman, with a pleasant smile, "if we
meet again, perhaps, at least, I may direct your researches to
the proper source of intelligence."  And with that he buttoned
his greatcoat, whistled to his dog, and departed.

It so happened that I did meet again with the old gentleman,
exactly four days after our brief conversation in Mr. D--'s book-
shop.  I was riding leisurely towards Highgate, when, at the foot
of its classic hill, I recognised the stranger; he was mounted on
a black pony, and before him trotted his dog, which was black
also.

If you meet the man whom you wish to know, on horseback, at the
commencement of a long hill, where, unless he has borrowed a
friend's favourite hack, he cannot, in decent humanity to the
brute creation, ride away from you, I apprehend that it is your
own fault if you have not gone far in your object before you have
gained the top.  In short, so well did I succeed, that on
reaching Highgate the old gentleman invited me to rest at his
house, which was a little apart from the village; and an
excellent house it was,--small, but commodious, with a large
garden, and commanding from the windows such a prospect as
Lucretius would recommend to philosophers:  the spires and domes
of London, on a clear day, distinctly visible; here the Retreat
of the Hermit, and there the Mare Magnum of the world.

The walls of the principal rooms were embellished with pictures
of extraordinary merit, and in that high school of art which is
so little understood out of Italy.  I was surprised to learn that
they were all from the hand of the owner.  My evident admiration
pleased my new friend, and led to talk upon his part, which
showed him no less elevated in his theories of art than an adept
in the practice.  Without fatiguing the reader with irrelevant
criticism, it is necessary, perhaps, as elucidating much of the
design and character of the work which these prefatory pages
introduce, that I should briefly observe, that he insisted as
much upon the connection of the arts, as a distinguished author
has upon that of the sciences; that he held that in all works of
imagination, whether expressed by words or by colours, the artist
of the higher schools must make the broadest distinction between
the real and the true,--in other words, between the imitation of
actual life, and the exaltation of Nature into the Ideal.

"The one," said he, "is the Dutch School, the other is the
Greek."

"Sir," said I, "the Dutch is the most in fashion."

"Yes, in painting, perhaps," answered my host, "but in
literature--"

"It was of literature I spoke.  Our growing poets are all for
simplicity and Betty Foy; and our critics hold it the highest
praise of a work of imagination, to say that its characters are
exact to common life, even in sculpture--"

"In sculpture!  No, no! THERE the high ideal must at least be
essential!"

"Pardon me; I fear you have not seen Souter Johnny and Tam
O'Shanter."

"Ah!" said the old gentleman, shaking his head, "I live very much
out of the world, I see.  I suppose Shakespeare has ceased to be
admired?"

"On the contrary; people make the adoration of Shakespeare the
excuse for attacking everybody else.  But then our critics have
discovered that Shakespeare is so REAL!"

"Real!  The poet who has never once drawn a character to be met
with in actual life,--who has never once descended to a passion
that is false, or a personage who is real!"

I was about to reply very severely to this paradox, when I
perceived that my companion was growing a little out of temper.
And he who wishes to catch a Rosicrucian, must take care not to
disturb the waters.  I thought it better, therefore, to turn the
conversation.

"Revenons a nos moutons," said I; "you promised to enlighten my
ignorance as to the Rosicrucians."

"Well!" quoth he, rather sternly; "but for what purpose?  Perhaps
you desire only to enter the temple in order to ridicule the
rites?"

"What do you take me for!  Surely, were I so inclined, the fate
of the Abbe de Villars is a sufficient warning to all men not to
treat idly of the realms of the Salamander and the Sylph.
Everybody knows how mysteriously that ingenious personage was
deprived of his life, in revenge for the witty mockeries of his
'Comte de Gabalis.'"

"Salamander and Sylph!  I see that you fall into the vulgar
error, and translate literally the allegorical language of the
mystics."

With that the old gentleman condescended to enter into a very
interesting, and, as it seemed to me, a very erudite relation, of
the tenets of the Rosicrucians, some of whom, he asserted, still
existed, and still prosecuted, in august secrecy, their profound
researches into natural science and occult philosophy.

"But this fraternity," said he, "however respectable and
virtuous,--virtuous I say, for no monastic order is more severe
in the practice of moral precepts, or more ardent in Christian
faith,--this fraternity is but a branch of others yet more
transcendent in the powers they have obtained, and yet more
illustrious in their origin.  Are you acquainted with the
Platonists?"

"I have occasionally lost my way in their labyrinth," said I.
"Faith, they are rather difficult gentlemen to understand."

"Yet their knottiest problems have never yet been published.
Their sublimest works are in manuscript, and constitute the
initiatory learning, not only of the Rosicrucians, but of the
nobler brotherhoods I have referred to.  More solemn and sublime
still is the knowledge to be gleaned from the elder Pythagoreans,
and the immortal masterpieces of Apollonius."

"Apollonius, the imposter of Tyanea! are his writings extant?"

"Imposter!" cried my host; "Apollonius an imposter!"

"I beg your pardon; I did not know he was a friend of yours; and
if you vouch for his character, I will believe him to have been a
very respectable man, who only spoke the truth when he boasted of
his power to be in two places at the same time."

"Is that so difficult?" said the old gentleman; "if so, you have
never dreamed!"

Here ended our conversation; but from that time an acquaintance
was formed between us which lasted till my venerable friend
departed this life.  Peace to his ashes!  He was a person of
singular habits and eccentric opinions; but the chief part of his
time was occupied in acts of quiet and unostentatious goodness.
He was an enthusiast in the duties of the Samaritan; and as his
virtues were softened by the gentlest charity, so his hopes were
based upon the devoutest belief.  He never conversed upon his own
origin and history, nor have I ever been able to penetrate the
darkness in which they were concealed.  He seemed to have seen
much of the world, and to have been an eye-witness of the first
French Revolution, a subject upon which he was equally eloquent
and instructive.  At the same time he did not regard the crimes
of that stormy period with the philosophical leniency with which
enlightened writers (their heads safe upon their shoulders) are,
in the present day, inclined to treat the massacres of the past:
he spoke not as a student who had read and reasoned, but as a man
who had seen and suffered.  The old gentleman seemed alone in the
world; nor did I know that he had one relation, till his
executor, a distant cousin, residing abroad, informed me of the
very handsome legacy which my poor friend had bequeathed me.
This consisted, first, of a sum about which I think it best to be
guarded, foreseeing the possibility of a new tax upon real and
funded property; and, secondly, of certain precious manuscripts,
to which the following volumes owe their existence.

I imagine I trace this latter bequest to a visit I paid the Sage,
if so I may be permitted to call him, a few weeks before his
death.

Although he read little of our modern literature, my friend, with
the affable good-nature which belonged to him, graciously
permitted me to consult him upon various literary undertakings
meditated by the desultory ambition of a young and inexperienced
student.  And at that time I sought his advice upon a work of
imagination, intended to depict the effects of enthusiasm upon
different modifications of character.  He listened to my
conception, which was sufficiently trite and prosaic, with his
usual patience; and then, thoughtfully turning to his
bookshelves, took down an old volume, and read to me, first, in
Greek, and secondly, in English, some extracts to the following
effect:--

"Plato here expresses four kinds of mania, by which I desire to
understand enthusiasm and the inspiration of the gods:  Firstly,
the musical; secondly, the telestic or mystic; thirdly, the
prophetic; and fourthly, that which belongs to love."

The author he quoted, after contending that there is something in
the soul above intellect, and stating that there are in our
nature distinct energies,--by the one of which we discover and
seize, as it were, on sciences and theorems with almost intuitive
rapidity, by another, through which high art is accomplished,
like the statues of Phidias,--proceeded to state that
"enthusiasm, in the true acceptation of the word, is, when that
part of the soul which is above intellect is excited to the gods,
and thence derives its inspiration."

The author, then pursuing his comment upon Plato, observes, that
"one of these manias may suffice (especially that which belongs
to love) to lead back the soul to its first divinity and
happiness; but that there is an intimate union with them all; and
that the ordinary progress through which the soul ascends is,
primarily, through the musical; next, through the telestic or
mystic; thirdly, through the prophetic; and lastly, through the
enthusiasm of love."

While with a bewildered understanding and a reluctant attention I
listened to these intricate sublimities, my adviser closed the
volume, and said with complacency, "There is the motto for your
book,--the thesis for your theme."

"Davus sum, non Oedipus," said I, shaking my head,
discontentedly.  "All this may be exceedingly fine, but, Heaven
forgive me,--I don't understand a word of it.  The mysteries of
your Rosicrucians, and your fraternities, are mere child's play
to the jargon of the Platonists."

"Yet, not till you rightly understand this passage, can you
understand the higher theories of the Rosicrucians, or of the
still nobler fraternities you speak of with so much levity."

"Oh, if that be the case, I give up in despair.  Why not, since
you are so well versed in the matter, take the motto for a book
of your own?"

"But if I have already composed a book with that thesis for its
theme, will you prepare it for the public?"

"With the greatest pleasure," said I,--alas, too rashly!

"I shall hold you to your promise," returned the old gentleman,
"and when I am no more, you will receive the manuscripts.  From
what you say of the prevailing taste in literature, I cannot
flatter you with the hope that you will gain much by the
undertaking.  And I tell you beforehand that you will find it not
a little laborious."

"Is your work a romance?"

"It is a romance, and it is not a romance.  It is a truth for
those who can comprehend it, and an extravagance for those who
cannot."

At last there arrived the manuscripts, with a brief note from my
deceased friend, reminding me of my imprudent promise.

With mournful interest, and yet with eager impatience, I opened
the packet and trimmed my lamp.  Conceive my dismay when I found
the whole written in an unintelligible cipher.  I present the
reader with a specimen:

(Several strange characters.)

and so on for nine hundred and forty mortal pages in foolscap.  I
could scarcely believe my eyes:  in fact, I began to think the
lamp burned singularly blue; and sundry misgivings as to the
unhallowed nature of the characters I had so unwittingly opened
upon, coupled with the strange hints and mystical language of the
old gentleman, crept through my disordered imagination.
Certainly, to say no worse of it, the whole thing looked UNCANNY!
I was about, precipitately, to hurry the papers into my desk,
with a pious determination to have nothing more to do with them,
when my eye fell upon a book, neatly bound in blue morocco, and
which, in my eagerness, I had hitherto overlooked.  I opened this
volume with great precaution, not knowing what might jump out,
and--guess my delight--found that it contained a key or
dictionary to the hieroglyphics.  Not to weary the reader with an
account of my labours, I am contented with saying that at last I
imagined myself capable of construing the characters, and set to
work in good earnest.  Still it was no easy task, and two years
elapsed before I had made much progress.  I then, by way of
experiment on the public, obtained the insertion of a few
desultory chapters, in a periodical with which, for a few months,
I had the honour to be connected.  They appeared to excite more
curiosity than I had presumed to anticipate; and I renewed, with
better heart, my laborious undertaking.  But now a new misfortune
befell me:  I found, as I proceeded, that the author had made two
copies of his work, one much more elaborate and detailed than the
other; I had stumbled upon the earlier copy, and had my whole
task to remodel, and the chapters I had written to retranslate.
I may say then, that, exclusive of intervals devoted to more
pressing occupations, my unlucky promise cost me the toil of
several years before I could bring it to adequate fulfilment.
The task was the more difficult, since the style in the original
is written in a kind of rhythmical prose, as if the author
desired that in some degree his work should be regarded as one of
poetical conception and design.  To this it was not possible to
do justice, and in the attempt I have doubtless very often need
of the reader's indulgent consideration.  My natural respect for
the old gentleman's vagaries, with a muse of equivocal character,
must be my only excuse whenever the language, without luxuriating
into verse, borrows flowers scarcely natural to prose.  Truth
compels me also to confess, that, with all my pains, I am by no
means sure that I have invariably given the true meaning of the
cipher; nay, that here and there either a gap in the narrative,
or the sudden assumption of a new cipher, to which no key was
afforded, has obliged me to resort to interpolations of my own,
no doubt easily discernible, but which, I flatter myself, are not
inharmonious to the general design.  This confession leads me to
the sentence with which I shall conclude:  If, reader, in this
book there be anything that pleases you, it is certainly mine;
but whenever you come to something you dislike,--lay the blame
upon the old gentleman!

London, January, 1842.

N.B.--The notes appended to the text are sometimes by the author,
sometimes by the editor.  I have occasionally (but not always)
marked the distinction; where, however, this is omitted, the
ingenuity of the reader will be rarely at fault.




ZANONI.

BOOK I.

THE MUSICIAN.

Due Fontane
Chi di diverso effeto hanno liquore!

"Ariosto, Orland. Fur." Canto 1.7.

(Two Founts
That hold a draught of different effects.)


CHAPTER 1.I.

Vergina era
D' alta belta, ma sua belta non cura:
...
Di natura, d' amor, de' cieli amici
Le negligenze sue sono artifici.

"Gerusal. Lib.," canto ii. xiv.-xviii.

(She was a virgin of a glorious beauty, but regarded not her
beauty...Negligence itself is art in those favoured by Nature, by
love, and by the heavens.)

At Naples, in the latter half of the last century, a worthy
artist named Gaetano Pisani lived and flourished.  He was a
musician of great genius, but not of popular reputation; there
was in all his compositions something capricious and fantastic
which did not please the taste of the Dilettanti of Naples.  He
was fond of unfamiliar subjects into which he introduced airs and
symphonies that excited a kind of terror in those who listened.
The names of his pieces will probably suggest their nature.  I
find, for instance, among his MSS., these titles:  "The Feast of
the Harpies," "The Witches at Benevento," "The Descent of Orpheus
into Hades," "The Evil Eye," "The Eumenides," and many others
that evince a powerful imagination delighting in the fearful and
supernatural, but often relieved by an airy and delicate fancy
with passages of exquisite grace and beauty.  It is true that in
the selection of his subjects from ancient fable, Gaetano Pisani
was much more faithful than his contemporaries to the remote
origin and the early genius of Italian Opera.

That descendant, however effeminate, of the ancient union between
Song and Drama, when, after long obscurity and dethronement, it
regained a punier sceptre, though a gaudier purple, by the banks
of the Etrurian Arno, or amidst the lagunes of Venice, had chosen
all its primary inspirations from the unfamiliar and classic
sources of heathen legend; and Pisani's "Descent of Orpheus" was
but a bolder, darker, and more scientific repetition of the
"Euridice" which Jacopi Peri set to music at the august nuptials
of Henry of Navarre and Mary of Medicis.*  Still, as I have said,
the style of the Neapolitan musician was not on the whole
pleasing to ears grown nice and euphuistic in the more dulcet
melodies of the day; and faults and extravagances easily
discernible, and often to appearance wilful, served the critics
for an excuse for their distaste.  Fortunately, or the poor
musician might have starved, he was not only a composer, but also
an excellent practical performer, especially on the violin, and
by that instrument he earned a decent subsistence as one of the
orchestra at the Great Theatre of San Carlo.  Here formal and
appointed tasks necessarily kept his eccentric fancies in
tolerable check, though it is recorded that no less than five
times he had been deposed from his desk for having shocked the
conoscenti, and thrown the whole band into confusion, by
impromptu variations of so frantic and startling a nature that
one might well have imagined that the harpies or witches who
inspired his compositions had clawed hold of his instrument.

The impossibility, however, to find any one of equal excellence
as a performer (that is to say, in his more lucid and orderly
moments) had forced his reinstalment, and he had now, for the
most part, reconciled himself to the narrow sphere of his
appointed adagios or allegros.  The audience, too, aware of his
propensity, were quick to perceive the least deviation from the
text; and if he wandered for a moment, which might also be
detected by the eye as well as the ear, in some strange
contortion of visage, and some ominous flourish of his bow, a
gentle and admonitory murmur recalled the musician from his
Elysium or his Tartarus to the sober regions of his desk.  Then
he would start as if from a dream, cast a hurried, frightened,
apologetic glance around, and, with a crestfallen, humbled air,
draw his rebellious instrument back to the beaten track of the
glib monotony.  But at home he would make himself amends for this
reluctant drudgery.  And there, grasping the unhappy violin with
ferocious fingers, he would pour forth, often till the morning
rose, strange, wild measures that would startle the early
fisherman on the shore below with a superstitious awe, and make
him cross himself as if mermaid or sprite had wailed no earthly
music in his ear.

(*Orpheus was the favourite hero of early Italian Opera, or
Lyrical Drama.  The Orfeo of Angelo Politiano was produced in
1475.  The Orfeo of Monteverde was performed at Venice in 1667.)

This man's appearance was in keeping with the characteristics of
his art.  The features were noble and striking, but worn and
haggard, with black, careless locks tangled into a maze of curls,
and a fixed, speculative, dreamy stare in his large and hollow
eyes.  All his movements were peculiar, sudden, and abrupt, as
the impulse seized him; and in gliding through the streets, or
along the beach, he was heard laughing and talking to himself.
Withal, he was a harmless, guileless, gentle creature, and would
share his mite with any idle lazzaroni, whom he often paused to
contemplate as they lay lazily basking in the sun.  Yet was he
thoroughly unsocial.  He formed no friends, flattered no patrons,
resorted to none of the merry-makings so dear to the children of
music and the South.  He and his art seemed alone suited to each
other,--both quaint, primitive, unworldly, irregular.  You could
not separate the man from his music; it was himself.  Without it
he was nothing, a mere machine!  WITH it, he was king over worlds
of his own.  Poor man, he had little enough in this!  At a
manufacturing town in England there is a gravestone on which the
epitaph records "one Claudius Phillips, whose absolute contempt
for riches, and inimitable performance on the violin, made him
the admiration of all that knew him!"  Logical conjunction of
opposite eulogies!  In proportion, O Genius, to thy contempt for
riches will be thy performance on thy violin!

Gaetano Pisani's talents as a composer had been chiefly exhibited
in music appropriate to this his favourite instrument, of all
unquestionably the most various and royal in its resources and
power over the passions.  As Shakespeare among poets is the
Cremona among instruments.  Nevertheless, he had composed other
pieces of larger ambition and wider accomplishment, and chief of
these, his precious, his unpurchased, his unpublished, his
unpublishable and imperishable opera of the "Siren."  This great
work had been the dream of his boyhood, the mistress of his
manhood; in advancing age "it stood beside him like his youth."
Vainly had he struggled to place it before the world.  Even
bland, unjealous Paisiello, Maestro di Capella, shook his gentle
head when the musician favoured him with a specimen of one of his
most thrilling scenas.  And yet, Paisiello, though that music
differs from all Durante taught thee to emulate, there may--but
patience, Gaetano Pisani! bide thy time, and keep thy violin in
tune!

Strange as it may appear to the fairer reader, this grotesque
personage had yet formed those ties which ordinary mortals are
apt to consider their especial monopoly,--he was married, and had
one child.  What is more strange yet, his wife was a daughter of
quiet, sober, unfantastic England:  she was much younger than
himself; she was fair and gentle, with a sweet English face; she
had married him from choice, and (will you believe it?) she yet
loved him.  How she came to marry him, or how this shy, unsocial,
wayward creature ever ventured to propose, I can only explain by
asking you to look round and explain first to ME how half the
husbands and half the wives you meet ever found a mate!  Yet, on
reflection, this union was not so extraordinary after all.  The
girl was a natural child of parents too noble ever to own and
claim her.  She was brought into Italy to learn the art by which
she was to live, for she had taste and voice; she was a dependant
and harshly treated, and poor Pisani was her master, and his
voice the only one she had heard from her cradle that seemed
without one tone that could scorn or chide.  And so--well, is the
rest natural?  Natural or not, they married.  This young wife
loved her husband; and young and gentle as she was, she might
almost be said to be the protector of the two.  From how many
disgraces with the despots of San Carlo and the Conservatorio had
her unknown officious mediation saved him!  In how many ailments
--for his frame was weak--had she nursed and tended him!  Often,
in the dark nights, she would wait at the theatre with her
lantern to light him and her steady arm to lean on; otherwise, in
his abstract reveries, who knows but the musician would have
walked after his "Siren" into the sea!  And then she would so
patiently, perhaps (for in true love there is not always the
finest taste) so DELIGHTEDLY, listen to those storms of eccentric
and fitful melody, and steal him--whispering praises all the way
--from the unwholesome night-watch to rest and sleep!

I said his music was a part of the man, and this gentle creature
seemed a part of the music; it was, in fact, when she sat beside
him that whatever was tender or fairy-like in his motley fantasia
crept into the harmony as by stealth.  Doubtless her presence
acted on the music, and shaped and softened it; but, he, who
never examined how or what his inspiration, knew it not.  All
that he knew was, that he loved and blessed her.  He fancied he
told her so twenty times a day; but he never did, for he was not
of many words, even to his wife.  His language was his music,--as
hers, her cares!  He was more communicative to his barbiton, as
the learned Mersennus teaches us to call all the varieties of the
great viol family.  Certainly barbiton sounds better than fiddle;
and barbiton let it be.  He would talk to THAT by the hour
together,--praise it, scold it, coax it, nay (for such is man,
even the most guileless), he had been known to swear at it; but
for that excess he was always penitentially remorseful.  And the
barbiton had a tongue of his own, could take his own part, and
when HE also scolded, had much the best of it.  He was a noble
fellow, this Violin!--a Tyrolese, the handiwork of the
illustrious Steiner.  There was something mysterious in his great
age.  How many hands, now dust, had awakened his strings ere he
became the Robin Goodfellow and Familiar of Gaetano Pisani!  His
very case was venerable,--beautifully painted, it was said, by
Caracci.  An English collector had offered more for the case than
Pisani had ever made by the violin.  But Pisani, who cared not if
he had inhabited a cabin himself, was proud of a palace for the
barbiton.  His barbiton, it was his elder child!  He had another
child, and now we must turn to her.

How shall I describe thee, Viola?  Certainly the music had
something to answer for in the advent of that young stranger.
For both in her form and her character you might have traced a
family likeness to that singular and spirit-like life of sound
which night after night threw itself in airy and goblin sport
over the starry seas...Beautiful she was, but of a very uncommon
beauty,--a combination, a harmony of opposite attributes.  Her
hair of a gold richer and purer than that which is seen even in
the North; but the eyes, of all the dark, tender, subduing light
of more than Italian--almost of Oriental--splendour.  The
complexion exquisitely fair, but never the same,--vivid in one
moment, pale the next.  And with the complexion, the expression
also varied; nothing now so sad, and nothing now so joyous.

I grieve to say that what we rightly entitle education was much
neglected for their daughter by this singular pair.  To be sure,
neither of them had much knowledge to bestow; and knowledge was
not then the fashion, as it is now.  But accident or nature
favoured young Viola.  She learned, as of course, her mother's
language with her father's.  And she contrived soon to read and
to write; and her mother, who, by the way, was a Roman Catholic,
taught her betimes to pray.  But then, to counteract all these
acquisitions, the strange habits of Pisani, and the incessant
watch and care which he required from his wife, often left the
child alone with an old nurse, who, to be sure, loved her dearly,
but who was in no way calculated to instruct her.

Dame Gionetta was every inch Italian and Neapolitan.  Her youth
had been all love, and her age was all superstition.  She was
garrulous, fond,--a gossip.  Now she would prattle to the girl of
cavaliers and princes at her feet, and now she would freeze her
blood with tales and legends, perhaps as old as Greek or Etrurian
fable, of demon and vampire,--of the dances round the great
walnut-tree at Benevento, and the haunting spell of the Evil Eye.
All this helped silently to weave charmed webs over Viola's
imagination that afterthought and later years might labour vainly
to dispel. And all this especially fitted her to hang, with a
fearful joy, upon her father's music.  Those visionary strains,
ever struggling to translate into wild and broken sounds the
language of unearthly beings, breathed around her from her birth.
Thus you might have said that her whole mind was full of music;
associations, memories, sensations of pleasure or pain,--all were
mixed up inexplicably with those sounds that now delighted and
now terrified; that greeted her when her eyes opened to the sun,
and woke her trembling on her lonely couch in the darkness of the
night.  The legends and tales of Gionetta only served to make the
child better understand the signification of those mysterious
tones; they furnished her with words to the music.  It was
natural that the daughter of such a parent should soon evince
some taste in his art.  But this developed itself chiefly in the
ear and the voice.  She was yet a child when she sang divinely.
A great Cardinal--great alike in the State and the Conservatorio
--heard of her gifts, and sent for her.  From that moment her
fate was decided:  she was to be the future glory of Naples, the
prima donna of San Carlo.

The Cardinal insisted upon the accomplishment of his own
predictions, and provided her with the most renowned masters.  To
inspire her with emulation, his Eminence took her one evening to
his own box:  it would be something to see the performance,
something more to hear the applause lavished upon the glittering
signoras she was hereafter to excel!  Oh, how gloriously that
life of the stage, that fairy world of music and song, dawned
upon her!  It was the only world that seemed to correspond with
her strange childish thoughts.  It appeared to her as if, cast
hitherto on a foreign shore, she was brought at last to see the
forms and hear the language of her native land.  Beautiful and
true enthusiasm, rich with the promise of genius!  Boy or man,
thou wilt never be a poet, if thou hast not felt the ideal, the
romance, the Calypso's isle that opened to thee when for the
first time the magic curtain was drawn aside, and let in the
world of poetry on the world of prose!

And now the initiation was begun.  She was to read, to study, to
depict by a gesture, a look, the passions she was to delineate on
the boards; lessons dangerous, in truth, to some, but not to the
pure enthusiasm that comes from art; for the mind that rightly
conceives art is but a mirror which gives back what is cast on
its surface faithfully only--while unsullied.  She seized on
nature and truth intuitively.  Her recitations became full of
unconscious power; her voice moved the heart to tears, or warmed
it into generous rage.  But this arose from that sympathy which
genius ever has, even in its earliest innocence, with whatever
feels, or aspires, or suffers.

It was no premature woman comprehending the love or the jealousy
that the words expressed; her art was one of those strange
secrets which the psychologists may unriddle to us if they
please, and tell us why children of the simplest minds and the
purest hearts are often so acute to distinguish, in the tales you
tell them, or the songs you sing, the difference between the true
art and the false, passion and jargon, Homer and Racine,--echoing
back, from hearts that have not yet felt what they repeat, the
melodious accents of the natural pathos.  Apart from her studies,
Viola was a simple, affectionate, but somewhat wayward child,--
wayward, not in temper, for that was sweet and docile; but in her
moods, which, as I before hinted, changed from sad to gay and gay
to sad without an apparent cause.  If cause there were, it must
be traced to the early and mysterious influences I have referred
to, when seeking to explain the effect produced on her
imagination by those restless streams of sound that constantly
played around it; for it is noticeable that to those who are much
alive to the effects of music, airs and tunes often come back, in
the commonest pursuits of life, to vex, as it were, and haunt
them.  The music, once admitted to the soul, becomes also a sort
of spirit, and never dies.  It wanders perturbedly through the
halls and galleries of the memory, and is often heard again,
distinct and living as when it first displaced the wavelets of
the air.  Now at times, then, these phantoms of sound floated
back upon her fancy; if gay, to call a smile from every dimple;
if mournful, to throw a shade upon her brow,--to make her cease
from her childishmirth, and sit apart and muse.

Rightly, then, in a typical sense, might this fair creature, so
airy in her shape, so harmonious in her beauty, so unfamiliar in
her ways and thoughts,--rightly might she be called a daughter,
less of the musician than the music, a being for whom you could
imagine that some fate was reserved, less of actual life than the
romance which, to eyes that can see, and hearts that can feel,
glides ever along WITH the actual life, stream by stream, to the
Dark Ocean.

And therefore it seemed not strange that Viola herself, even in
childhood, and yet more as she bloomed into the sweet seriousness
of virgin youth, should fancy her life ordained for a lot,
whether of bliss or woe, that should accord with the romance and
reverie which made the atmosphere she breathed.  Frequently she
would climb through the thickets that clothed the neighbouring
grotto of Posilipo,--the mighty work of the old Cimmerians,--and,
seated by the haunted Tomb of Virgil, indulge those visions, the
subtle vagueness of which no poetry can render palpable and
defined; for the Poet that surpasses all who ever sang, is the
heart of dreaming youth!  Frequently there, too, beside the
threshold over which the vine-leaves clung, and facing that
dark-blue, waveless sea, she would sit in the autumn noon or
summer twilight, and build her castles in the air.  Who doth not
do the same,--not in youth alone, but with the dimmed hopes of
age!  It is man's prerogative to dream, the common royalty of
peasant and of king.  But those day-dreams of hers were more
habitual, distinct, and solemn than the greater part of us
indulge.  They seemed like the Orama of the Greeks,--prophets
while phantasma.


CHAPTER 1.II.

Fu stupor, fu vaghezza, fu diletto!
"Gerusal. Lib.," cant. ii. xxi.

("Desire it was, 't was wonder, 't was delight."
Wiffen's Translation.)

Now at last the education is accomplished!  Viola is nearly
sixteen.  The Cardinal declares that the time is come when the
new name must be inscribed in the Libro d'Oro,--the Golden Book
set apart to the children of Art and Song.  Yes, but in what
character?--to whose genius is she to give embodiment and form?
Ah, there is the secret!  Rumours go abroad that the
inexhaustible Paisiello, charmed with her performance of his "Nel
cor piu non me sento," and his "Io son Lindoro," will produce
some new masterpiece to introduce the debutante.  Others insist
upon it that her forte is the comic, and that Cimarosa is hard at
work at another "Matrimonia Segreto."  But in the meanwhile there
is a check in the diplomacy somewhere.  The Cardinal is observed
to be out of humour.  He has said publicly,--and the words are
portentous,--"The silly girl is as mad as her father; what she
asks is preposterous!"  Conference follows conference; the
Cardinal talks to the poor child very solemnly in his closet,--
all in vain.  Naples is distracted with curiosity and conjecture.
The lecture ends in a quarrel, and Viola comes home sullen and
pouting:  she will not act,--she has renounced the engagement.

Pisani, too inexperienced to be aware of all the dangers of the
stage, had been pleased at the notion that one, at least, of his
name would add celebrity to his art.  The girl's perverseness
displeased him.  However, he said nothing,--he never scolded in
words, but he took up the faithful barbiton.  Oh, faithful
barbiton, how horribly thou didst scold!  It screeched, it
gabbled, it moaned, it growled.  And Viola's eyes filled with
tears, for she understood that language.  She stole to her
mother, and whispered in her ear; and when Pisani turned from his
employment, lo! both mother and daughter were weeping.  He looked
at them with a wondering stare; and then, as if he felt he had
been harsh, he flew again to his Familiar.  And now you thought
you heard the lullaby which a fairy might sing to some fretful
changeling it had adopted and sought to soothe.  Liquid, low,
silvery, streamed the tones beneath the enchanted bow.  The most
stubborn grief would have paused to hear; and withal, at times,
out came a wild, merry, ringing note, like a laugh, but not
mortal laughter.  It was one of his most successful airs from his
beloved opera,--the Siren in the act of charming the waves and
the winds to sleep.  Heaven knows what next would have come, but
his arm was arrested.  Viola had thrown herself on his breast,
and kissed him, with happy eyes that smiled through her sunny
hair.  At that very moment the door opened,--a message from the
Cardinal.  Viola must go to his Eminence at once.  Her mother
went with her.  All was reconciled and settled; Viola had her
way, and selected her own opera.  O ye dull nations of the North,
with your broils and debates,--your bustling lives of the Pnyx
and the Agora!--you cannot guess what a stir throughout musical
Naples was occasioned by the rumour of a new opera and a new
singer.  But whose the opera?  No cabinet intrigue ever was so
secret.  Pisani came back one night from the theatre, evidently
disturbed and irate.  Woe to thine ears hadst thou heard the
barbiton that night!  They had suspended him from his office,--
they feared that the new opera, and the first debut of his
daughter as prima donna, would be too much for his nerves.  And
his variations, his diablerie of sirens and harpies, on such a
night, made a hazard not to be contemplated without awe.  To be
set aside, and on the very night that his child, whose melody was
but an emanation of his own, was to perform,--set aside for some
new rival:  it was too much for a musician's flesh and blood.
For the first time he spoke in words upon the subject, and
gravely asked--for that question the barbiton, eloquent as it
was, could not express distinctly--what was to be the opera, and
what the part?  And Viola as gravely answered that she was
pledged to the Cardinal not to reveal.  Pisani said nothing, but
disappeared with the violin; and presently they heard the
Familiar from the house-top (whither, when thoroughly out of
humour, the musician sometimes fled), whining and sighing as if
its heart were broken.

The affections of Pisani were little visible on the surface.  He
was not one of those fond, caressing fathers whose children are
ever playing round their knees; his mind and soul were so
thoroughly in his art that domestic life glided by him, seemingly
as if THAT were a dream, and the heart the substantial form and
body of existence.  Persons much cultivating an abstract study
are often thus; mathematicians proverbially so.  When his servant
ran to the celebrated French philosopher, shrieking, "The house
is on fire, sir!"  "Go and tell my wife then, fool!" said the
wise man, settling back to his problems; "do _I_ ever meddle with
domestic affairs?"  But what are mathematics to music--music,
that not only composes operas, but plays on the barbiton?  Do you
know what the illustrious Giardini said when the tyro asked how
long it would take to learn to play on the violin?  Hear, and
despair, ye who would bend the bow to which that of Ulysses was a
plaything, "Twelve hours a day for twenty years together!"  Can a
man, then, who plays the barbiton be always playing also with his
little ones?  No, Pisani; often, with the keen susceptibility of
childhood, poor Viola had stolen from the room to weep at the
thought that thou didst not love her.  And yet, underneath this
outward abstraction of the artist, the natural fondness flowed
all the same; and as she grew up, the dreamer had understood the
dreamer.  And now, shut out from all fame himself; to be
forbidden to hail even his daughter's fame!--and that daughter
herself to be in the conspiracy against him!  Sharper than the
serpent's tooth was the ingratitude, and sharper than the
serpent's tooth was the wail of the pitying barbiton!

The eventful hour is come.  Viola is gone to the theatre,--her
mother with her.  The indignant musician remains at home.
Gionetta bursts into the room:  my Lord Cardinal's carriage is at
the door,--the Padrone is sent for.  He must lay aside his
violin; he must put on his brocade coat and his lace ruffles.
Here they are,--quick, quick!  And quick rolls the gilded coach,
and majestic sits the driver, and statelily prance the steeds.
Poor Pisani is lost in a mist of uncomfortable amaze.  He arrives
at the theatre; he descends at the great door; he turns round and
round, and looks about him and about:  he misses something,--
where is the violin?  Alas! his soul, his voice, his self of
self, is left behind!  It is but an automaton that the lackeys
conduct up the stairs, through the tier, into the Cardinal's box.
 But then, what bursts upon him!  Does he dream?  The first act
is over (they did not send for him till success seemed no longer
doubtful); the first act has decided all.  He feels THAT by the
electric sympathy which ever the one heart has at once with a
vast audience.  He feels it by the breathless stillness of that
multitude; he feels it even by the lifted finger of the Cardinal.
 He sees his Viola on the stage, radiant in her robes and gems,--
he hears her voice thrilling through the single heart of the
thousands!  But the scene, the part, the music!  It is his other
child,--his immortal child; the spirit-infant of his soul; his
darling of many years of patient obscurity and pining genius; his
masterpiece; his opera of the Siren!

This, then, was the mystery that had so galled him,--this the
cause of the quarrel with the Cardinal; this the secret not to be
proclaimed till the success was won, and the daughter had united
her father's triumph with her own!
And there she stands, as all souls bow before her,--fairer than
the very Siren he had called from the deeps of melody.  Oh, long
and sweet recompense of toil!  Where is on earth the rapture like
that which is known to genius when at last it bursts from its
hidden cavern into light and fame!

He did not speak, he did not move; he stood transfixed,
breathless, the tears rolling down his cheeks; only from time to
time his hands still wandered about,--mechanically they sought
for the faithful instrument, why was it not there to share his
triumph?

At last the curtain fell; but on such a storm and diapason of
applause!  Up rose the audience as one man, as with one voice
that dear name was shouted.  She came on, trembling, pale, and in
the whole crowd saw but her father's face.  The audience followed
those moistened eyes; they recognised with a thrill the
daughter's impulse and her meaning.  The good old Cardinal drew
him gently forward.  Wild musician, thy daughter has given thee
back more than the life thou gavest!

"My poor violin!" said he, wiping his eyes, "they will never hiss
thee again now!"



CHAPTER 1.III.

Fra si contrarie tempre in ghiaccio e in foco,
In riso e in pianto, e fra paura e speme
L'ingannatrice Donna--
"Gerusal. Lib.," cant. iv. xciv.

(Between such contrarious mixtures of ice and fire, laughter and
tears,--fear and hope, the deceiving dame.)

Now notwithstanding the triumph both of the singer and the opera,
there had been one moment in the first act, and, consequently,
BEFORE the arrival of Pisani, when the scale seemed more than
doubtful.  It was in a chorus replete with all the peculiarities
of the composer.  And when the Maelstrom of Capricci whirled and
foamed, and tore ear and sense through every variety of sound,
the audience simultaneously recognised the hand of Pisani.  A
title had been given to the opera which had hitherto prevented
all suspicion of its parentage; and the overture and opening, in
which the music had been regular and sweet, had led the audience
to fancy they detected the genius of their favourite Paisiello.
Long accustomed to ridicule and almost to despise the pretensions
of Pisani as a composer, they now felt as if they had been unduly
cheated into the applause with which they had hailed the overture
and the commencing scenas.  An ominous buzz circulated round the
house:  the singers, the orchestra,--electrically sensitive to
the impression of the audience,--grew, themselves, agitated and
dismayed, and failed in the energy and precision which could
alone carry off the grotesqueness of the music.

There are always in every theatre many rivals to a new author and
a new performer,--a party impotent while all goes well, but a
dangerous ambush the instant some accident throws into confusion
the march of success.  A hiss arose; it was partial, it is true,
but the significant silence of all applause seemed to forebode
the coming moment when the displeasure would grow contagious.  It
was the breath that stirred the impending avalanche.  At that
critical moment Viola, the Siren queen, emerged for the first
time from her ocean cave.  As she came forward to the lamps, the
novelty of her situation, the chilling apathy of the audience,--
which even the sight of so singular a beauty did not at the first
arouse,--the whispers of the malignant singers on the stage, the
glare of the lights, and more--far more than the rest--that
recent hiss, which had reached her in her concealment, all froze
up her faculties and suspended her voice.  And, instead of the
grand invocation into which she ought rapidly to have burst, the
regal Siren, retransformed into the trembling girl, stood pale
and mute before the stern, cold array of those countless eyes.

At that instant, and when consciousness itself seemed about to
fail her, as she turned a timid beseeching glance around the
still multitude, she perceived, in a box near the stage, a
countenance which at once, and like magic, produced on her mind
an effect never to be analysed nor forgotten.  It was one that
awakened an indistinct, haunting reminiscence, as if she had seen
it in those day-dreams she had been so wont from infancy to
indulge.  She could not withdraw her gaze from that face, and as
she gazed, the awe and coldness that had before seized her,
vanished like a mist from before the sun.

In the dark splendour of the eyes that met her own there was
indeed so much of gentle encouragement, of benign and
compassionate admiration,--so much that warmed, and animated, and
nerved,--that any one, actor or orator, who has ever observed the
effect that a single earnest and kindly look in the crowd that is
to be addressed and won, will produce upon his mind, may readily
account for the sudden and inspiriting influence which the eye
and smile of the stranger exercised on the debutante.

And while yet she gazed, and the glow returned to her heart, the
stranger half rose, as if to recall the audience to a sense of
the courtesy due to one so fair and young; and the instant his
voice gave the signal, the audience followed it by a burst of
generous applause.  For this stranger himself was a marked
personage, and his recent arrival at Naples had divided with the
new opera the gossip of the city.  And then as the applause
ceased, clear, full, and freed from every fetter, like a spirit
from the clay, the Siren's voice poured forth its entrancing
music.  From that time Viola forgot the crowd, the hazard, the
whole world,--except the fairy one over with she presided.  It
seemed that the stranger's presence only served still more to
heighten that delusion, in which the artist sees no creation
without the circle of his art, she felt as if that serene brow,
and those brilliant eyes, inspired her with powers never known
before:  and, as if searching for a language to express the
strange sensations occasioned by his presence, that presence
itself whispered to her the melody and the song.

Only when all was over, and she saw her father and felt his joy,
did this wild spell vanish before the sweeter one of the
household and filial love.  Yet again, as she turned from the
stage, she looked back involuntarily, and the stranger's calm and
half-melancholy smile sank into her heart,--to live there, to be
recalled with confused memories, half of pleasure, and half of
pain.

Pass over the congratulations of the good Cardinal-Virtuoso,
astonished at finding himself and all Naples had been hitherto in
the wrong on a subject of taste,--still more astonished at
finding himself and all Naples combining to confess it; pass over
the whispered ecstasies of admiration which buzzed in the
singer's ear, as once more, in her modest veil and quiet dress,
she escaped from the crowd of gallants that choked up every
avenue behind the scenes; pass over the sweet embrace of father
and child, returning through the starlit streets and along the
deserted Chiaja in the Cardinal's carriage; never pause now to
note the tears and ejaculations of the good, simple-hearted
mother,--see them returned; see the well-known room, venimus ad
larem nostrum (We come to our own house.); see old Gionetta
bustling at the supper; and hear Pisani, as he rouses the
barbiton from its case, communicating all that has happened to
the intelligent Familiar; hark to the mother's merry, low,
English laugh.  Why, Viola, strange child, sittest thou apart,
thy face leaning on thy fair hands, thine eyes fixed on space?
Up, rouse thee!  Every dimple on the cheek of home must smile
to-night.  ("Ridete quidquid est domi cachinnorum."  Catull. "ad
Sirm. Penin.")

And a happy reunion it was round that humble table:  a feast
Lucullus might have envied in his Hall of Apollo, in the dried
grapes, and the dainty sardines, and the luxurious polenta, and
the old lacrima a present from the good Cardinal.  The barbiton,
placed on a chair--a tall, high-backed chair--beside the
musician, seemed to take a part in the festive meal.  Its honest
varnished face glowed in the light of the lamp; and there was an
impish, sly demureness in its very silence, as its master,
between every mouthful, turned to talk to it of something he had
forgotten to relate before.  The good wife looked on
affectionately, and could not eat for joy; but suddenly she rose,
and placed on the artist's temples a laurel wreath, which she had
woven beforehand in fond anticipation; and Viola, on the other
side her brother, the barbiton, rearranged the chaplet, and,
smoothing back her father's hair, whispered, "Caro Padre, you
will not let HIM scold me again!"

Then poor Pisani, rather distracted between the two, and excited
both by the lacrima and his triumph, turned to the younger child
with so naive and grotesque a pride, "I don't know which to thank
the most.  You give me so much joy, child,--I am so proud of thee
and myself.  But he and I, poor fellow, have been so often
unhappy together!"

Viola's sleep was broken,--that was natural.  The intoxication of
vanity and triumph, the happiness in the happiness she had
caused, all this was better than sleep.  But still from all this,
again and again her thoughts flew to those haunting eyes, to that
smile with which forever the memory of the triumph, of the
happiness, was to be united.  Her feelings, like her own
character, were strange and peculiar.  They were not those of a
girl whose heart, for the first time reached through the eye,
sighs its natural and native language of first love.  It was not
so much admiration, though the face that reflected itself on
every wave of her restless fancies was of the rarest order of
majesty and beauty; nor a pleased and enamoured recollection that
the sight of this stranger had bequeathed:  it was a human
sentiment of gratitude and delight, mixed with something more
mysterious, of fear and awe.  Certainly she had seen before those
features; but when and how?  Only when her thoughts had sought to
shape out her future, and when, in spite of all the attempts to
vision forth a fate of flowers and sunshine, a dark and chill
foreboding made her recoil back into her deepest self.  It was a
something found that had long been sought for by a thousand
restless yearnings and vague desires, less of the heart than
mind; not as when youth discovers the one to be beloved, but
rather as when the student, long wandering after the clew to some
truth in science, sees it glimmer dimly before him, to beckon, to
recede, to allure, and to wane again.  She fell at last into
unquiet slumber, vexed by deformed, fleeting, shapeless phantoms;
and, waking, as the sun, through a veil of hazy cloud, glinted
with a sickly ray across the casement, she heard her father
settled back betimes to his one pursuit, and calling forth from
his Familiar a low mournful strain, like a dirge over the dead.

"And why," she asked, when she descended to the room below,--
"why, my father, was your inspiration so sad, after the joy of
last night?"

"I know not, child.  I meant to be merry, and compose an air in
honour of thee; but he is an obstinate fellow, this,--and he
would have it so."


CHAPTER 1.IV.

E cosi i pigri e timidi desiri
Sprona.
"Gerusal. Lib.," cant. iv. lxxxviii.

(And thus the slow and timid passions urged.)

It was the custom of Pisani, except when the duties of his
profession made special demand on his time, to devote a certain
portion of the mid-day to sleep,--a habit not so much a luxury as
a necessity to a man who slept very little during the night.  In
fact, whether to compose or to practice, the hours of noon were
precisely those in which Pisani could not have been active if he
would.  His genius resembled those fountains full at dawn and
evening, overflowing at night, and perfectly dry at the meridian.
 During this time, consecrated by her husband to repose, the
signora generally stole out to make the purchases necessary for
the little household, or to enjoy (as what woman does not?) a
little relaxation in gossip with some of her own sex.  And the
day following this brilliant triumph, how many congratulations
would she have to receive!

At these times it was Viola's habit to seat herself without the
door of the house, under an awning which sheltered from the sun
without obstructing the view; and there now, with the prompt-book
on her knee, on which her eye roves listlessly from time to time,
you may behold her, the vine-leaves clustering from their arching
trellis over the door behind, and the lazy white-sailed boats
skimming along the sea that stretched before.

As she thus sat, rather in reverie than thought, a man coming
from the direction of Posilipo, with a slow step and downcast
eyes, passed close by the house, and Viola, looking up abruptly,
started in a kind of terror as she recognised the stranger.  She
uttered an involuntary exclamation, and the cavalier turning,
saw, and paused.

He stood a moment or two between her and the sunlit ocean,
contemplating in a silence too serious and gentle for the
boldness of gallantry, the blushing face and the young slight
form before him; at length he spoke.

"Are you happy, my child," he said, in almost a paternal tone,
"at the career that lies before you?  From sixteen to thirty, the
music in the breath of applause is sweeter than all the music
your voice can utter!"

"I know not," replied Viola, falteringly, but encouraged by the
liquid softness of the accents that addressed her,--"I know not
whether I am happy now, but I was last night.  And I feel, too,
Excellency, that I have you to thank, though, perhaps, you scarce
know why!"

"You deceive yourself," said the cavalier, with a smile.  "I am
aware that I assisted to your merited success, and it is you who
scarce know how.  The WHY I will tell you:  because I saw in your
heart a nobler ambition than that of the woman's vanity; it was
the daughter that interested me.  Perhaps you would rather I
should have admired the singer?"

"No; oh, no!"

"Well, I believe you.  And now, since we have thus met, I will
pause to counsel you.  When next you go to the theatre, you will
have at your feet all the young gallants of Naples.  Poor infant!
the flame that dazzles the eye can scorch the wing.  Remember
that the only homage that does not sully must be that which these
gallants will not give thee.  And whatever thy dreams of the
future,--and I see, while I speak to thee, how wandering they
are, and wild,--may only those be fulfilled which centre round
the hearth of home."

He paused, as Viola's breast heaved beneath its robe.  And with a
burst of natural and innocent emotions, scarcely comprehending,
though an Italian, the grave nature of his advice, she
exclaimed,--

"Ah, Excellency, you cannot know how dear to me that home is
already.  And my father,--there would be no home, signor, without
him!"

A deep and melancholy shade settled over the face of the
cavalier.  He looked up at the quiet house buried amidst the
vine-leaves, and turned again to the vivid, animated face of the
young actress.

"It is well," said he.  "A simple heart may be its own best
guide, and so, go on, and prosper.  Adieu, fair singer."

"Adieu, Excellency; but," and something she could not resist--an
anxious, sickening feeling of fear and hope,--impelled her to the
question, "I shall see you again, shall I not, at San Carlo?"

"Not, at least, for some time.  I leave Naples to-day."

"Indeed!" and Viola's heart sank within her; the poetry of the
stage was gone.

"And," said the cavalier, turning back, and gently laying his
hand on hers,--"and, perhaps, before we meet, you may have
suffered:  known the first sharp griefs of human life,--known how
little what fame can gain, repays what the heart can lose; but be
brave and yield not,--not even to what may seem the piety of
sorrow.  Observe yon tree in your neighbour's garden.  Look how
it grows up, crooked and distorted.  Some wind scattered the germ
from which it sprang, in the clefts of the rock; choked up and
walled round by crags and buildings, by Nature and man, its life
has been one struggle for the light,--light which makes to that
life the necessity and the principle:  you see how it has writhed
and twisted; how, meeting the barrier in one spot, it has
laboured and worked, stem and branches, towards the clear skies
at last.  What has preserved it through each disfavour of birth
and circumstances,--why are its leaves as green and fair as those
of the vine behind you, which, with all its arms, can embrace the
open sunshine?  My child, because of the very instinct that
impelled the struggle,--because the labour for the light won to
the light at length.  So with a gallant heart, through every
adverse accident of sorrow and of fate to turn to the sun, to
strive for the heaven; this it is that gives knowledge to the
strong and happiness to the weak.  Ere we meet again, you will
turn sad and heavy eyes to those quiet boughs, and when you hear
the birds sing from them, and see the sunshine come aslant from
crag and housetop to be the playfellow of their leaves, learn the
lesson that Nature teaches you, and strive through darkness to
the light!"

As he spoke he moved on slowly, and left Viola wondering, silent,
saddened with his dim prophecy of coming evil, and yet, through
sadness, charmed.  Involuntarily her eyes followed him,--
involuntarily she stretched forth her arms, as if by a gesture to
call him back; she would have given worlds to have seen him
turn,--to have heard once more his low, calm, silvery voice; to
have felt again the light touch of his hand on hers.  As
moonlight that softens into beauty every angle on which it falls,
seemed his presence,--as moonlight vanishes, and things assume
their common aspect of the rugged and the mean, he receded from
her eyes, and the outward scene was commonplace once more.

The stranger passed on, through that long and lovely road which
reaches at last the palaces that face the public gardens, and
conducts to the more populous quarters of the city.

A group of young, dissipated courtiers, loitering by the gateway
of a house which was open for the favourite pastime of the day,--
the resort of the wealthier and more high-born gamesters,--made
way for him, as with a courteous inclination he passed them by.

"Per fede," said one, "is not that the rich Zanoni, of whom the
town talks?"

"Ay; they say his wealth is incalculable!"

"THEY say,--who are THEY?--what is the authority?  He has not
been many days at Naples, and I cannot yet find any one who knows
aught of his birthplace, his parentage, or, what is more
important, his estates!"

"That is true; but he arrived in a goodly vessel, which THEY SAY
is his own.  See,--no, you cannot see it here; but it rides
yonder in the bay.  The bankers he deals with speak with awe of
the sums placed in their hands."

"Whence came he?"

"From some seaport in the East.  My valet learned from some of
the sailors on the Mole that he had resided many years in the
interior of India."

"Ah, I am told that in India men pick up gold like pebbles, and
that there are valleys where the birds build their nests with
emeralds to attract the moths.  Here comes our prince of
gamesters, Cetoxa; be sure that he already must have made
acquaintance with so wealthy a cavalier; he has that attraction
to gold which the magnet has to steel.  Well, Cetoxa, what fresh
news of the ducats of Signor Zanoni?"

"Oh," said Cetoxa, carelessly, "my friend--"

"Ha! ha! hear him; his friend--"

"Yes; my friend Zanoni is going to Rome for a short time; when he
returns, he has promised me to fix a day to sup with me, and I
will then introduce him to you, and to the best society of
Naples!  Diavolo! but he is a most agreeable and witty
gentleman!"

"Pray tell us how you came so suddenly to be his friend."

"My dear Belgioso, nothing more natural.  He desired a box at San
Carlo; but I need not tell you that the expectation of a new
opera (ah, how superb it is,--that poor devil, Pisani; who would
have thought it?) and a new singer (what a face,--what a voice!--
ah!) had engaged every corner of the house.  I heard of Zanoni's
desire to honour the talent of Naples, and, with my usual
courtesy to distinguished strangers, I sent to place my box at
his disposal.  He accepts it,--I wait on him between the acts; he
is most charming; he invites me to supper.  Cospetto, what a
retinue!  We sit late,--I tell him all the news of Naples; we
grow bosom friends; he presses on me this diamond before we
part,--is a trifle, he tells me:  the jewellers value it at 5000
pistoles!--the merriest evening I have passed these ten years."

The cavaliers crowded round to admire the diamond.

"Signor Count Cetoxa," said one grave-looking sombre man, who had
crossed himself two or three times during the Neapolitan's
narrative, "are you not aware of the strange reports about this
person; and are you not afraid to receive from him a gift which
may carry with it the most fatal consequences?  Do you not know
that he is said to be a sorcerer; to possess the mal-occhio;
to--"

"Prithee, spare us your antiquated superstitions," interrupted
Cetoxa, contemptuously.  "They are out of fashion; nothing now
goes down but scepticism and philosophy.  And what, after all, do
these rumours, when sifted, amount to?  They have no origin but
this,--a silly old man of eighty-six, quite in his dotage,
solemnly avers that he saw this same Zanoni seventy years ago (he
himself, the narrator, then a mere boy) at Milan; when this very
Zanoni, as you all see, is at least as young as you or I,
Belgioso."

"But that," said the grave gentleman,--"THAT is the mystery.  Old
Avelli declares that Zanoni does not seem a day older than when
they met at Milan.  He says that even then at Milan--mark this--
where, though under another name, this Zanoni appeared in the
same splendour, he was attended also by the same mystery.  And
that an old man THERE remembered to have seen him sixty years
before, in Sweden."

"Tush," returned Cetoxa, "the same thing has been said of the
quack Cagliostro,--mere fables.  I will believe them when I see
this diamond turn to a wisp of hay.  For the rest," he added
gravely, "I consider this illustrious gentleman my friend; and a
whisper against his honour and repute will in future be
equivalent to an affront to myself."

Cetoxa was a redoubted swordsman, and excelled in a peculiarly
awkward manoeuvre, which he himself had added to the variations
of the stoccata.  The grave gentleman, however anxious for the
spiritual weal of the count, had an equal regard for his own
corporeal safety.  He contented  himself with a look of
compassion, and, turning through the gateway, ascended the stairs
to the gaming-tables.

"Ha, ha!" said Cetoxa, laughing, "our good Loredano is envious of
my diamond.  Gentlemen, you sup with me to-night.  I assure you I
never met a more delightful, sociable, entertaining person, than
my dear friend the Signor Zanoni."


CHAPTER 1.V.

Quello Ippogifo, grande e strano augello
Lo porta via.
"Orlando Furioso," c. vi. xviii.

(That hippogriff, great and marvellous bird, bears him away.)

And now, accompanying this mysterious Zanoni, am I compelled to
bid a short farewell to Naples.  Mount behind me,--mount on my
hippogriff, reader; settle yourself at your ease.  I bought the
pillion the other day of a poet who loves his comfort; it has
been newly stuffed for your special accommodation.  So, so, we
ascend!  Look as we ride aloft,--look!--never fear, hippogriffs
never stumble; and every hippogriff in Italy is warranted to
carry elderly gentlemen,--look down on the gliding landscapes!
There, near the ruins of the Oscan's old Atella, rises Aversa,
once the stronghold of the Norman; there gleam the columns of
Capua, above the Vulturnian Stream.  Hail to ye, cornfields and
vineyards famous for the old Falernian!  Hail to ye, golden
orange-groves of Mola di Gaeta!  Hail to ye, sweet shrubs and
wild flowers, omnis copia narium, that clothe the mountain-skirts
of the silent Lautulae!  Shall we rest at the Volscian Anxur,--
the modern Terracina,--where the lofty rock stands like the giant
that guards the last borders of the southern land of love?  Away,
away! and hold your breath as we flit above the Pontine Marshes.
 Dreary and desolate, their miasma is to the gardens we have
passed what the rank commonplace of life is to the heart when it
has left love behind.

Mournful Campagna, thou openest on us in majestic sadness.  Rome,
seven-hilled Rome! receive us as Memory receives the way-worn;
receive us in silence, amidst ruins!  Where is the traveller we
pursue?  Turn the hippogriff loose to graze:  he loves the
acanthus that wreathes round yon broken columns.  Yes, that is
the arch of Titus, the conqueror of Jerusalem,--that the
Colosseum!  Through one passed the triumph of the deified
invader; in one fell the butchered gladiators.  Monuments of
murder, how poor the thoughts, how mean the memories ye awaken,
compared with those that speak to the heart of man on the heights
of Phyle, or by thy lone mound, grey Marathon!  We stand amidst
weeds and brambles and long waving herbage.  Where we stand
reigned Nero,--here were his tessellated floors; here,

"Mighty in the heaven, a second heaven,"

hung the vault of his ivory roofs; here, arch upon arch, pillar
on pillar, glittered to the world the golden palace of its
master,--the Golden House of Nero.  How the lizard watches us
with his bright, timorous eye!  We disturb his reign.  Gather
that wild flower:  the Golden House is vanished, but the wild
flower may have kin to those which the stranger's hand scattered
over the tyrant's grave; see, over this soil, the grave of Rome,
Nature strews the wild flowers still!

In the midst of this desolation is an old building of the middle
ages.  Here dwells a singular recluse.  In the season of the
malaria the native peasant flies the rank vegetation round; but
he, a stranger and a foreigner, no associates, no companions,
except books and instruments of science.  He is often seen
wandering over the grass-grown hills, or sauntering through the
streets of the new city, not with the absent brow and incurious
air of students, but with observant piercing eyes that seem to
dive into the hearts of the passers-by.  An old man, but not
infirm,--erect and stately, as if in his prime.  None know
whether he be rich or poor.  He asks no charity, and he gives
none,--he does no evil, and seems to confer no good.  He is a man
who appears to have no world beyond himself; but appearances are
deceitful, and Science, as well as Benevolence, lives in the
Universe.  This abode, for the first time since thus occupied, a
visitor enters.  It is Zanoni.

You observe those two men seated together, conversing earnestly.
Years long and many have flown away since they met last,--at
least, bodily, and face to face.  But if they are sages, thought
can meet thought, and spirit spirit, though oceans divide the
forms.  Death itself divides not the wise.  Thou meetest Plato
when thine eyes moisten over the Phaedo.  May Homer live with all
men forever!

They converse; they confess to each other; they conjure up the
past, and repeople it; but note how differently do such
remembrances affect the two.  On Zanoni's face, despite its
habitual calm, the emotions change and go.  HE has acted in the
past he surveys; but not a trace of the humanity that
participates in joy and sorrow can be detected on the passionless
visage of his companion; the past, to him, as is now the present,
has been but as Nature to the sage, the volume to the student,--a
calm and spiritual life, a study, a contemplation.

From the past they turn to the future.  Ah! at the close of the
last century, the future seemed a thing tangible,--it was woven
up in all men's fears and hopes of the present.

At the verge of that hundred years, Man, the ripest born of Time,

("An des Jahrhunderts Neige,
Der reifste Sohn der Zeit."
"Die Kunstler.")

stood as at the deathbed of the Old World, and beheld the New
Orb, blood-red amidst cloud and vapour,--uncertain if a comet or
a sun.  Behold the icy and profound disdain on the brow of the
old man,--the lofty yet touching sadness that darkens the
glorious countenance of Zanoni.  Is it that one views with
contempt the struggle and its issue, and the other with awe or
pity?  Wisdom contemplating mankind leads but to the two
results,--compassion or disdain.  He who believes in other worlds
can accustom himself to look on this as the naturalist on the
revolutions of an ant-hill, or of a leaf.  What is the Earth to
Infinity,--what its duration to the Eternal?  Oh, how much
greater is the soul of one man than the vicissitudes of the whole
globe!  Child of heaven, and heir of immortality, how from some
star hereafter wilt thou look back on the ant-hill and its
commotions, from Clovis to Robespierre, from Noah to the Final
Fire.  The spirit that can contemplate, that lives only in the
intellect, can ascend to its star, even from the midst of the
burial-ground called Earth, and while the sarcophagus called Life
immures in its clay the everlasting!

But thou, Zanoni,--thou hast refused to live ONLY in the
intellect; thou hast not mortified the heart; thy pulse still
beats with the sweet music of mortal passion; thy kind is to thee
still something warmer than an abstraction,--thou wouldst look
upon this Revolution in its cradle, which the storms rock; thou
wouldst see the world while its elements yet struggle through the
chaos!

Go!


CHAPTER 1.VI.

Precepteurs ignorans de ce faible univers.--Voltaire.
(Ignorant teachers of this weak world.)

Nous etions a table chez un de nos confreres a l'Academie,
Grand Seigneur et homme d'esprit.--La Harpe.
(We supped with one of our confreres of the Academy,--a great
nobleman and wit.)

One evening, at Paris, several months after the date of our last
chapter, there was a reunion of some of the most eminent wits of
the time, at the house of a personage distinguished alike by
noble birth and liberal accomplishments.  Nearly all present were
of the views that were then the mode.  For, as came afterwards a
time when nothing was so unpopular as the people, so that was the
time when nothing was so vulgar as aristocracy.  The airiest fine
gentleman and the haughtiest noble prated of equality, and lisped
enlightenment.

Among the more remarkable guests were Condorcet, then in the
prime of his reputation, the correspondent of the king of
Prussia, the intimate of Voltaire, the member of half the
academies of Europe,--noble by birth, polished in manners,
republican in opinions.  There, too, was the venerable
Malesherbes, "l'amour et les delices de la Nation."  (The idol
and delight of the nation (so-called by his historian,
Gaillard).)  There Jean Silvain Bailly, the accomplished
scholar,--the aspiring politician.  It was one of those petits
soupers for which the capital of all social pleasures was so
renowned.  The conversation, as might be expected, was literary
and intellectual, enlivened by graceful pleasantry.  Many of the
ladies of that ancient and proud noblesse--for the noblesse yet
existed, though its hours were already numbered--added to the
charm of the society; and theirs were the boldest criticisms, and
often the most liberal sentiments.

Vain labour for me--vain labour almost for the grave English
language--to do justice to the sparkling paradoxes that flew from
lip to lip.  The favourite theme was the superiority of the
moderns to the ancients.  Condorcet on this head was eloquent,
and to some, at least, of his audience, most convincing.  That
Voltaire was greater than Homer few there were disposed to deny.
Keen was the ridicule lavished on the dull pedantry which finds
everything ancient necessarily sublime.

"Yet," said the graceful Marquis de --, as the champagne danced
to his glass, "more ridiculous still is the superstition that
finds everything incomprehensible holy!  But intelligence
circulates, Condorcet; like water, it finds its level.  My
hairdresser said to me this morning, 'Though I am but a poor
fellow, I believe as little as the finest gentleman!'"
"Unquestionably, the great Revolution draws near to its final
completion,--a pas de geant, as Montesquieu said of his own
immortal work."

Then there rushed from all--wit and noble, courtier and
republican--a confused chorus, harmonious only in its
anticipation of the brilliant things to which "the great
Revolution" was to give birth.  Here Condrocet is more eloquent
than before.

"Il faut absolument que la Superstition et le Fanatisme fassent
place a la Philosophie.  (It must necessarily happen that
superstition and fanaticism give place to philosophy.)  Kings
persecute persons, priests opinion.  Without kings, men must be
safe; and without priests, minds must be free."

"Ah," murmured the marquis, "and as ce cher Diderot has so well
sung,--

'Et des boyaux du dernier pretre
Serrez le cou du dernier roi.'"
(And throttle the neck of the last king with the string from the
bowels of the last priest.)

"And then," resumed Condorcet,--"then commences the Age of
Reason!--equality in instruction, equality in institutions,
equality in wealth!  The great impediments to knowledge are,
first, the want of a common language; and next, the short
duration of existence.  But as to the first, when all men are
brothers, why not a universal language?  As to the second, the
organic perfectibility of the vegetable world is undisputed, is
Nature less powerful in the nobler existence of thinking man?
The very destruction of the two most active causes of physical
deterioration--here, luxurious wealth; there, abject penury,--
must necessarily prolong the general term of life.  (See
Condorcet's posthumous work on the Progress of the Human Mind.--
Ed.)  The art of medicine will then be honoured in the place of
war, which is the art of murder:  the noblest study of the
acutest minds will be devoted to the discovery and arrest of the
causes of disease.  Life, I grant, cannot be made eternal; but it
may be prolonged almost indefinitely.  And as the meaner animal
bequeaths its vigour to its offspring, so man shall transmit his
improved organisation, mental and physical, to his sons.  Oh,
yes, to such a consummation does our age approach!"

The venerable Malesherbes sighed.  Perhaps he feared the
consummation might not come in time for him.  The handsome
Marquis de -- and the ladies, yet handsomer than he, looked
conviction and delight.

But two men there were, seated next to each other, who joined not
in the general talk:  the one a stranger newly arrived in Paris,
where his wealth, his person, and his accomplishments, had
already made him remarked and courted; the other, an old man,
somewhere about seventy,--the witty and virtuous, brave, and
still light-hearted Cazotte, the author of "Le Diable Amoureux."

These two conversed familiarly, and apart from the rest, and only
by an occasional smile testified their attention to the general
conversation.

"Yes," said the stranger,--"yes, we have met before."

"I thought I could not forget your countenance; yet I task in
vain my recollections of the past."

"I will assist you.  Recall the time when, led by curiosity, or
perhaps the nobler desire of knowledge, you sought initiation
into the mysterious order of Martines de Pasqualis."

(It is so recorded of Cazotte.  Of Martines de Pasqualis little
is known; even the country to which he belonged is matter of
conjecture.  Equally so the rites, ceremonies, and nature of the
cabalistic order he established.  St. Martin was a disciple of
the school, and that, at least, is in its favour; for in spite of
his mysticism, no man more beneficent, generous, pure, and
virtuous than St. Martin adorned the last century.  Above all, no
man more distinguished himself from the herd of sceptical
philosophers by the gallantry and fervour with which he combated
materialism, and vindicated the necessity of faith amidst a chaos
of unbelief.  It may also be observed, that Cazotte, whatever
else he learned of the brotherhood of Martines, learned nothing
that diminished the excellence of his life and the sincerity of
his religion.  At once gentle and brave, he never ceased to
oppose the excesses of the Revolution.  To the last, unlike the
Liberals of his time, he was a devout and sincere Christian.
Before his execution, he demanded a pen and paper to write these
words:  "Ma femme, mes enfans, ne me pleurez pas; ne m'oubliez
pas, mais souvenez-vous surtout de ne jamais offenser Dieu."
("My wife, my children, weep not for me; forget me not, but
remember above everything never to offend God.)--Ed.)

"Ah, is it possible!  You are one of that theurgic brotherhood?"

"Nay, I attended their ceremonies but to see how vainly they
sought to revive the ancient marvels of the cabala."

"Such studies please you?  I have shaken off the influence they
once had on my own imagination."

"You have not shaken it off," returned the stranger, bravely; "it
is on you still,--on you at this hour; it beats in your heart; it
kindles in your reason; it will speak in your tongue!"

And then, with a yet lower voice, the stranger continued to
address him, to remind him of certain ceremonies and doctrines,--
to explain and enforce them by references to the actual
experience and history of his listener, which Cazotte thrilled to
find so familiar to a stranger.

Gradually the old man's pleasing and benevolent countenance grew
overcast, and he turned, from time to time, searching, curious,
uneasy glances towards his companion.

The charming Duchesse de G-- archly pointed out to the lively
guests the abstracted air and clouded brow of the poet; and
Condorcet, who liked no one else to be remarked, when he himself
was present, said to Cazotte, "Well, and what do YOU predict of
the Revolution,--how, at least, will it affect us?"

At that question Cazotte started; his cheeks grew pale, large
drops stood on his forehead; his lips writhed; his gay companions
gazed on him in surprise.

"Speak!" whispered the stranger, laying his hand gently upon the
arm of the old wit.

At that word Cazotte's face grew locked and rigid, his eyes dwelt
vacantly on space, and in a low, hollow voice, he thus answered

(The following prophecy (not unfamiliar, perhaps, to some of my
readers), with some slight variations, and at greater length, in
the text of the authority I am about to cite, is to be found in
La Harpe's posthumous works.  The MS. is said to exist still in
La Harpe's handwriting, and the story is given on M. Petitot's
authority, volume i. page 62.  It is not for me to enquire if
there be doubts of its foundation on fact.--Ed.),--

"You ask how it will affect yourselves,--you, its most learned,
and its least selfish agents.  I will answer:  you, Marquis de
Condorcet, will die in prison, but not by the hand of the
executioner.  In the peaceful happiness of that day, the
philosopher will carry about with him not the elixir but the
poison."

"My poor Cazotte," said Condorcet, with his gentle smile, "what
have prisons, executioners, and poison to do with an age of
liberty and brotherhood?"

"It is in the names of Liberty and Brotherhood that the prisons
will reek, and the headsman be glutted."

"You are thinking of priestcraft, not philosophy, Cazotte," said
Champfort.

(Champfort, one of those men of letters who, though misled by the
first fair show of the Revolution, refused to follow the baser
men of action into its horrible excesses, lived to express the
murderous philanthropy of its agents by the best bon mot of the
time.  Seeing written on the walls, "Fraternite ou la Mort," he
observed that the sentiment should be translated thus, "Sois mon
frere, ou je te tue."  ("Be my brother, or I kill thee."))  "And
what of me?"

"You will open your own veins to escape the fraternity of Cain.
Be comforted; the last drops will not follow the razor.  For you,
venerable Malesherbes; for you, Aimar Nicolai; for you, learned
Bailly,--I see them dress the scaffold!  And all the while, O
great philosophers, your murderers will have no word but
philosophy on their lips!"

The hush was complete and universal when the pupil of Voltaire--
the prince of the academic sceptics, hot La Harpe--cried with a
sarcastic laugh, "Do not flatter me, O prophet, by exemption from
the fate of my companions.  Shall _I_ have no part to play in
this drama of your fantasies."

At this question, Cazotte's countenance lost its unnatural
expression of awe and sternness; the sardonic humour most common
to it came back and played in his brightening eyes.

"Yes, La Harpe, the most wonderful part of all!  YOU will
become--a Christian!"

This was too much for the audience that a moment before seemed
grave and thoughtful, and they burst into an immoderate fit of
laughter, while Cazotte, as if exhausted by his predictions, sank
back in his chair, and breathed hard and heavily.

"Nay, said Madame de G--, "you who have predicted such grave
things concerning us, must prophesy something also about
yourself."

A convulsive tremor shook the involuntary prophet,--it passed,
and left his countenance elevated by an expression of resignation
and calm.  "Madame," said he, after a long pause, "during the
siege of Jerusalem, we are told by its historian that a man, for
seven successive days, went round the ramparts, exclaiming, 'Woe
to thee, Jerusalem,--woe to myself!'"

"Well, Cazotte, well?"

"And on the seventh day, while he thus spoke, a stone from the
machines of the Romans dashed him into atoms!"

With these words, Cazotte rose; and the guests, awed in spite of
themselves, shortly afterwards broke up and retired.


CHAPTER 1.VII.

Qui donc t'a donne la mission s'annoncer au peuple que la
divinite n'existe pas?  Quel avantage trouves-tu a persuader a
l'homme qu'une force aveugle preside a ses destinees et frappe au
hasard le crime et la vertu?--Robespierre, "Discours," Mai 7,
1794.

(Who then invested you with the mission to announce to the people
that there is no God?  What advantage find you in persuading man
that nothing but blind force presides over his destinies, and
strikes haphazard both crime and virtue?)

It was some time before midnight when the stranger returned home.
His apartments were situated in one of those vast abodes which
may be called an epitome of Paris itself,--the cellars rented by
mechanics, scarcely removed a step from paupers, often by
outcasts and fugitives from the law, often by some daring writer,
who, after scattering amongst the people doctrines the most
subversive of order, or the most libellous on the characters of
priest, minister, and king, retired amongst the rats, to escape
the persecution that attends the virtuous; the ground-floor
occupied by shops; the entresol by artists; the principal stories
by nobles; and the garrets by journeymen or grisettes.

As the stranger passed up the stairs, a young man of a form and
countenance singularly unprepossessing emerged from a door in the
entresol, and brushed beside him.  His glance was furtive,
sinister, savage, and yet timorous; the man's face was of an
ashen paleness, and the features worked convulsively.  The
stranger paused, and observed him with thoughtful looks, as he
hurried down the stairs.  While he thus stood, he heard a groan
from the room which the young man had just quitted; the latter
had pulled to the door with hasty vehemence, but some fragment,
probably of fuel, had prevented its closing, and it now stood
slightly ajar; the stranger pushed it open and entered.  He
passed a small anteroom, meanly furnished, and stood in a
bedchamber of meagre and sordid discomfort.  Stretched on the
bed, and writhing in pain, lay an old man; a single candle lit
the room, and threw its feeble ray over the furrowed and
death-like face of the sick person.  No attendant was by; he
seemed left alone, to breathe his last.  "Water," he moaned
feebly,--"water:--I parch,--I burn!"  The intruder approached the
bed, bent over him, and took his hand.  "Oh, bless thee, Jean,
bless thee!" said the sufferer; "hast thou brought back the
physician already?  Sir, I am poor, but I can pay you well.  I
would not die yet, for that young man's sake."  And he sat
upright in his bed, and fixed his dim eyes anxiously on his
visitor.

"What are your symptoms, your disease?"

"Fire, fire, fire in the heart, the entrails:  I burn!"

"How long is it since you have taken food?"

"Food! only this broth.  There is the basin, all I have taken
these six hours.  I had scarce drunk it ere these pains began."

The stranger looked at the basin; some portion of the contents
was yet left there.

"Who administered this to you?"

"Who?  Jean!  Who else should?  I have no servant,--none!  I am
poor, very poor, sir.  But no! you physicians do not care for the
poor.  I AM RICH! can you cure me?"

"Yes, if Heaven permit.  Wait but a few moments."

The old man was fast sinking under the rapid effects of poison.
The stranger repaired to his own apartments, and returned in a
few moments with some preparation that had the instant result of
an antidote.  The pain ceased, the blue and livid colour receded
from the lips; the old man fell into a profound sleep.  The
stranger drew the curtains round the bed, took up the light, and
inspected the apartment.  The walls of both rooms were hung with
drawings of masterly excellence.  A portfolio was filled with
sketches of equal skill,--but these last were mostly subjects
that appalled the eye and revolted the taste:  they displayed the
human figure in every variety of suffering,--the rack, the wheel,
the gibbet; all that cruelty has invented to sharpen the pangs of
death seemed yet more dreadful from the passionate gusto and
earnest force of the designer.  And some of the countenances of
those thus delineated were sufficiently removed from the ideal to
show that they were portraits; in a large, bold, irregular hand
was written beneath these drawings, "The Future of the
Aristocrats."  In a corner of the room, and close by an old
bureau, was a small bundle, over which, as if to hide it, a cloak
was thrown carelessly.  Several shelves were filled with books;
these were almost entirely the works of the philosophers of the
time,--the philosophers of the material school, especially the
Encyclopedistes, whom Robespierre afterwards so singularly
attacked when the coward deemed it unsafe to leave his reign
without a God.

("Cette secte (les Encyclopedistes) propagea avec beaucoup de
zele l'opinion du materialisme, qui prevalut parmi les grands et
parmi les beaux esprits; on lui doit en partie cette espece de
philosophie pratique qui, reduisant l'Egoisme en systeme regarde
la societe humaine comme une guerre de ruse, le succes comme la
regle du juste et de l'injuste, la probite comme une affaire de
gout, ou de bienseance, le monde comme le patrimoine des fripons
adroits."--"Discours de Robespierre," Mai 7, 1794.  (This sect
(the Encyclopaedists) propagate with much zeal the doctrine of
materialism, which prevails among the great and the wits; we owe
to it partly that kind of practical philosophy which, reducing
Egotism to a system, looks upon society as a war of cunning;
success the rule of right and wrong, honesty as an affair of
taste or decency:  and the world as the patrimony of clever
scoundrels.))

A volume lay on a table,--it was one of Voltaire, and the page
was opened at his argumentative assertion of the existence of the
Supreme Being.  ("Histoire de Jenni.")  The margin was covered
with pencilled notes, in the stiff but tremulous hand of old age;
all in attempt to refute or to ridicule the logic of the sage of
Ferney:  Voltaire did not go far enough for the annotator!  The
clock struck two, when the sound of steps was heard without.  The
stranger silently seated himself on the farther side of the bed,
and its drapery screened him, as he sat, from the eyes of a man
who now entered on tiptoe; it was the same person who had passed
him on the stairs.  The new-comer took up the candle and
approached the bed.  The old man's face was turned to the pillow;
but he lay so still, and his breathing was so inaudible, that his
sleep might well, by that hasty, shrinking, guilty glance, be
mistaken for the repose of death.  The new-comer drew back, and a
grim smile passed over his face:  he replaced the candle on the
table, opened the bureau with a key which he took from his
pocket, and loaded himself with several rouleaus of gold that he
found in the drawers.  At this time the old man began to wake.
He stirred, he looked up; he turned his eyes towards the light
now waning in its socket; he saw the robber at his work; he sat
erect for an instant, as if transfixed, more even by astonishment
than terror.  At last he sprang from his bed.

"Just Heaven! do I dream!  Thou--thou--thou, for whom I toiled
and starved!--THOU!"

The robber started; the gold fell from his hand, and rolled on
the floor.

"What!" he said, "art thou not dead yet?  Has the poison failed?"

"Poison, boy!  Ah!" shrieked the old man, and covered his face
with his hands; then, with sudden energy, he exclaimed, "Jean!
Jean! recall that word.  Rob, plunder me if thou wilt, but do not
say thou couldst murder one who only lived for thee!  There,
there, take the gold; I hoarded it but for thee.  Go! go!" and
the old man, who in his passion had quitted his bed, fell at the
feet of the foiled assassin, and writhed on the ground,--the
mental agony more intolerable than that of the body, which he had
so lately undergone.  The robber looked at him with a hard
disdain.
"What have I ever done to thee, wretch?" cried the old man,--
"what but loved and cherished thee?  Thou wert an orphan,--an
outcast.  I nurtured, nursed, adopted thee as my son.  If men
call me a miser, it was but that none might despise thee, my
heir, because Nature has stunted and deformed thee, when I was no
more.  Thou wouldst have had all when I was dead.  Couldst thou
not spare me a few months or days,--nothing to thy youth, all
that is left to my age?  What have I done to thee?"

"Thou hast continued to live, and thou wouldst make no will."

"Mon Dieu!  Mon Dieu!"

"TON DIEU!  Thy God!  Fool!  Hast thou not told me, from my
childhood, that there is NO God?  Hast thou not fed me on
philosophy?  Hast thou not said, 'Be virtuous, be good, be just,
for the sake of mankind:  but there is no life after this life'?
 Mankind! why should I love mankind?  Hideous and misshapen,
mankind jeer at me as I pass the streets.  What hast thou done to
me?  Thou hast taken away from me, who am the scoff of this
world, the hopes of another!  Is there no other life?  Well,
then, I want thy gold, that at least I may hasten to make the
best of this!"

"Monster!  Curses light on thy ingratitude, thy--"

"And who hears thy curses?  Thou knowest there is no God!  Mark
me; I have prepared all to fly.  See,--I have my passport; my
horses wait without; relays are ordered.  I have thy gold."  (And
the wretch, as he spoke, continued coldly to load his person with
the rouleaus).  "And now, if I spare thy life, how shall I be
sure that thou wilt not inform against mine?"  He advanced with a
gloomy scowl and a menacing gesture as he spoke.

The old man's anger changed to fear.  He cowered before the
savage.  "Let me live! let me live!--that--that--"

"That--what?"

"I may pardon thee!  Yes, thou hast nothing to fear from me.  I
swear it!"

"Swear!  But by whom and what, old man?  I cannot believe thee,
if thou believest not in any God!  Ha, ha! behold the result of
thy lessons."

Another moment and those murderous fingers would have strangled
their prey.  But between the assassin and his victim rose a form
that seemed almost to both a visitor from the world that both
denied,--stately with majestic strength, glorious with awful
beauty.

The ruffian recoiled, looked, trembled, and then turned and fled
from the chamber.  The old man fell again to the ground
insensible.


CHAPTER 1.VIII.

To know how a bad man will act when in power, reverse all the
doctrines he preaches when obscure.--S. Montague.

Antipathies also form a part of magic (falsely) so-called.  Man
naturally has the same instinct as the animals, which warns them
involuntarily against the creatures that are hostile or fatal to
their existence.  But HE so often neglects it, that it becomes
dormant.  Not so the true cultivator of the Great Science, etc.--
Trismegistus the Fourth (a Rosicrucian).

When he again saw the old man the next day, the stranger found
him calm, and surprisingly recovered from the scene and
sufferings of the night.  He expressed his gratitude to his
preserver with tearful fervour, and stated that he had already
sent for a relation who would make arrangements for his future
safety and mode of life.  "For I have money yet left," said the
old man; "and henceforth have no motive to be a miser."  He
proceeded then briefly to relate the origin and circumstances of
his connection with his intended murderer.

It seems that in earlier life he had quarrelled with his
relations,--from a difference in opinions of belief.  Rejecting
all religion as a fable, he yet cultivated feelings that inclined
him--for though his intellect was weak, his dispositions were
good--to that false and exaggerated sensibility which its dupes
so often mistake for benevolence.  He had no children; he
resolved to adopt an enfant du peuple.  He resolved to educate
this boy according to "reason."  He selected an orphan of the
lowest extraction, whose defects of person and constitution only
yet the more moved his pity, and finally engrossed his affection.
In this outcast he not only loved a son, he loved a theory!  He
brought him up most philosophically.  Helvetius had proved to him
that education can do all; and before he was eight years old, the
little Jean's favourite expressions were, "La lumiere et la
vertu."  (Light and virtue.)  The boy showed talents, especially
in art.

The protector sought for a master who was as free from
"superstition" as himself, and selected the painter David.  That
person, as hideous as his pupil, and whose dispositions were as
vicious as his professional abilities were undeniable, was
certainly as free from "superstition" as the protector could
desire.  It was reserved for Robespierre hereafter to make the
sanguinary painter believe in the Etre Supreme.  The boy was
early sensible of his ugliness, which was almost preternatural.
His benefactor found it in vain to reconcile him to the malice of
Nature by his philosophical aphorisms; but when he pointed out to
him that in this world money, like charity, covers a multitude of
defects, the boy listened eagerly and was consoled.  To save
money for his protege,--for the only thing in the world he
loved,--this became the patron's passion.  Verily, he had met
with his reward.

"But I am thankful he has escaped," said the old man, wiping his
eyes.  "Had he left me a beggar, I could never have accused him."

"No, for you are the author of his crimes."

"How!  I, who never ceased to inculcate the beauty of virtue?
Explain yourself."

"Alas! if thy pupil did not make this clear to thee last night
from his own lips, an angel might come from heaven to preach to
thee in vain."

The old man moved uneasily, and was about to reply, when the
relative he had sent for--and who, a native of Nancy, happened to
be at Paris at the time--entered the room.  He was a man somewhat
past thirty, and of a dry, saturnine, meagre countenance,
restless eyes, and compressed lips.  He listened, with many
ejaculations of horror, to his relation's recital, and sought
earnestly, but in vain, to induce him to give information against
his protege.

"Tush, tush, Rene Dumas!" said the old man, "you are a lawyer.
You are bred to regard human life with contempt.  Let any man
break a law, and you shout, 'Execute him!'"

"I!" cried Dumas, lifting up his hands and eyes:  "venerable
sage, how you misjudge me!  I lament more than any one the
severity of our code.  I think the state never should take away
life,--no, not even the life of a murderer.  I agree with that
young statesman,--Maximilien Robespierre,--that the executioner
is the invention of the tyrant.  My very attachment to our
advancing revolution is, that it must sweep away this legal
butchery."

The lawyer paused, out of breath.  The stranger regarded him
fixedly and turned pale.

"You change countenance, sir," said Dumas; "you do not agree with
me."

"Pardon me, I was at that moment repressing a vague fear which
seemed prophetic."

"And that--"

"Was that we should meet again, when your opinions on Death and
the philosophy of Revolutions might be different."

"Never!"

"You enchant me, Cousin Rene," said the old man, who had listened
to his relation with delight.  "Ah, I see you have proper
sentiments of justice and philanthropy.  Why did I not seek to
know you before?  You admire the Revolution;--you, equally with
me, detest the barbarity of kings and the fraud of priests?"

"Detest!  How could I love mankind if I did not?"

"And," said the old man, hesitatingly, "you do not think, with
this noble gentleman, that I erred in the precepts I instilled
into that wretched man?"

"Erred!  Was Socrates to blame if Alcibiades was an adulterer and
a traitor?"

"You hear him, you hear him!  But Socrates had also a Plato;
henceforth you shall be a Plato to me.  You hear him?" exclaimed
the old man, turning to the stranger.

But the latter was at the threshold.  Who shall argue with the
most stubborn of all bigotries,--the fanaticism of unbelief?

"Are you going?" exclaimed Dumas, "and before I have thanked you,
blessed you, for the life of this dear and venerable man?  Oh, if
ever I can repay you,--if ever you want the heart's blood of Rene
Dumas!"  Thus volubly delivering himself, he followed the
stranger to the threshold of the second chamber, and there,
gently detaining him, and after looking over his shoulder, to be
sure that he was not heard by the owner, he whispered, "I ought
to return to Nancy.  One would not lose one's time,--you don't
think, sir, that that scoundrel took away ALL the old fool's
money?"

"Was it thus Plato spoke of Socrates, Monsieur Dumas?"

"Ha, ha!--you are caustic.  Well, you have a right.  Sir, we
shall meet again."

"AGAIN!" muttered the stranger, and his brow darkened.  He
hastened to his chamber; he passed the day and the night alone,
and in studies, no matter of what nature,--they served to
increase his gloom.

What could ever connect his fate with Rene Dumas, or the fugitive
assassin?  Why did the buoyant air of Paris seem to him heavy
with the steams of blood; why did an instinct urge him to fly
from those sparkling circles, from that focus of the world's
awakened hopes, warning him from return?--he, whose lofty
existence defied--but away these dreams and omens!  He leaves
France behind.  Back, O Italy, to thy majestic wrecks!  On the
Alps his soul breathes the free air once more.  Free air!  Alas!
let the world-healers exhaust their chemistry; man never shall be
as free in the marketplace as on the mountain.  But we, reader,
we too escape from these scenes of false wisdom clothing godless
crime.  Away, once more

"In den heitern Regionen
Wo die reinen Formen wohnen."

Away, to the loftier realm where the pure dwellers are.
Unpolluted by the Actual, the Ideal lives only with Art and
Beauty.  Sweet Viola, by the shores of the blue Parthenope, by
Virgil's tomb, and the Cimmerian cavern, we return to thee once
more.


CHAPTER 1.IX.

Che non vuol che 'l destrier piu vada in alto,
Poi lo lega nel margine marino
A un verde mirto in mezzo un lauro E UN PINO.
"Orlando Furioso," c. vi. xxiii.

(As he did not wish that his charger (the hippogriff) should take
any further excursions into the higher regions for the present,
he bound him at the sea-shore to a green myrtle between a laurel
and a pine.)

O Musician! art thou happy now?  Thou art reinstalled at thy
stately desk,--thy faithful barbiton has its share in the
triumph.  It is thy masterpiece which fills thy ear; it is thy
daughter who fills the scene,--the music, the actress, so united,
that applause to one is applause to both.  They make way for
thee, at the orchestra,--they no longer jeer and wink, when, with
a fierce fondness, thou dost caress thy Familiar, that plains,
and wails, and chides, and growls, under thy remorseless hand.
They understand now how irregular is ever the symmetry of real
genius.  The inequalities in its surface make the moon luminous
to man.  Giovanni Paisiello, Maestro di Capella, if thy gentle
soul could know envy, thou must sicken to see thy Elfrida and thy
Pirro laid aside, and all Naples turned fanatic to the Siren, at
whose measures shook querulously thy gentle head!  But thou,
Paisiello, calm in the long prosperity of fame, knowest that the
New will have its day, and comfortest thyself that the Elfrida
and the Pirro will live forever.  Perhaps a mistake, but it is by
such mistakes that true genius conquers envy.  "To be immortal,"
says Schiller, "live in the whole."  To be superior to the hour,
live in thy self-esteem.  The audience now would give their ears
for those variations and flights they were once wont to hiss.
No!--Pisani has been two-thirds of a life at silent work on his
masterpiece:  there is nothing he can add to THAT, however he
might have sought to improve on the masterpieces of others.  Is
not this common?  The least little critic, in reviewing some work
of art, will say, "pity this, and pity that;" "this should have
been altered,--that omitted."  Yea, with his wiry fiddlestring
will he creak out his accursed variations.  But let him sit down
and compose himself.  He sees no improvement in variations THEN!
Every man can control his fiddle when it is his own work with
which its vagaries would play the devil.

And Viola is the idol, the theme of Naples.  She is the spoiled
sultana of the boards.  To spoil her acting may be easy enough,--
shall they spoil her nature?  No, I think not.  There, at home,
she is still good and simple; and there, under the awning by the
doorway,--there she still sits, divinely musing.  How often,
crook-trunked tree, she looks to thy green boughs; how often,
like thee, in her dreams, and fancies, does she struggle for the
light,--not the light of the stage-lamps.  Pooh, child! be
contented with the lamps, even with the rush-lights.  A farthing
candle is more convenient for household purposes than the stars.

Weeks passed, and the stranger did not reappear; months had
passed, and his prophecy of sorrow was not yet fulfilled.  One
evening Pisani was taken ill.  His success had brought on the
long-neglected composer pressing applications for concerti and
sonata, adapted to his more peculiar science on the violin.  He
had been employed for some weeks, day and night, on a piece in
which he hoped to excel himself.  He took, as usual, one of those
seemingly impracticable subjects which it was his pride to
subject to the expressive powers of his art,--the terrible legend
connected with the transformation of Philomel.  The pantomime of
sound opened with the gay merriment of a feast.  The monarch of
Thrace is at his banquet; a sudden discord brays through the
joyous notes,--the string seems to screech with horror.  The king
learns the murder of his son by the hands of the avenging
sisters.  Swift rage the chords, through the passions of fear, of
horror, of fury, and dismay.  The father pursues the sisters.
Hark! what changes the dread--the discord--into that long,
silvery, mournful music?  The transformation is completed; and
Philomel, now the nightingale, pours from the myrtle-bough the
full, liquid, subduing notes that are to tell evermore to the
world the history of her woes and wrongs.  Now, it was in the
midst of this complicated and difficult attempt that the health
of the over-tasked musician, excited alike by past triumph and
new ambition, suddenly gave way.  He was taken ill at night.  The
next morning the doctor pronounced that his disease was a
malignant and infectious fever.  His wife and Viola shared in
their tender watch; but soon that task was left to the last
alone.  The Signora Pisani caught the infection, and in a few
hours was even in a state more alarming than that of her husband.
The Neapolitans, in common with the inhabitants of all warm
climates, are apt to become selfish and brutal in their dread of
infectious disorders.  Gionetta herself pretended to be ill, to
avoid the sick-chamber.  The whole labour of love and sorrow fell
on Viola.  It was a terrible trial,--I am willing to hurry over
the details.  The wife died first!

One day, a little before sunset, Pisani woke partially recovered
from the delirium which had preyed upon him, with few intervals,
since the second day of the disease; and casting about him his
dizzy and feeble eyes, he recognised Viola, and smiled.  He
faltered her name as he rose and stretched his arms.  She fell
upon his breast, and strove to suppress her tears.

"Thy mother?" he said.  "Does she sleep?"

"She sleeps,--ah, yes!" and the tears gushed forth.

"I thought--eh!  I know not WHAT I have thought.  But do not
weep:  I shall be well now,--quite well.  She will come to me
when she wakes,--will she?"

Viola could not speak; but she busied herself in pouring forth an
anodyne, which she had been directed to give the sufferer as soon
as the delirium should cease.  The doctor had told her, too, to
send for him the instant so important a change should occur.

She went to the door and called to the woman who, during
Gionetta's pretended illness, had been induced to supply her
place; but the hireling answered not.  She flew through the
chambers to search for her in vain,--the hireling had caught
Gionetta's fears, and vanished.  What was to be done?  The case
was urgent,--the doctor had declared not a moment should be lost
in obtaining his attendance; she must leave her father,--she must
go herself!  She crept back into the room,--the anodyne seemed
already to have taken benign effect; the patient's eyes were
closed, and he breathed regularly, as in sleep.  She stole away,
threw her veil over her face, and hurried from the house.

Now the anodyne had not produced the effect which it appeared to
have done; instead of healthful sleep, it had brought on a kind
of light-headed somnolence, in which the mind, preternaturally
restless, wandered about its accustomed haunts, waking up its old
familiar instincts and inclinations.  It was not sleep,--it was
not delirium; it was the dream-wakefulness which opium sometimes
induces, when every nerve grows tremulously alive, and creates a
corresponding activity in the frame, to which it gives a false
and hectic vigour.  Pisani missed something,--what, he scarcely
knew; it was a combination of the two wants most essential to his
mental life,--the voice of his wife, the touch of his Familiar.
He rose,--he left his bed, he leisurely put on his old
dressing-robe, in which he had been wont to compose.  He smiled
complacently as the associations connected with the garment came
over his memory; he walked tremulously across the room, and
entered the small cabinet next to his chamber, in which his wife
had been accustomed more often to watch than sleep, when illness
separated her from his side.  The room was desolate and void.  He
looked round wistfully, and muttered to himself, and then
proceeded regularly, and with a noiseless step, through the
chambers of the silent house, one by one.

He came at last to that in which old Gionetta--faithful to her
own safety, if nothing else--nursed herself, in the remotest
corner of the house, from the danger of infection.  As he glided
in,--wan, emaciated, with an uneasy, anxious, searching look in
his haggard eyes,--the old woman shrieked aloud, and fell at his
feet.  He bent over her, passed his thin hands along her averted
face, shook his head, and said in a hollow voice,--

"I cannot find them; where are they?"

"Who, dear master?  Oh, have compassion on yourself; they are not
here.  Blessed saints! this is terrible; he has touched me; I am
dead!"

"Dead! who is dead?  Is any one dead?"

"Ah! don't talk so; you must know it well:  my poor mistress,--
she caught the fever from you; it is infectious enough to kill a
whole city.  San Gennaro protect me!  My poor mistress, she is
dead,--buried, too; and I, your faithful Gionetta, woe is me!
Go, go--to--to bed again, dearest master,--go!"

The poor musician stood for one moment mute and unmoving, then a
slight shiver ran through his frame; he turned and glided back,
silent and spectre-like, as he had entered.  He came into the
room where he had been accustomed to compose,--where his wife, in
her sweet patience, had so often sat by his side, and praised and
flattered when the world had but jeered and scorned.  In one
corner he found the laurel-wreath she had placed on his brows
that happy night of fame and triumph; and near it, half hid by
her mantilla, lay in its case the neglected instrument.

Viola was not long gone:  she had found the physician; she
returned with him; and as they gained the threshold, they heard a
strain of music from within,--a strain of piercing, heart-rending
anguish.  It was not like some senseless instrument, mechanical
in its obedience to a human hand,--it was as some spirit calling,
in wail and agony from the forlorn shades, to the angels it
beheld afar beyond the Eternal Gulf.  They exchanged glances of
dismay.  They hurried into the house; they hastened into the
room.  Pisani turned, and his look, full of ghastly intelligence
and stern command, awed them back.  The black mantilla, the faded
laurel-leaf, lay there before him.  Viola's heart guessed all at
a single glance; she sprung to his knees; she clasped them,--
"Father, father, _I_ am left thee still!"

The wail ceased,--the note changed; with a confused association--
half of the man, half of the artist--the anguish, still a melody,
was connected with sweeter sounds and thoughts.  The nightingale
had escaped the pursuit,--soft, airy, bird-like, thrilled the
delicious notes a moment, and then died away.  The instrument
fell to the floor, and its chords snapped.  You heard that sound
through the silence.  The artist looked on his kneeling child,
and then on the broken chords..."Bury me by her side," he said,
in a very calm, low voice; "and THAT by mine."  And with these
words his whole frame became rigid, as if turned to stone.  The
last change passed over his face.  He fell to the ground, sudden
and heavy.  The chords THERE, too,--the chords of the human
instrument were snapped asunder.  As he fell, his robe brushed
the laurel-wreath, and that fell also, near but not in reach of
the dead man's nerveless hand.

Broken instrument, broken heart, withered laurel-wreath!--the
setting sun through the vine-clad lattice streamed on all!  So
smiles the eternal Nature on the wrecks of all that make life
glorious!  And not a sun that sets not somewhere on the silenced
music,--on the faded laurel!


CHAPTER 1.X.

Che difesa miglior ch' usbergo e scudo,
E la santa innocenza al petto ignudo!
"Ger. Lib.," c. viii. xli.

(Better defence than shield or breastplate is holy innocence
to the naked breast.)

And they buried the musician and his barbiton together, in the
same coffin.  That famous Steiner--primeval Titan of the great
Tyrolese race--often hast thou sought to scale the heavens, and
therefore must thou, like the meaner children of men, descend to
the dismal Hades!  Harder fate for thee than thy mortal master.
For THY soul sleeps with thee in the coffin.  And the music that
belongs to HIS, separate from the instrument, ascends on high, to
be heard often by a daughter's pious ears when the heaven is
serene and the earth sad.  For there is a sense of hearing that
the vulgar know not.  And the voices of the dead breathe soft and
frequent to those who can unite the memory with the faith.

And now Viola is alone in the world,--alone in the home where
loneliness had seemed from the cradle a thing that was not of
nature.  And at first the solitude and the stillness were
insupportable.  Have you, ye mourners, to whom these sibyl
leaves, weird with many a dark enigma, shall be borne, have you
not felt that when the death of some best-loved one has made the
hearth desolate,--have you not felt as if the gloom of the
altered home was too heavy for thought to bear?--you would leave
it, though a palace, even for a cabin.  And yet,--sad to say,--
when you obey the impulse, when you fly from the walls, when in
the strange place in which you seek your refuge nothing speaks to
you of the lost, have ye not felt again a yearning for that very
food to memory which was just before but bitterness and gall?  Is
it not almost impious and profane to abandon that dear hearth to
strangers?  And the desertion of the home where your parents
dwelt, and blessed you, upbraids your conscience as if you had
sold their tombs.

Beautiful was the Etruscan superstition that the ancestors become
the household gods.  Deaf is the heart to which the Lares call
from the desolate floors in vain.  At first Viola had, in her
intolerable anguish, gratefully welcomed the refuge which the
house and family of a kindly neighbour, much attached to her
father, and who was one of the orchestra that Pisani shall
perplex no more, had proffered to the orphan.  But the company of
the unfamiliar in our grief, the consolation of the stranger, how
it irritates the wound!  And then, to hear elsewhere the name of
father, mother, child,--as if death came alone to you,--to see
elsewhere the calm regularity of those lives united in love and
order, keeping account of happy hours, the unbroken timepiece of
home, as if nowhere else the wheels were arrested, the chain
shattered, the hands motionless, the chime still!  No, the grave
itself does not remind us of our loss like the company of those
who have no loss to mourn.  Go back to thy solitude, young
orphan,--go back to thy home:  the sorrow that meets thee on the
threshold can greet thee, even in its sadness, like the smile
upon the face of the dead.  And there, from thy casement, and
there, from without thy door, thou seest still the tree, solitary
as thyself, and springing from the clefts of the rock, but
forcing its way to light,--as, through all sorrow, while the
seasons yet can renew the verdure and bloom of youth, strives the
instinct of the human heart!  Only when the sap is dried up, only
when age comes on, does the sun shine in vain for man and for the
tree.

Weeks and months--months sad and many--again passed, and Naples
will not longer suffer its idol to seclude itself from homage.
The world ever plucks us back from ourselves with a thousand
arms.  And again Viola's voice is heard upon the stage, which,
mystically faithful to life, is in nought more faithful than
this, that it is the appearances that fill the scene; and we
pause not to ask of what realities they are the proxies.  When
the actor of Athens moved all hearts as he clasped the burial
urn, and burst into broken sobs; how few, there, knew that it
held the ashes of his son!  Gold, as well as fame, was showered
upon the young actress; but she still kept to her simple mode of
life, to her lowly home, to the one servant whose faults, selfish
as they were, Viola was too inexperienced to perceive.  And it
was Gionetta who had placed her when first born in her father's
arms!  She was surrounded by every snare, wooed by every
solicitation that could beset her unguarded beauty and her
dangerous calling.  But her modest virtue passed unsullied
through them all.  It is true that she had been taught by lips
now mute the maiden duties enjoined by honour and religion.  And
all love that spoke not of the altar only shocked and repelled
her.  But besides that, as grief and solitude ripened her heart,
and made her tremble at times to think how deeply it could feel,
her vague and early visions shaped themselves into an ideal of
love.  And till the ideal is found, how the shadow that it throws
before it chills us to the actual!  With that ideal, ever and
ever, unconsciously, and with a certain awe and shrinking, came
the shape and voice of the warning stranger.  Nearly two years
had passed since he had appeared at Naples.  Nothing had been
heard of him, save that his vessel had been directed, some months
after his departure, to sail for Leghorn.  By the gossips of
Naples, his existence, supposed so extraordinary, was wellnigh
forgotten; but the heart of Viola was more faithful.  Often he
glided through her dreams, and when the wind sighed through that
fantastic tree, associated with his remembrance, she started with
a tremor and a blush, as if she had heard him speak.

But amongst the train of her suitors was one to whom she listened
more gently than to the rest; partly because, perhaps, he spoke
in her mother's native tongue; partly because in his diffidence
there was little to alarm and displease; partly because his rank,
nearer to her own than that of lordlier wooers, prevented his
admiration from appearing insult; partly because he himself,
eloquent and a dreamer, often uttered thoughts that were kindred
to those buried deepest in her mind.  She began to like, perhaps
to love him, but as a sister loves; a sort of privileged
familiarity sprung up between them.  If in the Englishman's
breast arose wild and unworthy hopes, he had not yet expressed
them.  Is there danger to thee here, lone Viola, or is the danger
greater in thy unfound ideal?

And now, as the overture to some strange and wizard spectacle,
closes this opening prelude.  Wilt thou hear more?  Come with thy
faith prepared.  I ask not the blinded eyes, but the awakened
sense.  As the enchanted Isle, remote from the homes of men,--

"Ove alcun legno
Rado, o non mai va dalle nostre sponde,"--
"Ger.Lib.," cant. xiv. 69.

(Where ship seldom or never comes from our coasts.)

is the space in the weary ocean of actual life to which the Muse
or Sibyl (ancient in years, but ever young in aspect), offers
thee no unhallowed sail,--

"Quinci ella in cima a una montagna ascende
Disabitata, e d' ombre oscura e bruna;
E par incanto a lei nevose rende
Le spalle e i fianchi; e sensa neve alcuna
Gli lascia il capo verdeggiante e vago;
E vi fonda un palagio appresso un lago."

(There, she a mountain's lofty peak ascends,
Unpeopled, shady, shagg'd with forests brown,
Whose sides, by power of magic, half-way down
She heaps with slippery ice and frost and snow,
But sunshiny and verdant leaves the crown
With orange-woods and myrtles,--speaks, and lo!
Rich from the bordering lake a palace rises slow.
Wiffin's "Translation."


BOOK II.

ART, LOVE, AND WONDER.

Diversi aspetti in un confusi e misti.
"Ger. Lib," cant. iv. 7.

Different appearances, confused and mixt in one.


CHAPTER 2.I.

Centauri, e Sfingi, e pallide Gorgoni.
"Ger. Lib.," c. iv. v.

(Centaurs and Sphinxes and pallid Gorgons.)

One moonlit night, in the Gardens at Naples, some four or five
gentleman were seated under a tree, drinking their sherbet, and
listening, in the intervals of conversation, to the music which
enlivened that gay and favourite resort of an indolent
population.  One of this little party was a young Englishman, who
had been the life of the whole group, but who, for the last few
moments, had sunk into a gloomy and abstracted reverie.  One of
his countrymen observed this sudden gloom, and, tapping him on
the back, said, "What ails you, Glyndon?  Are you ill?  You have
grown quite pale,--you tremble.  Is it a sudden chill?  You had
better go home:  these Italian nights are often dangerous to our
English constitutions."

"No, I am well now; it was a passing shudder.  I cannot account
for it myself."

A man, apparently of about thirty years of age, and of a mien and
countenance strikingly superior to those around him, turned
abruptly, and looked steadfastly at Glyndon.

"I think I understand what you mean," said he; "and perhaps," he
added, with a grave smile, "I could explain it better than
yourself."  Here, turning to the others, he added, "You must
often have felt, gentlemen, each and all of you, especially when
sitting alone at night, a strange and unaccountable sensation of
coldness and awe creep over you; your blood curdles, and the
heart stands still; the limbs shiver; the hair bristles; you are
afraid to look up, to turn your eyes to the darker corners of the
room; you have a horrible fancy that something unearthly is at
hand; presently the whole spell, if I may so call it, passes
away, and you are ready to laugh at your own weakness.  Have you
not often felt what I have thus imperfectly described?--if so,
you can understand what our young friend has just experienced,
even amidst the delights of this magical scene, and amidst the
balmy whispers of a July night."

"Sir," replied Glyndon, evidently much surprised, "you have
defined exactly the nature of that shudder which came over me.
But how could my manner be so faithful an index to my
impressions?"

"I know the signs of the visitation," returned the stranger,
gravely; "they are not to be mistaken by one of my experience."

All the gentleman present then declared that they could
comprehend, and had felt, what the stranger had described.

"According to one of our national superstitions," said Mervale,
the Englishman who had first addressed Glyndon, "the moment you
so feel your blood creep, and your hair stand on end, some one is
walking over the spot which shall be your grave."

"There are in all lands different superstitions to account for so
common an occurrence," replied the stranger:  "one sect among the
Arabians holds that at that instant God is deciding the hour
either of your death, or of some one dear to you.  The African
savage, whose imagination is darkened by the hideous rites of his
gloomy idolatry, believes that the Evil Spirit is pulling you
towards him by the hair:  so do the Grotesque and the Terrible
mingle with each other."

"It is evidently a mere physical accident,--a derangement of the
stomach, a chill of the blood," said a young Neapolitan, with
whom Glyndon had formed a slight acquaintance.

"Then why is it always coupled in all nations with some
superstitious presentiment or terror,--some connection between
the material frame and the supposed world without us?  For my
part, I think--"

"Ay, what do you think, sir?" asked Glyndon, curiously.

"I think," continued the stranger, "that it is the repugnance and
horror with which our more human elements recoil from something,
indeed, invisible, but antipathetic to our own nature; and from a
knowledge of which we are happily secured by the imperfection of
our senses."

"You are a believer in spirits, then?" said Mervale, with an
incredulous smile.

"Nay, it was not precisely of spirits that I spoke; but there may
be forms of matter as invisible and impalpable to us as the
animalculae in the air we breathe,--in the water that plays in
yonder basin.  Such beings may have passions and powers like our
own--as the animalculae to which I have compared them.  The
monster that lives and dies in a drop of water--carnivorous,
insatiable, subsisting on the creatures minuter than himself--is
not less deadly in his wrath, less ferocious in his nature, than
the tiger of the desert. There may be things around us that would
be dangerous and hostile to men, if Providence had not placed a
wall between them and us, merely by different modifications of
matter."

"And think you that wall never can be removed?" asked young
Glyndon, abruptly.  "Are the traditions of sorcerer and wizard,
universal and immemorial as they are, merely fables?"

"Perhaps yes,--perhaps no," answered the stranger, indifferently.
"But who, in an age in which the reason has chosen its proper
bounds, would be mad enough to break the partition that divides
him from the boa and the lion,--to repine at and rebel against
the law which confines the shark to the great deep?  Enough of
these idle speculations."

Here the stranger rose, summoned the attendant, paid for his
sherbet, and, bowing slightly to the company, soon disappeared
among the trees.

"Who is that gentleman?" asked Glyndon, eagerly.

The rest looked at each other, without replying, for some
moments.

"I never saw him before," said Mervale, at last.

"Nor I."

"Nor I."

"I know him well," said the Neapolitan, who was, indeed, the
Count Cetoxa.  "If you remember, it was as my companion that he
joined you.  He visited Naples about two years ago, and has
recently returned; he is very rich,--indeed, enormously so.  A
most agreeable person.  I am sorry to hear him talk so strangely
to-night; it serves to encourage the various foolish reports that
are circulated concerning him."

"And surely," said another Neapolitan, "the circumstance that
occurred but the other day, so well known to yourself, Cetoxa,
justifies the reports you pretend to deprecate."

"Myself and my countryman," said Glyndon, "mix so little in
Neapolitan society, that we lose much that appears well worthy of
lively interest.  May I enquire what are the reports, and what is
the circumstance you refer to?"

"As to the reports, gentlemen," said Cetoxa, courteously,
addressing himself to the two Englishmen, "it may suffice to
observe, that they attribute to the Signor Zanoni certain
qualities which everybody desires for himself, but damns any one
else for possessing.  The incident Signor Belgioso alludes to,
illustrates these qualities, and is, I must own, somewhat
startling.  You probably play, gentlemen?"  (Here Cetoxa paused;
and as both Englishmen had occasionally staked a few scudi at
the public gaming-tables, they bowed assent to the conjecture.)
Cetoxa continued.  "Well, then, not many days since, and on the
very day that Zanoni returned to Naples, it so happened that I
had been playing pretty high, and had lost considerably.  I rose
from the table, resolved no longer to tempt fortune, when I
suddenly perceived Zanoni, whose acquaintance I had before made
(and who, I may say, was under some slight obligation to me),
standing by, a spectator.  Ere I could express my gratification
at this unexpected recognition, he laid his hand on my arm.  'You
have lost much,' said he; 'more than you can afford.  For my
part, I dislike play; yet I wish to have some interest in what is
going on.  Will you play this sum for me? the risk is mine,--the
half profits yours.'  I was startled, as you may suppose, at such
an address; but Zanoni had an air and tone with him it was
impossible to resist; besides, I was burning to recover my
losses, and should not have risen had I had any money left about
me.  I told him I would accept his offer, provided we shared the
risk as well as profits. 'As you will,' said he, smiling; 'we
need have no scruple, for you will be sure to win.'  I sat down;
Zanoni stood behind me; my luck rose,--I invariably won.  In
fact, I rose from the table a rich man."

"There can be no foul play at the public tables, especially when
foul play would make against the bank?"  This question was put by
Glyndon.

"Certainly not," replied the count.  "But our good fortune was,
indeed, marvellous,--so extraordinary that a Sicilian (the
Sicilians are all ill-bred, bad-tempered fellows) grew angry and
insolent.  'Sir,' said he, turning to my new friend, 'you have no
business to stand so near to the table.  I do not understand
this; you have not acted fairly.'  Zanoni replied, with great
composure, that he had done nothing against the rules,--that he
was very sorry that one man could not win without another man
losing; and that he could not act unfairly, even if disposed to
do so.  The Sicilian took the stranger's mildness for
apprehension, and blustered more loudly.  In fact, he rose from
the table, and confronted Zanoni in a manner that, to say the
least of it, was provoking to any gentleman who has some
quickness of temper, or some skill with the small-sword."

"And," interrupted Belgioso, "the most singular part of the whole
to me was, that this Zanoni, who stood opposite to where I sat,
and whose face I distinctly saw, made no remark, showed no
resentment.  He fixed his eyes steadfastly on the Sicilian; never
shall I forget that look! it is impossible to describe it,--it
froze the blood in my veins.  The Sicilian staggered back as if
struck.  I saw him tremble; he sank on the bench.  And then--"

"Yes, then," said Cetoxa, "to my infinite surprise, our
gentleman, thus disarmed by a look from Zanoni, turned his whole
anger upon me, THE -- but perhaps you do not know, gentlemen,
that I have some repute with my weapon?"

"The best swordsman in Italy," said Belgioso.

"Before I could guess why or wherefore," resumed Cetoxa, "I found
myself in the garden behind the house, with Ughelli (that was the
Sicilian's name) facing me, and five or six gentlemen, the
witnesses of the duel about to take place, around.  Zanoni
beckoned me aside.  'This man will fall,' said he.  'When he is
on the ground, go to him, and ask whether he will be buried by
the side of his father in the church of San Gennaro?'  'Do you
then know his family?' I asked with great surprise.  Zanoni made
me no answer, and the next moment I was engaged with the
Sicilian.  To do him justice, his imbrogliato was magnificent,
and a swifter lounger never crossed a sword; nevertheless," added
Cetoxa, with a pleasing modesty, "he was run through the body.  I
went up to him; he could scarcely speak.  'Have you any request
to make,--any affairs to settle?'  He shook his head.  'Where
would you wish to be interred?'  He pointed towards the Sicilian
coast.  'What!' said I, in surprise, 'NOT by the side of your
father, in the church of San Gennaro?'  As I spoke, his face
altered terribly; he uttered a piercing shriek,--the blood gushed
from his mouth, and he fell dead.  The most strange part of the
story is to come.  We buried him in the church of San Gennaro.
In doing so, we took up his father's coffin; the lid came off in
moving it, and the skeleton was visible.  In the hollow of the
skull we found a very slender wire of sharp steel; this caused
surprise and inquiry.  The father, who was rich and a miser, had
died suddenly, and been buried in haste, owing, it was said, to
the heat of the weather.  Suspicion once awakened, the
examination became minute.  The old man's servant was questioned,
and at last confessed that the son had murdered the sire.  The
contrivance was ingenious:  the wire was so slender that it
pierced to the brain, and drew but one drop of blood, which the
grey hairs concealed.  The accomplice will be executed."

"And Zanoni,--did he give evidence, did he account for--"

"No," interrupted the count:  "he declared that he had by
accident visited the church that morning; that he had observed
the tombstone of the Count Ughelli; that his guide had told him
the count's son was in Naples,--a spendthrift and a gambler.
While we were at play, he had heard the count mentioned by name
at the table; and when the challenge was given and accepted, it
had occurred to him to name the place of burial, by an instinct
which he either could not or would not account for."

"A very lame story," said Mervale.

"Yes! but we Italians are superstitious,--the alleged instinct
was regarded by many as the whisper of Providence.  The next day
the stranger became an object of universal interest and
curiosity.  His wealth, his manner of living, his extraordinary
personal beauty, have assisted also to make him the rage;
besides, I have had the pleasure in introducing so eminent a
person to our gayest cavaliers and our fairest ladies."

"A most interesting narrative," said Mervale, rising.  "Come,
Glyndon; shall we seek our hotel?  It is almost daylight.  Adieu,
signor!"

"What think you of this story?" said Glyndon, as the young men
walked homeward.

"Why, it is very clear that this Zanoni is some imposter,--some
clever rogue; and the Neapolitan shares the booty, and puffs him
off with all the hackneyed charlatanism of the marvellous.  An
unknown adventurer gets into society by being made an object of
awe and curiosity; he is more than ordinarily handsome, and the
women are quite content to receive him without any other
recommendation than his own face and Cetoxa's fables."

"I cannot agree with you.  Cetoxa, though a gambler and a rake,
is a nobleman of birth and high repute for courage and honour.
Besides, this stranger, with his noble presence and lofty air,--
so calm, so unobtrusive,--has nothing in common with the forward
garrulity of an imposter."

"My dear Glyndon, pardon me; but you have not yet acquired any
knowledge of the world!  The stranger makes the best of a fine
person, and his grand air is but a trick of the trade.  But to
change the subject,--how advances the love affair?"

"Oh, Viola could not see me to-day."

"You must not marry her.  What would they all say at home?"

"Let us enjoy the present," said Glyndon, with vivacity; "we are
young, rich, good-looking; let us not think of to-morrow."

"Bravo, Glyndon!  Here we are at the hotel.  Sleep sound, and
don't dream of Signor Zanoni."


CHAPTER 2.II.

Prende, giovine audace e impaziente,
L'occasione offerta avidamente.
"Ger. Lib.," c. vi. xxix.

(Take, youth, bold and impatient, the offered occasion eagerly.)

Clarence Glyndon was a young man of fortune, not large, but easy
and independent.  His parents were dead, and his nearest relation
was an only sister, left in England under the care of her aunt,
and many years younger than himself.  Early in life he had
evinced considerable promise in the art of painting, and rather
from enthusiasm than any pecuniary necessity for a profession, he
determined to devote himself to a career in which the English
artist generally commences with rapture and historical
composition, to conclude with avaricious calculation and
portraits of Alderman Simpkins.  Glyndon was supposed by his
friends to possess no inconsiderable genius; but it was of a rash
and presumptuous order.  He was averse from continuous and steady
labour, and his ambition rather sought to gather the fruit than
to plant the tree.  In common with many artists in their youth,
he was fond of pleasure and excitement, yielding with little
forethought to whatever impressed his fancy or appealed to his
passions.  He had travelled through the more celebrated cities of
Europe, with the avowed purpose and sincere resolution of
studying the divine masterpieces of his art.  But in each,
pleasure had too often allured him from ambition, and living
beauty distracted his worship from the senseless canvas.  Brave,
adventurous, vain, restless, inquisitive, he was ever involved in
wild projects and pleasant dangers,--the creature of impulse and
the slave of imagination.

It was then the period when a feverish spirit of change was
working its way to that hideous mockery of human aspirations, the
Revolution of France; and from the chaos into which were already
jarring the sanctities of the World's Venerable Belief, arose
many shapeless and unformed chimeras.  Need I remind the reader
that, while that was the day for polished scepticism and affected
wisdom, it was the day also for the most egregious credulity and
the most mystical superstitions,--the day in which magnetism and
magic found converts amongst the disciples of Diderot; when
prophecies were current in every mouth; when the salon of a
philosophical deist was converted into an Heraclea, in which
necromancy professed to conjure up the shadows of the dead; when
the Crosier and the Book were ridiculed, and Mesmer and
Cagliostro were believed.  In that Heliacal Rising, heralding the
new sun before which all vapours were to vanish, stalked from
their graves in the feudal ages all the phantoms that had flitted
before the eyes of Paracelsus and Agrippa.  Dazzled by the dawn
of the Revolution, Glyndon was yet more attracted by its strange
accompaniments; and natural it was with him, as with others, that
the fancy which ran riot amidst the hopes of a social Utopia,
should grasp with avidity all that promised, out of the dusty
tracks of the beaten science, the bold discoveries of some
marvellous Elysium.

In his travels he had listened with vivid interest, at least, if
not with implicit belief, to the wonders told of each more
renowned Ghost-seer, and his mind was therefore prepared for the
impression which the mysterious Zanoni at first sight had
produced upon it.

There might be another cause for this disposition to credulity.
A remote ancestor of Glyndon's on the mother's side, had achieved
no inconsiderable reputation as a philosopher and alchemist.
Strange stories were afloat concerning this wise progenitor.  He
was said to have lived to an age far exceeding the allotted
boundaries of mortal existence, and to have preserved to the last
the appearance of middle life.  He had died at length, it was
supposed, of grief for the sudden death of a great-grandchild,
the only creature he had ever appeared to love.  The works of
this philosopher, though rare, were extant, and found in the
library of Glyndon's home.  Their Platonic mysticism, their bold
assertions, the high promises that might be detected through
their figurative and typical phraseology, had early made a deep
impression on the young imagination of Clarence Glyndon.  His
parents, not alive to the consequences of encouraging fancies
which the very enlightenment of the age appeared to them
sufficient to prevent or dispel, were fond, in the long winter
nights, of conversing on the traditional history of this
distinguished progenitor.  And Clarence thrilled with a fearful
pleasure when his mother playfully detected a striking likeness
between the features of the young heir and the faded portrait of
the alchemist that overhung their mantelpiece, and was the boast
of their household and the admiration of their friends,--the
child is, indeed, more often than we think for, "the father of
the man."

I have said that Glyndon was fond of pleasure.  Facile, as genius
ever must be, to cheerful impression, his careless artist-life,
ere artist-life settles down to labour, had wandered from flower
to flower.  He had enjoyed, almost to the reaction of satiety,
the gay revelries of Naples, when he fell in love with the face
and voice of Viola Pisani.  But his love, like his ambition, was
vague and desultory.  It did not satisfy his whole heart and fill
up his whole nature; not from want of strong and noble passions,
but because his mind was not yet matured and settled enough for
their development.  As there is one season for the blossom,
another for the fruit; so it is not till the bloom of fancy
begins to fade, that the heart ripens to the passions that the
bloom precedes and foretells.  Joyous alike at his lonely easel
or amidst his boon companions, he had not yet known enough of
sorrow to love deeply.  For man must be disappointed with the
lesser things of life before he can comprehend the full value of
the greatest.  It is the shallow sensualists of France, who, in
their salon-language, call love "a folly,"--love, better
understood, is wisdom.  Besides, the world was too much with
Clarence Glyndon.  His ambition of art was associated with the
applause and estimation of that miserable minority of the surface
that we call the Public.

Like those who deceive, he was ever fearful of being himself the
dupe.  He distrusted the sweet innocence of Viola.  He could not
venture the hazard of seriously proposing marriage to an Italian
actress; but the modest dignity of the girl, and something good
and generous in his own nature, had hitherto made him shrink from
any more worldly but less honourable designs.  Thus the
familiarity between them seemed rather that of kindness and
regard than passion.  He attended the theatre; he stole behind
the scenes to converse with her; he filled his portfolio with
countless sketches of a beauty that charmed him as an artist as
well as lover; and day after day he floated on through a changing
sea of doubt and irresolution, of affection and distrust.  The
last, indeed, constantly sustained against his better reason by
the sober admonitions of Mervale, a matter-of-fact man!

The day following that eve on which this section of my story
opens, Glyndon was riding alone by the shores of the Neapolitan
sea, on the other side of the Cavern of Posilipo.  It was past
noon; the sun had lost its early fervour, and a cool breeze
sprung up voluptuously from the sparkling sea.  Bending over a
fragment of stone near the roadside, he perceived the form of a
man; and when he approached, he recognised Zanoni.

The Englishman saluted him courteously.  "Have you discovered
some antique?" said he, with a smile; "they are common as pebbles
on this road."

"No," replied Zanoni; "it was but one of those antiques that have
their date, indeed, from the beginning of the world, but which
Nature eternally withers and renews."  So saying, he showed
Glyndon a small herb with a pale-blue flower, and then placed it
carefully in his bosom.

"You are an herbalist?"

"I am."

"It is, I am told, a study full of interest."

"To those who understand it, doubtless."

"Is the knowledge, then, so rare?"

"Rare!  The deeper knowledge is perhaps rather, among the arts,
LOST to the modern philosophy of commonplace and surface!  Do you
imagine there was no foundation for those traditions which come
dimly down from remoter ages,--as shells now found on the
mountain-tops inform us where the seas have been?  What was the
old Colchian magic, but the minute study of Nature in her
lowliest works?  What the fable of Medea, but a proof of the
powers that may be extracted from the germ and leaf?  The most
gifted of all the Priestcrafts, the mysterious sisterhoods of
Cuth, concerning whose incantations Learning vainly bewilders
itself amidst the maze of legends, sought in the meanest herbs
what, perhaps, the Babylonian Sages explored in vain amidst the
loftiest stars.  Tradition yet tells you that there existed a
race ("Plut.  Symp." l. 5. c. 7.) who could slay their enemies
from afar, without weapon, without movement.  The herb that ye
tread on may have deadlier powers than your engineers can give to
their mightiest instruments of war.  Can you guess that to these
Italian shores, to the old Circaean Promontory, came the Wise
from the farthest East, to search for plants and simples which
your Pharmacists of the Counter would fling from them as weeds?
The first herbalists--the master chemists of the world--were the
tribe that the ancient reverence called by the name of Titans.
(Syncellus, page 14.--"Chemistry the Invention of the Giants.")
I remember once, by the Hebrus, in the reign of --  But this
talk," said Zanoni, checking himself abruptly, and with a cold
smile, "serves only to waste your time and my own."  He paused,
looked steadily at Glyndon, and continued, "Young man, think you
that vague curiosity will supply the place of earnest labour?  I
read your heart.  You wish to know me, and not this humble herb:
but pass on; your desire cannot be satisfied."

"You have not the politeness of your countrymen," said Glyndon,
somewhat discomposed.  "Suppose I were desirous to cultivate your
acquaintance, why should you reject my advances?"

"I reject no man's advances," answered Zanoni; "I must know them
if they so desire; but ME, in return, they can never comprehend.
If you ask my acquaintance, it is yours; but I would warn you to
shun me."

"And why are you, then, so dangerous?"

"On this earth, men are often, without their own agency, fated to
be dangerous to others.  If I were to predict your fortune by the
vain calculations of the astrologer, I should tell you, in their
despicable jargon, that my planet sat darkly in your house of
life.  Cross me not, if you can avoid it.  I warn you now for the
first time and last."

"You despise the astrologers, yet you utter a jargon as
mysterious as theirs.  I neither gamble nor quarrel; why, then,
should I fear you?"

"As you will; I have done."

"Let me speak frankly,--your conversation last night interested
and perplexed me."

"I know it:  minds like yours are attracted by mystery."

Glyndon was piqued at these words, though in the tone in which
they were spoken there was no contempt.

"I see you do not consider me worthy of your friendship.  Be it
so.  Good-day!"

Zanoni coldly replied to the salutation; and as the Englishman
rode on, returned to his botanical employment.

The same night, Glyndon went, as usual, to the theatre.  He was
standing behind the scenes watching Viola, who was on the stage
in one of her most brilliant parts.  The house resounded with
applause.  Glyndon was transported with a young man's passion and
a young man's pride:  "This glorious creature," thought he, "may
yet be mine."

He felt, while thus wrapped in delicious reverie, a slight touch
upon his shoulder; he turned, and beheld Zanoni.  "You are in
danger," said the latter.  "Do not walk home to-night; or if you
do, go not alone."

Before Glyndon recovered from his surprise, Zanoni disappeared;
and when the Englishman saw him again, he was in the box of one
of the Neapolitan nobles, where Glyndon could not follow him.

Viola now left the stage, and Glyndon accosted her with an
unaccustomed warmth of gallantry.  But Viola, contrary to her
gentle habit, turned with an evident impatience from the address
of her lover.  Taking aside Gionetta, who was her constant
attendant at the theatre, she said, in an earnest whisper,--

"Oh, Gionetta!  He is here again!--the stranger of whom I spoke
to thee!--and again, he alone, of the whole theatre, withholds
from me his applause."

"Which is he, my darling?" said the old woman, with fondness in
her voice.  "He must indeed be dull--not worth a thought."

The actress drew Gionetta nearer to the stage, and pointed out to
her a man in one of the boxes, conspicuous amongst all else by
the simplicity of his dress, and the extraordinary beauty of his
features.

"Not worth a thought, Gionetta!" repeated Viola,--"Not worth a
thought!  Alas, not to think of him, seems the absence of thought
itself!"

The prompter summoned the Signora Pisani.  "Find out his name,
Gionetta," said she, moving slowly to the stage, and passing by
Glyndon, who gazed at her with a look of sorrowful reproach.

The scene on which the actress now entered was that of the final
catastrophe, wherein all her remarkable powers of voice and art
were pre-eminently called forth.  The house hung on every word
with breathless worship; but the eyes of Viola sought only those
of one calm and unmoved spectator; she exerted herself as if
inspired.  Zanoni listened, and observed her with an attentive
gaze, but no approval escaped his lips; no emotion changed the
expression of his cold and half-disdainful aspect.  Viola, who
was in the character of one who loved, but without return, never
felt so acutely the part she played.  Her tears were truthful;
her passion that of nature:  it was almost too terrible to
behold.  She was borne from the stage exhausted and insensible,
amidst such a tempest of admiring rapture as Continental
audiences alone can raise.  The crowd stood up, handkerchiefs
waved, garlands and flowers were thrown on the stage,--men wiped
their eyes, and women sobbed aloud.

"By heavens!" said a Neapolitan of great rank, "She has fired me
beyond endurance.  To-night--this very night--she shall be mine!
You have arranged all, Mascari?"

"All, signor.  And the young Englishman?"

"The presuming barbarian!  As I before told thee, let him bleed
for his folly.  I will have no rival."

"But an Englishman!  There is always a search after the bodies of
the English."

"Fool! is not the sea deep enough, or the earth secret enough, to
hide one dead man?  Our ruffians are silent as the grave itself;
and I!--who would dare to suspect, to arraign the Prince di --?
See to it,--this night.  I trust him to you.  Robbers murder him,
you understand,--the country swarms with them; plunder and strip
him, the better to favour such report.  Take three men; the rest
shall be my escort."

Mascari shrugged his shoulders, and bowed submissively.

The streets of Naples were not then so safe as now, and carriages
were both less expensive and more necessary.  The vehicle which
was regularly engaged by the young actress was not to be found.
Gionetta, too aware of the beauty of her mistress and the number
of her admirers to contemplate without alarm the idea of their
return on foot, communicated her distress to Glyndon, and he
besought Viola, who recovered but slowly, to accept his own
carriage.  Perhaps before that night she would not have rejected
so slight a service.  Now, for some reason or other, she refused.
Glyndon, offended, was retiring sullenly, when Gionetta stopped
him.  "Stay, signor," said she, coaxingly:  "the dear signora is
not well,--do not be angry with her; I will make her accept your
offer."

Glyndon stayed, and after a few moments spent in expostulation on
the part of Gionetta, and resistance on that of Viola, the offer
was accepted.  Gionetta and her charge entered the carriage, and
Glyndon was left at the door of the theatre to return home on
foot.  The mysterious warning of Zanoni then suddenly occurred to
him; he had forgotten it in the interest of his lover's quarrel
with Viola.  He thought it now advisable to guard against danger
foretold by lips so mysterious.  He looked round for some one he
knew:  the theatre was disgorging its crowds; they hustled, and
jostled, and pressed upon him; but he recognised no familiar
countenance.  While pausing irresolute, he heard Mervale's voice
calling on him, and, to his great relief, discovered his friend
making his way through the throng.

"I have secured you," said he, "a place in the Count Cetoxa's
carriage.  Come along, he is waiting for us."

"How kind in you! how did you find me out?"

"I met Zanoni in the passage,--'Your friend is at the door of the
theatre,' said he; 'do not let him go home on foot to-night; the
streets of Naples are not always safe.'  I immediately remembered
that some of the Calabrian bravos had been busy within the city
the last few weeks, and suddenly meeting Cetoxa--but here he is."

Further explanation was forbidden, for they now joined the count.
As Glyndon entered the carriage and drew up the glass, he saw
four men standing apart by the pavement, who seemed to eye him
with attention.

"Cospetto!" cried one; "that is the Englishman!"  Glyndon
imperfectly heard the exclamation as the carriage drove on.  He
reached home in safety.

The familiar and endearing intimacy which always exists in Italy
between the nurse and the child she has reared, and which the
"Romeo and Juliet" of Shakespeare in no way exaggerates, could
not but be drawn yet closer than usual, in a situation so
friendless as that of the orphan-actress.  In all that concerned
the weaknesses of the heart, Gionetta had large experience; and
when, three nights before, Viola, on returning from the theatre,
had wept bitterly, the nurse had succeeded in extracting from her
a confession that she had seen one,--not seen for two weary and
eventful years,--but never forgotten, and who, alas! had not
evinced the slightest recognition of herself.  Gionetta could not
comprehend all the vague and innocent emotions that swelled this
sorrow; but she resolved them all, with her plain, blunt
understanding, to the one sentiment of love.  And here, she was
well fitted to sympathise and console.  Confidante to Viola's
entire and deep heart she never could be,--for that heart never
could have words for all its secrets.  But such confidence as she
could obtain, she was ready to repay by the most unreproving pity
and the most ready service.

"Have you discovered who he is?" asked Viola, as she was now
alone in the carriage with Gionetta.

"Yes; he is the celebrated Signor Zanoni, about whom all the
great ladies have gone mad.  They say he is so rich!--oh! so much
richer than any of the Inglesi!--not but what the Signor
Glyndon--"

"Cease!" interrupted the young actress.  "Zanoni!  Speak of the
Englishman no more."

The carriage was now entering that more lonely and remote part of
the city in which Viola's house was situated, when it suddenly
stopped.

Gionetta, in alarm, thrust her head out of the window, and
perceived, by the pale light of the moon, that the driver, torn
from his seat, was already pinioned in the arms of two men; the
next moment the door was opened violently, and a tall figure,
masked and mantled, appeared.

"Fear not, fairest Pisani," said he, gently; "no ill shall befall
you."  As he spoke, he wound his arm round the form of the fair
actress, and endeavoured to lift her from the carriage.  But
Gionetta was no ordinary ally,--she thrust back the assailant
with a force that astonished him, and followed the shock by a
volley of the most energetic reprobation.

The mask drew back, and composed his disordered mantle.

"By the body of Bacchus!" said he, half laughing, "she is well
protected.  Here, Luigi, Giovanni! seize the hag!--quick!--why
loiter ye?"

The mask retired from the door, and another and yet taller form
presented itself.  "Be calm, Viola Pisani," said he, in a low
voice; "with me you are indeed safe!"  He lifted his mask as he
spoke, and showed the noble features of Zanoni.

"Be calm, be hushed,--I can save you."  He vanished, leaving
Viola lost in surprise, agitation, and delight.  There were, in
all, nine masks:  two were engaged with the driver; one stood at
the head of the carriage-horses; a fourth guarded the
well-trained steeds of the party; three others (besides Zanoni
and the one who had first accosted Viola) stood apart by a
carriage drawn to the side of the road.  To these three Zanoni
motioned; they advanced; he pointed towards the first mask, who
was in fact the Prince di --, and to his unspeakable astonishment
the prince was suddenly seized from behind.

"Treason!" he cried.  "Treason among my own men!  What means
this?"

"Place him in his carriage!  If he resist, his blood be on his
own head!" said Zanoni, calmly.

He approached the men who had detained the coachman.

"You are outnumbered and outwitted," said he; "join your lord;
you are three men,--we six, armed to the teeth.  Thank our mercy
that we spare your lives.  Go!"

The men gave way, dismayed.  The driver remounted.

"Cut the traces of their carriage and the bridles of their
horses," said Zanoni, as he entered the vehicle containing Viola,
which now drove on rapidly, leaving the discomfited ravisher in a
state of rage and stupor impossible to describe.

"Allow me to explain this mystery to you," said Zanoni.  "I
discovered the plot against you,--no matter how; I frustrated it
thus:  The head of this design is a nobleman, who has long
persecuted you in vain.  He and two of his creatures watched you
from the entrance of the theatre, having directed six others to
await him on the spot where you were attacked; myself and five of
my servants supplied their place, and were mistaken for his own
followers.  I had previously ridden alone to the spot where the
men were waiting, and informed them that their master would not
require their services that night.  They believed me, and
accordingly dispersed.  I then joined my own band, whom I had
left in the rear; you know all.  We are at your door."


CHAPTER 2.III.

When most I wink, then do mine eyes best see,
For all the day they view things unrespected;
But when I sleep, in dreams they look on thee,
And, darkly bright, are bright in dark directed.
Shakespeare.

Zanoni followed the young Neapolitan into her house; Gionetta
vanished,--they were left alone.

Alone, in that room so often filled, in the old happy days, with
the wild melodies of Pisani; and now, as she saw this mysterious,
haunting, yet beautiful and stately stranger, standing on the
very spot where she had sat at her father's feet, thrilled and
spellbound,--she almost thought, in her fantastic way of
personifying her own airy notions, that that spiritual Music had
taken shape and life, and stood before her glorious in the image
it assumed.  She was unconscious all the while of her own
loveliness.  She had thrown aside her hood and veil; her hair,
somewhat disordered, fell over the ivory neck which the dress
partially displayed; and as her dark eyes swam with grateful
tears, and her cheek flushed with its late excitement, the god of
light and music himself never, amidst his Arcadian valleys,
wooed, in his mortal guise, maiden or nymph more fair.

Zanoni gazed at her with a look in which admiration seemed not
unmingled with compassion.  He muttered a few words to himself,
and then addressed her aloud.

"Viola, I have saved you from a great peril; not from dishonour
only, but perhaps from death.  The Prince di --, under a weak
despot and a venal administration, is a man above the law.  He is
capable of every crime; but amongst his passions he has such
prudence as belongs to ambition; if you were not to reconcile
yourself to your shame, you would never enter the world again to
tell your tale.  The ravisher has no heart for repentance, but he
has a hand that can murder.  I have saved you, Viola.  Perhaps
you would ask me wherefore?"  Zanoni paused, and smiled
mournfully, as he added, "You will not wrong me by the thought
that he who has preserved is not less selfish than he who would
have injured.  Orphan, I do not speak to you in the language of
your wooers; enough that I know pity, and am not ungrateful for
affection.  Why blush, why tremble at the word?  I read your
heart while I speak, and I see not one thought that should give
you shame.  I say not that you love me yet; happily, the fancy
may be roused long before the heart is touched.  But it has been
my fate to fascinate your eye, to influence your imagination.  It
is to warn you against what could bring you but sorrow, as I
warned you once to prepare for sorrow itself, that I am now your
guest.  The Englishman, Glyndon, loves thee well,--better,
perhaps, than I can ever love; if not worthy of thee, yet, he has
but to know thee more to deserve thee better.  He may wed thee,
he may bear thee to his own free and happy land,--the land of thy
mother's kin.  Forget me; teach thyself to return and deserve his
love; and I tell thee that thou wilt be honoured and be happy."

Viola listened with silent, inexpressible emotion, and burning
blushes, to this strange address, and when he had concluded, she
covered her face with her hands, and wept.  And yet, much as his
words were calculated to humble or irritate, to produce
indignation or excite shame, those were not the feelings with
which her eyes streamed and her heart swelled.  The woman at that
moment was lost in the child; and AS a child, with all its
exacting, craving, yet innocent desire to be loved, weeps in
unrebuking sadness when its affection is thrown austerely back
upon itself,--so, without anger and without shame, wept Viola.

Zanoni contemplated her thus, as her graceful head, shadowed by
its redundant tresses, bent before him; and after a moment's
pause he drew near to her, and said, in a voice of the most
soothing sweetness, and with a half smile upon his lip,--

"Do you remember, when I told you to struggle for the light, that
I pointed for example to the resolute and earnest tree?  I did
not tell you, fair child, to take example by the moth, that would
soar to the star, but falls scorched beside the lamp.  Come, I
will talk to thee.  This Englishman--"

Viola drew herself away, and wept yet more passionately.

"This Englishman is of thine own years, not far above thine own
rank.  Thou mayst share his thoughts in life,--thou mayst sleep
beside him in the same grave in death!  And I--but THAT view of
the future should concern us not.  Look into thy heart, and thou
wilt see that till again my shadow crossed thy path, there had
grown up for this thine equal a pure and calm affection that
would have ripened into love.  Hast thou never pictured to
thyself a home in which thy partner was thy young wooer?"

"Never!" said Viola, with sudden energy,--"never but to feel that
such was not the fate ordained me.  And, oh!" she continued,
rising suddenly, and, putting aside the tresses that veiled her
face, she fixed her eyes upon the questioner,--"and, oh! whoever
thou art that thus wouldst read my soul and shape my future, do
not mistake the sentiment that, that--" she faltered an instant,
and went on with downcast eyes,--"that has fascinated my thoughts
to thee.  Do not think that I could nourish a love unsought and
unreturned.  It is not love that I feel for thee, stranger.  Why
should I?  Thou hast never spoken to me but to admonish,--and
now, to wound!"  Again she paused, again her voice faltered; the
tears trembled on her eyelids; she brushed them away and resumed.
"No, not love,--if that be love which I have heard and read of,
and sought to simulate on the stage,--but a more solemn, fearful,
and, it seems to me, almost preternatural attraction, which makes
me associate thee, waking or dreaming, with images that at once
charm and awe.  Thinkest thou, if it were love, that I could
speak to thee thus; that," she raised her looks suddenly to his,
"mine eyes could thus search and confront thine own?  Stranger, I
ask but at times to see, to hear thee!  Stranger, talk not to me
of others.  Forewarn, rebuke, bruise my heart, reject the not
unworthy gratitude it offers thee, if thou wilt, but come not
always to me as an omen of grief and trouble.  Sometimes have I
seen thee in my dreams surrounded by shapes of glory and light;
thy looks radiant with a celestial joy which they wear not now.
Stranger, thou hast saved me, and I thank and bless thee!  Is
that also a homage thou wouldst reject?"  With these words, she
crossed her arms meekly on her bosom, and inclined lowlily before
him.  Nor did her humility seem unwomanly or abject, nor that of
mistress to lover, of slave to master, but rather of a child to
its guardian, of a neophyte of the old religion to her priest.
Zanoni's brow was melancholy and thoughtful.  He looked at her
with a strange expression of kindness, of sorrow, yet of tender
affection, in his eyes; but his lips were stern, and his voice
cold, as he replied,--

"Do you know what you ask, Viola?  Do you guess the danger to
yourself--perhaps to both of us--which you court?  Do you know
that my life, separated from the turbulent herd of men, is one
worship of the Beautiful, from which I seek to banish what the
Beautiful inspires in most?  As a calamity, I shun what to man
seems the fairest fate,--the love of the daughters of earth.  At
present I can warn and save thee from many evils; if I saw more
of thee, would the power still be mine?  You understand me not.
What I am about to add, it will be easier to comprehend.  I bid
thee banish from thy heart all thought of me, but as one whom the
Future cries aloud to thee to avoid.  Glyndon, if thou acceptest
his homage, will love thee till the tomb closes upon both.  I,
too," he added with emotion,--"I, too, might love thee!"

"You!" cried Viola, with the vehemence of a sudden impulse of
delight, of rapture, which she could not suppress; but the
instant after, she would have given worlds to recall the
exclamation.

"Yes, Viola, I might love thee; but in that love what sorrow and
what change!  The flower gives perfume to the rock on whose heart
it grows.  A little while, and the flower is dead; but the rock
still endures,--the snow at its breast, the sunshine on its
summit.  Pause,--think well.  Danger besets thee yet.  For some
days thou shalt be safe from thy remorseless persecutor; but the
hour soon comes when thy only security will be in flight.  If the
Englishman love thee worthily, thy honour will be dear to him as
his own; if not, there are yet other lands where love will be
truer, and virtue less in danger from fraud and force.  Farewell;
my own destiny I cannot foresee except through cloud and shadow.
I know, at least, that we shall meet again; but learn ere then,
sweet flower, that there are more genial resting-places than the
rock."

He turned as he spoke, and gained the outer door where Gionetta
discreetly stood.  Zanoni lightly laid his hand on her arm.  With
the gay accent of a jesting cavalier, he said,--

"The Signor Glyndon woos your mistress; he may wed her.  I know
your love for her.  Disabuse her of any caprice for me.  I am a
bird ever on the wing."

He dropped a purse into Gionetta's hand as he spoke, and was
gone.


CHAPTER 2.IV.

Les Intelligences Celestes se font voir, et see communiquent plus
volontiers, dans le silence et dans la tranquillite de la
solitude.  On aura donc une petite chambre ou un cabinet secret,
etc.
"Les Clavicules de Rabbi Salomon," chapter 3; traduites
exactement du texte Hebreu par M. Pierre Morissoneau, Professeur
des Langues Orientales, et Sectateur de la Philosophie des Sages
Cabalistes.  (Manuscript Translation.)

(The Celestial Intelligences exhibit and explain themselves most
freely in silence and the tranquillity of solitude.  One will
have then a little chamber, or a secret cabinet, etc.)

The palace retained by Zanoni was in one of the less frequented
quarters of the city.  It still stands, now ruined and
dismantled, a monument of the splendour of a chivalry long since
vanished from Naples, with the lordly races of the Norman and the
Spaniard.

As he entered the rooms reserved for his private hours, two
Indians, in the dress of their country, received him at the
threshold with the grave salutations of the East.  They had
accompanied him from the far lands in which, according to rumour,
he had for many years fixed his home.  But they could communicate
nothing to gratify curiosity or justify suspicion.  They spoke no
language but their own.  With the exception of these two his
princely retinue was composed of the native hirelings of the
city, whom his lavish but imperious generosity made the implicit
creatures of his will.  In his house, and in his habits, so far
as they were seen, there was nothing to account for the rumours
which were circulated abroad.  He was not, as we are told of
Albertus Magnus or the great Leonardo da Vinci, served by airy
forms; and no brazen image, the invention of magic mechanism,
communicated to him the influences of the stars.  None of the
apparatus of the alchemist--the crucible and the metals--gave
solemnity to his chambers, or accounted for his wealth; nor did
he even seem to interest himself in those serener studies which
might be supposed to colour his peculiar conversation with
abstract notions, and often with recondite learning.  No books
spoke to him in his solitude; and if ever he had drawn from them
his knowledge, it seemed now that the only page he read was the
wide one of Nature, and that a capacious and startling memory
supplied the rest.  Yet was there one exception to what in all
else seemed customary and commonplace, and which, according to
the authority we have prefixed to this chapter, might indicate
the follower of the occult sciences.  Whether at Rome or Naples,
or, in fact, wherever his abode, he selected one room remote from
the rest of the house, which was fastened by a lock scarcely
larger than the seal of a ring, yet which sufficed to baffle the
most cunning instruments of the locksmith:  at least, one of his
servants, prompted by irresistible curiosity, had made the
attempt in vain; and though he had fancied it was tried in the
most favourable time for secrecy,--not a soul near, in the dead
of night, Zanoni himself absent from home,--yet his superstition,
or his conscience, told him the reason why the next day the Major
Domo quietly dismissed him.  He compensated himself for this
misfortune by spreading his own story, with a thousand amusing
exaggerations.  He declared that, as he approached the door,
invisible hands seemed to pluck him away; and that when he
touched the lock, he was struck, as by a palsy, to the ground.
One surgeon, who heard the tale, observed, to the distaste of the
wonder-mongers, that possibly Zanoni made a dexterous use of
electricity.  Howbeit, this room, once so secured, was never
entered save by Zanoni himself.

The solemn voice of Time, from the neighbouring church at last
aroused the lord of the palace from the deep and motionless
reverie, rather resembling a trance than thought, in which his
mind was absorbed.

"It is one more sand out of the mighty hour-glass," said he,
murmuringly, "and yet time neither adds to, nor steals from, an
atom in the Infinite!  Soul of mine, the luminous, the Augoeides
(Augoeides,--a word favoured by the mystical Platonists, sphaira
psuches augoeides, otan mete ekteinetai epi ti, mete eso
suntreche mete sunizane, alla photi lampetai, o ten aletheian opa
ten panton, kai ten en aute.--Marc. Ant., lib. 2.--The sense of
which beautiful sentence of the old philosophy, which, as Bayle
well observes, in his article on Cornelius Agrippa, the modern
Quietists have (however impotently) sought to imitate, is to the
effect that "the sphere of the soul is luminous when nothing
external has contact with the soul itself; but when lit by its
own light, it sees the truth of all things and the truth centred
in itself."), why descendest thou from thy sphere,--why from the
eternal, starlike, and passionless Serene, shrinkest thou back to
the mists of the dark sarcophagus?  How long, too austerely
taught that companionship with the things that die brings with it
but sorrow in its sweetness, hast thou dwelt contented with thy
majestic solitude?"

As he thus murmured, one of the earliest birds that salute the
dawn broke into sudden song from amidst the orange-trees in the
garden below his casement; and as suddenly, song answered song;
the mate, awakened at the note, gave back its happy answer to the
bird.  He listened; and not the soul he had questioned, but the
heart replied.  He rose, and with restless strides paced the
narrow floor.  "Away from this world!" he exclaimed at length,
with an impatient tone.  "Can no time loosen its fatal ties?  As
the attraction that holds the earth in space, is the attraction
that fixes the soul to earth.  Away from the dark grey planet!
Break, ye fetters:  arise, ye wings!"

He passed through the silent galleries, and up the lofty stairs,
and entered the secret chamber.

...


CHAPTER 2.V.

I and my fellows
Are ministers of Fate.
"The Tempest."

The next day Glyndon bent his steps towards Zanoni's palace.  The
young man's imagination, naturally inflammable, was singularly
excited by the little he had seen and heard of this strange
being,--a spell, he could neither master nor account for,
attracted him towards the stranger.  Zanoni's power seemed
mysterious and great, his motives kindly and benevolent, yet his
manners chilling and repellent.  Why at one moment reject
Glyndon's acquaintance, at another save him from danger?  How had
Zanoni thus acquired the knowledge of enemies unknown to Glyndon
himself?  His interest was deeply roused, his gratitude appealed
to; he resolved to make another effort to conciliate the
ungracious herbalist.

The signor was at home, and Glyndon was admitted into a lofty
saloon, where in a few moments Zanoni joined him.

"I am come to thank you for your warning last night," said he,
"and to entreat you to complete my obligation by informing me of
the quarter to which I may look for enmity and peril."

"You are a gallant," said Zanoni, with a smile, and in the
English language, "and do you know so little of the South as not
to be aware that gallants have always rivals?"

"Are you serious?" said Glyndon, colouring.

"Most serious.  You love Viola Pisani; you have for rival one of
the most powerful and relentless of the Neapolitan princes.  Your
danger is indeed great."

"But pardon me!--how came it known to you?"

"I give no account of myself to mortal man," replied Zanoni,
haughtily; "and to me it matters nothing whether you regard or
scorn my warning."

"Well, if I may not question you, be it so; but at least advise
me what to do."

"Would you follow my advice?"

"Why not?"

"Because you are constitutionally brave; you are fond of
excitement and mystery; you like to be the hero of a romance.
Were I to advise you to leave Naples, would you do so while
Naples contains a foe to confront or a mistress to pursue?"

"You are right," said the young Englishman, with energy.  "No!
and you cannot reproach me for such a resolution."

"But there is another course left to you:  do you love Viola
Pisani truly and fervently?--if so, marry her, and take a bride
to your native land."

"Nay," answered Glyndon, embarrassed; "Viola is not of my rank.
Her profession, too, is--in short, I am enslaved by her beauty,
but I cannot wed her."

Zanoni frowned.

"Your love, then, is but selfish lust, and I advise you to your
own happiness no more.  Young man, Destiny is less inexorable
than it appears.  The resources of the great Ruler of the
Universe are not so scanty and so stern as to deny to men the
divine privilege of Free Will; all of us can carve out our own
way, and God can make our very contradictions harmonise with His
solemn ends.  You have before you an option.  Honourable and
generous love may even now work out your happiness, and effect
your escape; a frantic and selfish passion will but lead you to
misery and doom."

"Do you pretend, then, to read the future?"

"I have said all that it pleases me to utter."

"While you assume the moralist to me, Signor Zanoni," said
Glyndon, with a smile, "are you yourself so indifferent to youth
and beauty as to act the stoic to its allurements?"

"If it were necessary that practice square with precept," said
Zanoni, with a bitter smile, "our monitors would be but few.  The
conduct of the individual can affect but a small circle beyond
himself; the permanent good or evil that he works to others lies
rather in the sentiments he can diffuse.  His acts are limited
and momentary; his sentiments may pervade the universe, and
inspire generations till the day of doom.  All our virtues, all
our laws, are drawn from books and maxims, which ARE sentiments,
not from deeds.  In conduct, Julian had the virtues of a
Christian, and Constantine the vices of a Pagan.  The sentiments
of Julian reconverted thousands to Paganism; those of Constantine
helped, under Heaven's will, to bow to Christianity the nations
of the earth.  In conduct, the humblest fisherman on yonder sea,
who believes in the miracles of San Gennaro, may be a better man
than Luther; to the sentiments of Luther the mind of modern
Europe is indebted for the noblest revolution it has known.  Our
opinions, young Englishman, are the angel part of us; our acts,
the earthly."

"You have reflected deeply for an Italian," said Glyndon.

"Who told you that I was an Italian?"

"Are you not?  And yet, when I hear you speak my own language as
a native, I--"

"Tush!" interrupted Zanoni, impatiently turning away.  Then,
after a pause, he resumed in a mild voice, "Glyndon, do you
renounce Viola Pisani?  Will you take some days to consider what
I have said?"

"Renounce her,--never!"

"Then you will marry her?"

"Impossible!"

"Be it so; she will then renounce you.  I tell you that you have
rivals."

"Yes; the Prince di --; but I do not fear him."

"You have another whom you will fear more."

"And who is he?"

"Myself."

Glyndon turned pale, and started from his seat.

"You, Signor Zanoni!--you,--and you dare to tell me so?"

"Dare!  Alas! there are times when I wish that I could fear."

These arrogant words were not uttered arrogantly, but in a tone
of the most mournful dejection.  Glyndon was enraged, confounded,
and yet awed.  However, he had a brave English heart within his
breast, and he recovered himself quickly.

"Signor," said he, calmly, "I am not to be duped by these solemn
phrases and these mystical assumptions.  You may have powers
which I cannot comprehend or emulate, or you may be but a keen
imposter."

"Well, proceed!"

"I mean, then," continued Glyndon, resolutely, though somewhat
disconcerted,--"I mean you to understand, that, though I am not
to be persuaded or compelled by a stranger to marry Viola Pisani,
I am not the less determined never tamely to yield her to
another."

Zanoni looked gravely at the young man, whose sparkling eyes and
heightened colour testified the spirit to support his words, and
replied, "So bold! well; it becomes you.  But take my advice;
wait yet nine days, and tell me then if you will marry the
fairest and the purest creature that ever crossed your path."

"But if you love her, why--why--"

"Why am I anxious that she should wed another?--to save her from
myself!  Listen to me.  That girl, humble and uneducated though
she be, has in her the seeds of the most lofty qualities and
virtues.  She can be all to the man she loves,--all that man can
desire in wife.  Her soul, developed by affection, will elevate
your own; it will influence your fortunes, exalt your destiny;
you will become a great and a prosperous man.  If, on the
contrary, she fall to me, I know not what may be her lot; but I
know that there is an ordeal which few can pass, and which
hitherto no woman has survived."

As Zanoni spoke, his face became colourless, and there was
something in his voice that froze the warm blood of the listener.

"What is this mystery which surrounds you?" exclaimed Glyndon,
unable to repress his emotion.  "Are you, in truth, different
from other men?  Have you passed the boundary of lawful
knowledge?  Are you, as some declare, a sorcerer, or only a--"

"Hush!" interrupted Zanoni, gently, and with a smile of singular
but melancholy sweetness; "have you earned the right to ask me
these questions?  Though Italy still boast an Inquisition, its
power is rivelled as a leaf which the first wind shall scatter.
The days of torture and persecution are over; and a man may live
as he pleases, and talk as it suits him, without fear of the
stake and the rack.  Since I can defy persecution, pardon me if I
do not yield to curiosity."

Glyndon blushed, and rose.  In spite of his love for Viola, and
his natural terror of such a rival, he felt himself irresistibly
drawn towards the very man he had most cause to suspect and
dread.  He held out his hand to Zanoni, saying, "Well, then, if
we are to be rivals, our swords must settle our rights; till then
I would fain be friends."

"Friends!  You know not what you ask."

"Enigmas again!"

"Enigmas!" cried Zanoni, passionately; "ay! can you dare to solve
them?  Not till then could I give you my right hand, and call you
friend."

"I could dare everything and all things for the attainment of
superhuman wisdom," said Glyndon, and his countenance was lighted
up with wild and intense enthusiasm.

Zanoni observed him in thoughtful silence.

"The seeds of the ancestor live in the son," he muttered; "he
may--yet--"  He broke off abruptly; then, speaking aloud, "Go,
Glyndon," said he; "we shall meet again, but I will not ask your
answer till the hour presses for decision."


CHAPTER 2.VI.

'Tis certain that this man has an estate of fifty thousand
livres, and seems to be a person of very great accomplishments.
But, then, if he's a wizard, are wizards so devoutly given as
this man seems to be?  In short, I could make neither head nor
tail on't--The Count de Gabalis, Translation affixed to the
second edition of the "Rape of the Lock."

Of all the weaknesses which little men rail against, there is
none that they are more apt to ridicule than the tendency to
believe.  And of all the signs of a corrupt heart and a feeble
head, the tendency of incredulity is the surest.

Real philosophy seeks rather to solve than to deny.  While we
hear, every day, the small pretenders to science talk of the
absurdities of alchemy and the dream of the Philosopher's Stone,
a more erudite knowledge is aware that by alchemists the greatest
discoveries in science have been made, and much which still seems
abstruse, had we the key to the mystic phraseology they were
compelled to adopt, might open the way to yet more noble
acquisitions.  The Philosopher's Stone itself has seemed no
visionary chimera to some of the soundest chemists that even the
present century has produced.  (Mr. Disraeli, in his "Curiosities
of Literature" (article "Alchem"), after quoting the sanguine
judgments of modern chemists as to the transmutation of metals,
observes of one yet greater and more recent than those to which
Glyndon's thoughts could have referred, "Sir Humphry Davy told me
that he did not consider this undiscovered art as impossible; but
should it ever be discovered, it would certainly be useless.")
Man cannot contradict the Laws of Nature.  But are all the laws
of Nature yet discovered?

"Give me a proof of your art," says the rational inquirer.  "When
I have seen the effect, I will endeavour, with you, to ascertain
the causes."

Somewhat to the above effect were the first thoughts of Clarence
Glyndon on quitting Zanoni.  But Clarence Glyndon was no
"rational inquirer."  The more vague and mysterious the language
of Zanoni, the more it imposed upon him.  A proof would have been
something tangible, with which he would have sought to grapple.
And it would have only disappointed his curiosity to find the
supernatural reduced to Nature.  He endeavoured in vain, at some
moments rousing himself from credulity to the scepticism he
deprecated, to reconcile what he had heard with the probable
motives and designs of an imposter.  Unlike Mesmer and
Cagliostro, Zanoni, whatever his pretensions, did not make them a
source of profit; nor was Glyndon's position or rank in life
sufficient to render any influence obtained over his mind,
subservient to schemes, whether of avarice or ambition.  Yet,
ever and anon, with the suspicion of worldly knowledge, he strove
to persuade himself that Zanoni had at least some sinister object
in inducing him to what his English pride and manner of thought
considered a derogatory marriage with the poor actress.  Might
not Viola and the Mystic be in league with each other?  Might not
all this jargon of prophecy and menace be but artifices to dupe
him?

He felt an unjust resentment towards Viola at having secured such
an ally.  But with that resentment was mingled a natural
jealousy.  Zanoni threatened him with rivalry.  Zanoni, who,
whatever his character or his arts, possessed at least all the
external attributes that dazzle and command.  Impatient of his
own doubts, he plunged into the society of such acquaintances as
he had made at Naples--chiefly artists, like himself, men of
letters, and the rich commercialists, who were already vying with
the splendour, though debarred from the privileges, of the
nobles.  From these he heard much of Zanoni, already with them,
as with the idler classes, an object of curiosity and
speculation.

He had noticed, as a thing remarkable, that Zanoni had conversed
with him in English, and with a command of the language so
complete that he might have passed for a native.  On the other
hand, in Italian, Zanoni was equally at ease.  Glyndon found that
it was the same in languages less usually learned by foreigners.
A painter from Sweden, who had conversed with him, was positive
that he was a Swede; and a merchant from Constantinople, who had
sold some of his goods to Zanoni, professed his conviction that
none but a Turk, or at least a native of the East, could have so
thoroughly mastered the soft Oriental intonations.  Yet in all
these languages, when they came to compare their several
recollections, there was a slight, scarce perceptible
distinction, not in pronunciation, nor even accent, but in the
key and chime, as it were, of the voice, between himself and a
native.  This faculty was one which Glyndon called to mind, that
sect, whose tenets and powers have never been more than most
partially explored, the Rosicrucians, especially arrogated.  He
remembered to have heard in Germany of the work of John Bringeret
(Printed in 1615.), asserting that all the languages of the earth
were known to the genuine Brotherhood of the Rosy Cross.  Did
Zanoni belong to this mystical Fraternity, who, in an earlier
age, boasted of secrets of which the Philosopher's Stone was but
the least; who considered themselves the heirs of all that the
Chaldeans, the Magi, the Gymnosophists, and the Platonists had
taught; and who differed from all the darker Sons of Magic in the
virtue of their lives, the purity of their doctrines, and their
insisting, as the foundation of all wisdom, on the subjugation of
the senses, and the intensity of Religious Faith?--a glorious
sect, if they lied not!  And, in truth, if Zanoni had powers
beyond the race of worldly sages, they seemed not unworthily
exercised.  The little known of his life was in his favour.  Some
acts, not of indiscriminate, but judicious generosity and
beneficence, were recorded; in repeating which, still, however,
the narrators shook their heads, and expressed surprise how a
stranger should have possessed so minute a knowledge of the quiet
and obscure distresses he had relieved.  Two or three sick
persons, when abandoned by their physicians, he had visited, and
conferred with alone.  They had recovered:  they ascribed to him
their recovery; yet they could not tell by what medicines they
had been healed.  They could only depose that he came, conversed
with them, and they were cured; it usually, however, happened
that a deep sleep had preceded the recovery.

Another circumstance was also beginning to be remarked, and spoke
yet more in his commendation.  Those with whom he principally
associated--the gay, the dissipated, the thoughtless, the sinners
and publicans of the more polished world--all appeared rapidly,
yet insensibly to themselves, to awaken to purer thoughts and
more regulated lives.  Even Cetoxa, the prince of gallants,
duellists, and gamesters, was no longer the same man since the
night of the singular events which he had related to Glyndon.
The first trace of his reform was in his retirement from the
gaming-houses; the next was his reconciliation with an hereditary
enemy of his house, whom it had been his constant object for the
last six years to entangle in such a quarrel as might call forth
his inimitable manoeuvre of the stoccata.  Nor when Cetoxa and
his young companions were heard to speak of Zanoni, did it seem
that this change had been brought about by any sober lectures or
admonitions.  They all described Zanoni as a man keenly alive to
enjoyment:  of manners the reverse of formal,--not precisely gay,
but equable, serene, and cheerful; ever ready to listen to the
talk of others, however idle, or to charm all ears with an
inexhaustible fund of brilliant anecdote and worldly experience.
All manners, all nations, all grades of men, seemed familiar to
him.  He was reserved only if allusion were ever ventured to his
birth or history.

The more general opinion of his origin certainly seemed the more
plausible.  His riches, his familiarity with the languages of the
East, his residence in India, a certain gravity which never
deserted his most cheerful and familiar hours, the lustrous
darkness of his eyes and hair, and even the peculiarities of his
shape, in the delicate smallness of the hands, and the Arab-like
turn of the stately head, appeared to fix him as belonging to one
at least of the Oriental races.  And a dabbler in the Eastern
tongues even sought to reduce the simple name of Zanoni, which a
century before had been borne by an inoffensive naturalist of
Bologna (The author of two works on botany and rare plants.), to
the radicals of the extinct language.  Zan was unquestionably the
Chaldean appellation for the sun.  Even the Greeks, who mutilated
every Oriental name, had retained the right one in this case, as
the Cretan inscription on the tomb of Zeus (Ode megas keitai
Zan.--"Cyril contra Julian."  (Here lies great Jove.))
significantly showed.  As to the rest, the Zan, or Zaun, was,
with the Sidonians, no uncommon prefix to On.  Adonis was but
another name for Zanonas, whose worship in Sidon Hesychius
records.  To this profound and unanswerable derivation Mervale
listened with great attention, and observed that he now ventured
to announce an erudite discovery he himself had long since made,-
-namely, that the numerous family of Smiths in England were
undoubtedly the ancient priests of the Phrygian Apollo.  "For,"
said he, "was not Apollo's surname, in Phrygia, Smintheus?  How
clear all the ensuing corruptions of the august name,--Smintheus,
Smitheus, Smithe, Smith!  And even now, I may remark that the
more ancient branches of that illustrious family, unconsciously
anxious to approximate at least by a letter nearer to the true
title, take a pious pleasure in writing their names Smith_e_!"

The philologist was much struck with this discovery, and begged
Mervale's permission to note it down as an illustration suitable
to a work he was about to publish on the origin of languages, to
be called "Babel," and published in three quartos by
subscription.


CHAPTER 2.VII.

Learn to be poor in spirit, my son, if you would penetrate that
sacred night which environs truth.  Learn of the Sages to allow
to the Devils no power in Nature, since the fatal stone has shut
'em up in the depth of the abyss.  Learn of the Philosophers
always to look for natural causes in all extraordinary events;
and when such natural causes are wanting, recur to God.--The
Count de Gabalis.

All these additions to his knowledge of Zanoni, picked up in the
various lounging-places and resorts that he frequented, were
unsatisfactory to Glyndon.  That night Viola did not perform at
the theatre; and the next day, still disturbed by bewildered
fancies, and averse to the sober and sarcastic companionship of
Mervale, Glyndon sauntered musingly into the public gardens, and
paused under the very tree under which he had first heard the
voice that had exercised upon his mind so singular an influence.
The gardens were deserted.  He threw himself on one of the seats
placed beneath the shade; and again, in the midst of his reverie,
the same cold shudder came over him which Zanoni had so
distinctly defined, and to which he had ascribed so extraordinary
a cause.

He roused himself with a sudden effort, and started to see,
seated next him, a figure hideous enough to have personated one
of the malignant beings of whom Zanoni had spoken.  It was a
small man, dressed in a fashion strikingly at variance with the
elaborate costume of the day:  an affectation of homeliness and
poverty approaching to squalor, in the loose trousers, coarse as
a ship's sail; in the rough jacket, which appeared rent wilfully
into holes; and the black, ragged, tangled locks that streamed
from their confinement under a woollen cap, accorded but ill with
other details which spoke of comparative wealth.  The shirt, open
at the throat, was fastened by a brooch of gaudy stones; and two
pendent massive gold chains announced the foppery of two watches.

The man's figure, if not absolutely deformed, was yet
marvellously ill-favoured; his shoulders high and square; his
chest flattened, as if crushed in; his gloveless hands were
knotted at the joints, and, large, bony, and muscular, dangled
from lean, emaciated wrists, as if not belonging to them.  His
features had the painful distortion sometimes seen in the
countenance of a cripple,--large, exaggerated, with the nose
nearly touching the chin; the eyes small, but glowing with a
cunning fire as they dwelt on Glyndon; and the mouth was twisted
into a grin that displayed rows of jagged, black, broken teeth.
Yet over this frightful face there still played a kind of
disagreeable intelligence, an expression at once astute and bold;
and as Glyndon, recovering from the first impression, looked
again at his neighbour, he blushed at his own dismay, and
recognised a French artist, with whom he had formed an
acquaintance, and who was possessed of no inconsiderable talents
in his calling.

Indeed, it was to be remarked that this creature, whose externals
were so deserted by the Graces, particularly delighted in designs
aspiring to majesty and grandeur.  Though his colouring was hard
and shallow, as was that generally of the French school at the
time, his DRAWINGS were admirable for symmetry, simple elegance,
and classic vigour; at the same time they unquestionably wanted
ideal grace.  He was fond of selecting subjects from Roman
history, rather than from the copious world of Grecian beauty, or
those still more sublime stories of scriptural record from which
Raphael and Michael Angelo borrowed their inspirations.  His
grandeur was that not of gods and saints, but mortals.  His
delineation of beauty was that which the eye cannot blame and the
soul does not acknowledge.  In a word, as it was said of
Dionysius, he was an Anthropographos, or Painter of Men.  It was
also a notable contradiction in this person, who was addicted to
the most extravagant excesses in every passion, whether of hate
or love, implacable in revenge, and insatiable in debauch, that
he was in the habit of uttering the most beautiful sentiments of
exalted purity and genial philanthropy.  The world was not good
enough for him; he was, to use the expressive German phrase, A
WORLD-BETTERER!  Nevertheless, his sarcastic lip often seemed to
mock the sentiments he uttered, as if it sought to insinuate that
he was above even the world he would construct.

Finally, this painter was in close correspondence with the
Republicans of Paris, and was held to be one of those
missionaries whom, from the earliest period of the Revolution,
the regenerators of mankind were pleased to despatch to the
various states yet shackled, whether by actual tyranny or
wholesome laws.  Certainly, as the historian of Italy (Botta.)
has observed, there was no city in Italy where these new
doctrines would be received with greater favour than Naples,
partly from the lively temper of the people, principally because
the most hateful feudal privileges, however partially curtailed
some years before by the great minister, Tanuccini, still
presented so many daily and practical evils as to make change
wear a more substantial charm than the mere and meretricious
bloom on the cheek of the harlot, Novelty.  This man, whom I will
call Jean Nicot, was, therefore, an oracle among the younger and
bolder spirits of Naples; and before Glyndon had met Zanoni, the
former had not been among the least dazzled by the eloquent
aspirations of the hideous philanthropist.

"It is so long since we have met, cher confrere," said Nicot,
drawing his seat nearer to Glyndon's, "that you cannot be
surprised that I see you with delight, and even take the liberty
to intrude on your meditations.

"They were of no agreeable nature," said Glyndon; "and never was
intrusion more welcome."

"You will be charmed to hear," said Nicot, drawing several
letters from his bosom, "that the good work proceeds with
marvellous rapidity.  Mirabeau, indeed, is no more; but, mort
Diable! the French people are now a Mirabeau themselves."  With
this remark, Monsieur Nicot proceeded to read and to comment upon
several animated and interesting passages in his correspondence,
in which the word virtue was introduced twenty-seven times, and
God not once.  And then, warmed by the cheering prospects thus
opened to him, he began to indulge in those anticipations of the
future, the outline of which we have already seen in the eloquent
extravagance of Condorcet.  All the old virtues were dethroned
for a new Pantheon:  patriotism was a narrow sentiment;
philanthropy was to be its successor.  No love that did not
embrace all mankind, as warm for Indus and the Pole as for the
hearth of home, was worthy the breast of a generous man.  Opinion
was to be free as air; and in order to make it so, it was
necessary to exterminate all those whose opinions were not the
same as Mons. Jean Nicot's.  Much of this amused, much revolted
Glyndon; but when the painter turned to dwell upon a science that
all should comprehend, and the results of which all should
enjoy,--a science that, springing from the soil of equal
institutions and equal mental cultivation, should give to all the
races of men wealth without labour, and a life longer than the
Patriarchs', without care,--then Glyndon listened with interest
and admiration, not unmixed with awe.  "Observe," said Nicot,
"how much that we now cherish as a virtue will then be rejected
as meanness.  Our oppressors, for instance, preach to us of the
excellence of gratitude.  Gratitude, the confession of
inferiority!  What so hateful to a noble spirit as the
humiliating sense of obligation?  But where there is equality
there can be no means for power thus to enslave merit.  The
benefactor and the client will alike cease, and--"

"And in the mean time," said a low voice, at hand,--"in the mean
time, Jean Nicot?"

The two artists started, and Glyndon recognised Zanoni.

He gazed with a brow of unusual sternness on Nicot, who, lumped
together as he sat, looked up at him askew, and with an
expression of fear and dismay upon his distorted countenance.

Ho, ho!  Messire Jean Nicot, thou who fearest neither God nor
Devil, why fearest thou the eye of a man?

"It is not the first time I have been a witness to your opinions
on the infirmity of gratitude," said Zanoni.

Nicot suppressed an exclamation, and, after gloomily surveying
Zanoni with an eye villanous and sinister, but full of hate
impotent and unutterable, said, "I know you not,--what would you
of me?"

"Your absence.  Leave us!"

Nicot sprang forward a step, with hands clenched, and showing his
teeth from ear to ear, like a wild beast incensed.  Zanoni stood
motionless, and smiled at him in scorn.  Nicot halted abruptly,
as if fixed and fascinated by the look, shivered from head to
foot, and sullenly, and with a visible effort, as if impelled by
a power not his own, turned away.

Glyndon's eyes followed him in surprise.

"And what know you of this man?" said Zanoni.

"I know him as one like myself,--a follower of art."

"Of ART!  Do not so profane that glorious word.  What Nature is
to God, art should be to man,--a sublime, beneficent, genial, and
warm creation.  That wretch may be a PAINTER, not an ARTIST."

"And pardon me if I ask what YOU know of one you thus disparage?"

"I know thus much, that you are beneath my care if it be
necessary to warn you against him; his own lips show the
hideousness of his heart.  Why should I tell you of the crimes he
has committed?  He SPEAKS crime!"

"You do not seem, Signor Zanoni, to be one of the admirers of the
dawning Revolution.  Perhaps you are prejudiced against the man
because you dislike the opinions?"

"What opinions?"

Glyndon paused, somewhat puzzled to define; but at length he
said, "Nay, I must wrong you; for you, of all men, I suppose,
cannot discredit the doctrine that preaches the infinite
improvement of the human species."

"You are right; the few in every age improve the many; the many
now may be as wise as the few were; but improvement is at a
standstill, if you tell me that the many now are as wise as the
few ARE."

"I comprehend you; you will not allow the law of universal
equality!"

"Law!  If the whole world conspired to enforce the falsehood they
could not make it LAW.  Level all conditions to-day, and you only
smooth away all obstacles to tyranny to-morrow.  A nation that
aspires to EQUALITY is unfit for FREEDOM.  Throughout all
creation, from the archangel to the worm, from Olympus to the
pebble, from the radiant and completed planet to the nebula that
hardens through ages of mist and slime into the habitable world,
the first law of Nature is inequality."

"Harsh doctrine, if applied to states.  Are the cruel disparities
of life never to be removed?"

"Disparities of the PHYSICAL life?  Oh, let us hope so.  But
disparities of the INTELLECTUAL and the MORAL, never!  Universal
equality of intelligence, of mind, of genius, of virtue!--no
teacher left to the world! no men wiser, better than others,--
were it not an impossible condition, WHAT A HOPELESS PROSPECT FOR
HUMANITY!  No, while the world lasts, the sun will gild the
mountain-top before it shines upon the plain.  Diffuse all the
knowledge the earth contains equally over all mankind to-day, and
some men will be wiser than the rest to-morrow.  And THIS is not
a harsh, but a loving law,--the REAL law of improvement; the
wiser the few in one generation, the wiser will be the multitude
the next!"

As Zanoni thus spoke, they moved on through the smiling gardens,
and the beautiful bay lay sparkling in the noontide.  A gentle
breeze just cooled the sunbeam, and stirred the ocean; and in the
inexpressible clearness of the atmosphere there was something
that rejoiced the senses.  The very soul seemed to grow lighter
and purer in that lucid air.

"And these men, to commence their era of improvement and
equality, are jealous even of the Creator.  They would deny an
intelligence,--a God!" said Zanoni, as if involuntarily.  "Are
you an artist, and, looking on the world, can you listen to such
a dogma?  Between God and genius there is a necessary link,--
there is almost a correspondent language.  Well said the
Pythagorean (Sextus, the Pythagorean.), 'A good intellect is the
chorus of divinity.'"

Struck and touched with these sentiments, which he little
expected to fall from one to whom he ascribed those powers which
the superstitions of childhood ascribe to the darker agencies,
Glyndon said:  "And yet you have confessed that your life,
separated from that of others, is one that man should dread to
share.  Is there, then, a connection between magic and religion?"

"Magic!  And what is magic!  When the traveller beholds in Persia
the ruins of palaces and temples, the ignorant inhabitants inform
him they were the work of magicians.  What is beyond their own
power, the vulgar cannot comprehend to be lawfully in the power
of others.  But if by magic you mean a perpetual research amongst
all that is more latent and obscure in Nature, I answer, I
profess that magic, and that he who does so comes but nearer to
the fountain of all belief.  Knowest thou not that magic was
taught in the schools of old?  But how, and by whom?  As the last
and most solemn lesson, by the Priests who ministered to the
Temple.  (Psellus de Daemon (MS.))  And you, who would be a
painter, is not there a magic also in that art you would advance?
Must you not, after long study of the Beautiful that has been,
seize upon new and airy combinations of a beauty that is to be?
See you not that the grander art, whether of poet or of painter,
ever seeking for the TRUE, abhors the REAL; that you must seize
Nature as her master, not lackey her as her slave?

You demand mastery over the past, a conception of the future.
Has not the art that is truly noble for its domain the future and
the past?  You would conjure the invisible beings to your charm;
and what is painting but the fixing into substance the Invisible?
Are you discontented with this world?  This world was never meant
for genius!  To exist, it must create another.  What magician can
do more; nay, what science can do as much?  There are two avenues
from the little passions and the drear calamities of earth; both
lead to heaven and away from hell,--art and science.  But art is
more godlike than science; science discovers, art creates.  You
have faculties that may command art; be contented with your lot.
The astronomer who catalogues the stars cannot add one atom to
the universe; the poet can call a universe from the atom; the
chemist may heal with his drugs the infirmities of the human
form; the painter, or the sculptor, fixes into everlasting youth
forms divine, which no disease can ravage, and no years impair.
Renounce those wandering fancies that lead you now to myself, and
now to yon orator of the human race; to us two, who are the
antipodes of each other!  Your pencil is your wand; your canvas
may raise Utopias fairer than Condorcet dreams of.  I press not
yet for your decision; but what man of genius ever asked more to
cheer his path to the grave than love and glory?"

"But," said Glyndon, fixing his eyes earnestly on Zanoni, "if
there be a power to baffle the grave itself--"

Zanoni's brow darkened.  "And were this so," he said, after a
pause, "would it be so sweet a lot to outlive all you loved, and
to recoil from every human tie?  Perhaps the fairest immortality
on earth is that of a noble name."

"You do not answer me,--you equivocate.  I have read of the long
lives far beyond the date common experience assigns to man,"
persisted Glyndon, "which some of the alchemists enjoyed.  Is the
golden elixir but a fable?"

"If not, and these men discovered it, they died, because they
refused to live!  There may be a mournful warning in your
conjecture.  Turn once more to the easel and the canvas!"

So saying, Zanoni waved his hand, and, with downcast eyes and a
slow step, bent his way back into the city.


CHAPTER 2.VIII.

The Goddess Wisdom.

To some she is the goddess great;
To some the milch cow of the field;
Their care is but to calculate
What butter she will yield.
From Schiller.

This last conversation with Zanoni left upon the mind of Glyndon
a tranquillising and salutary effect.

From the confused mists of his fancy glittered forth again those
happy, golden schemes which part from the young ambition of art,
to play in the air, to illumine the space like rays that kindle
from the sun.  And with these projects mingled also the vision of
a love purer and serener than his life yet had known.  His mind
went back into that fair childhood of genius, when the forbidden
fruit is not yet tasted, and we know of no land beyond the Eden
which is gladdened by an Eve.  Insensibly before him there rose
the scenes of a home, with his art sufficing for all excitement,
and Viola's love circling occupation with happiness and content;
and in the midst of these fantasies of a future that might be at
his command, he was recalled to the present by the clear, strong
voice of Mervale, the man of common-sense.

Whoever has studied the lives of persons in whom the imagination
is stronger than the will, who suspect their own knowledge of
actual life, and are aware of their facility to impressions, will
have observed the influence which a homely, vigorous, worldly
understanding obtains over such natures.  It was thus with
Glyndon.  His friend had often extricated him from danger, and
saved him from the consequences of imprudence; and there was
something in Mervale's voice alone that damped his enthusiasm,
and often made him yet more ashamed of noble impulses than weak
conduct.  For Mervale, though a downright honest man, could not
sympathise with the extravagance of generosity any more than with
that of presumption and credulity.  He walked the straight line
of life, and felt an equal contempt for the man who wandered up
the hill-sides, no matter whether to chase a butterfly, or to
catch a prospect of the ocean.

"I will tell you your thoughts, Clarence," said Mervale,
laughing, "though I am no Zanoni.  I know them by the moisture of
your eyes, and the half-smile on your lips.  You are musing upon
that fair perdition,--the little singer of San Carlo."

The little singer of San Carlo!  Glyndon coloured as he
answered,--

"Would you speak thus of her if she were my wife?"

"No! for then any contempt I might venture to feel would be for
yourself.  One may dislike the duper, but it is the dupe that one
despises."

"Are you sure that I should be the dupe in such a union?  Where
can I find one so lovely and so innocent,--where one whose virtue
has been tried by such temptation?  Does even a single breath of
slander sully the name of Viola Pisani?"

"I know not all the gossip of Naples, and therefore cannot
answer; but I know this, that in England no one would believe
that a young Englishman, of good fortune and respectable birth,
who marries a singer from the theatre of Naples, has not been
lamentably taken in.  I would save you from a fall of position so
irretrievable.  Think how many mortifications you will be
subjected to; how many young men will visit at your house,--and
how many young wives will as carefully avoid it."

"I can choose my own career, to which commonplace society is not
essential.  I can owe the respect of the world to my art, and not
to the accidents of birth and fortune."

"That is, you still persist in your second folly,--the absurd
ambition of daubing canvas.  Heaven forbid I should say anything
against the laudable industry of one who follows such a
profession for the sake of subsistence; but with means and
connections that will raise you in life, why voluntarily sink
into a mere artist?  As an accomplishment in leisure moments, it
is all very well in its way; but as the occupation of existence,
it is a frenzy."

"Artists have been the friends of princes."

"Very rarely so, I fancy, in sober England.  There in the great
centre of political aristocracy, what men respect is the
practical, not the ideal.  Just suffer me to draw two pictures of
my own.  Clarence Glyndon returns to England; he marries a lady
of fortune equal to his own, of friends and parentage that
advance rational ambition.  Clarence Glyndon, thus a wealthy and
respectable man, of good talents, of bustling energies then
concentrated, enters into practical life.  He has a house at
which he can receive those whose acquaintance is both advantage
and honour; he has leisure which he can devote to useful studies;
his reputation, built on a solid base, grows in men's mouths.  He
attaches himself to a party; he enters political life; and new
connections serve to promote his objects.  At the age of
five-and-forty, what, in all probability, may Clarence Glyndon
be?  Since you are ambitious I leave that question for you to
decide!  Now turn to the other picture.  Clarence Glyndon returns
to England with a wife who can bring him no money, unless he lets
her out on the stage; so handsome, that every one asks who she
is, and every one hears,--the celebrated singer, Pisani.
Clarence Glyndon shuts himself up to grind colours and paint
pictures in the grand historical school, which nobody buys.
There is even a prejudice against him, as not having studied in
the Academy,--as being an amateur.  Who is Mr. Clarence Glyndon?
Oh, the celebrated Pisani's husband!  What else?  Oh, he exhibits
those large pictures!  Poor man! they have merit in their way;
but Teniers and Watteau are more convenient, and almost as cheap.
Clarence Glyndon, with an easy fortune while single, has a large
family which his fortune, unaided by marriage, can just rear up
to callings more plebeian than his own.  He retires into the
country, to save and to paint; he grows slovenly and
discontented; 'the world does not appreciate him,' he says, and
he runs away from the world.  At the age of forty-five what will
be Clarence Glyndon?  Your ambition shall decide that question
also!"

"If all men were as worldly as you," said Glyndon, rising, "there
would never have been an artist or a poet!"

"Perhaps we should do just as well without them," answered
Mervale.  "Is it not time to think of dinner?  The mullets here
are remarkably fine!"


CHAPTER 2.IX.

Wollt ihr hoch auf ihren Flugeln schweben,
Werft die Angst des Irdischen von euch!
Fliehet aus dem engen dumpfen Leben
In des Ideales Reich!
"Das Ideal und das Leben."

Wouldst thou soar heavenward on its joyous wing?
Cast off the earthly burden of the Real;
High from this cramped and dungeoned being, spring
Into the realm of the Ideal.

As some injudicious master lowers and vitiates the taste of the
student by fixing his attention to what he falsely calls the
Natural, but which, in reality, is the Commonplace, and
understands not that beauty in art is created by what Raphael so
well describes,--namely, THE IDEA OF BEAUTY IN THE PAINTER'S OWN
MIND; and that in every art, whether its plastic expression be
found in words or marble, colours or sounds, the servile
imitation of Nature is the work of journeymen and tyros,--so in
conduct the man of the world vitiates and lowers the bold
enthusiasm of loftier natures by the perpetual reduction of
whatever is generous and trustful to all that is trite and
coarse.  A great German poet has well defined the distinction
between discretion and the larger wisdom.  In the last there is a
certain rashness which the first disdains,--

"The purblind see but the receding shore,
Not that to which the bold wave wafts them o'er."

Yet in this logic of the prudent and the worldly there is often a
reasoning unanswerable of its kind.

You must have a feeling,--a faith in whatever is self-sacrificing
and divine, whether in religion or in art, in glory or in love;
or Common-sense will reason you out of the sacrifice, and a
syllogism will debase the Divine to an article in the market.

Every true critic in art, from Aristotle and Pliny, from
Winkelman and Vasari to Reynolds and Fuseli, has sought to
instruct the painter that Nature is not to be copied, but
EXALTED; that the loftiest order of art, selecting only the
loftiest combinations, is the perpetual struggle of Humanity to
approach the gods.  The great painter, as the great author,
embodies what is POSSIBLE to MAN, it is true, but what is not
COMMON to MANKIND.  There is truth in Hamlet; in Macbeth, and his
witches; in Desdemona; in Othello; in Prospero, and in Caliban;
there is truth in the cartoons of Raphael; there is truth in the
Apollo, the Antinous, and the Laocoon.  But you do not meet the
originals of the words, the cartoons, or the marble, in Oxford
Street or St. James's.  All these, to return to Raphael, are the
creatures of the idea in the artist's mind.  This idea is not
inborn, it has come from an intense study.  But that study has
been of the ideal that can be raised from the positive and the
actual into grandeur and beauty.  The commonest model becomes
full of exquisite suggestions to him who has formed this idea; a
Venus of flesh and blood would be vulgarised by the imitation of
him who has not.

When asked where he got his models, Guido summoned a common
porter from his calling, and drew from a mean original a head of
surpassing beauty.  It resembled the porter, but idealised the
porter to the hero.  It was true, but it was not real.  There are
critics who will tell you that the Boor of Teniers is more true
to Nature than the Porter of Guido!  The commonplace public
scarcely understand the idealising principle, even in art; for
high art is an acquired taste.

But to come to my comparison.  Still less is the kindred
principle comprehended in conduct.  And the advice of worldly
prudence would as often deter from the risks of virtue as from
the punishments of vice; yet in conduct, as in art, there is an
idea of the great and beautiful, by which men should exalt the
hackneyed and the trite of life.  Now Glyndon felt the sober
prudence of Mervale's reasonings; he recoiled from the probable
picture placed before him, in his devotion to the one
master-talent he possessed, and the one master-passion that,
rightly directed, might purify his whole being as a strong wind
purifies the air.

But though he could not bring himself to decide in the teeth of
so rational a judgment, neither could he resolve at once to
abandon the pursuit of Viola.  Fearful of being influenced by
Zanoni's counsels and his own heart, he had for the last two days
shunned an interview with the young actress.  But after a night
following his last conversation with Zanoni, and that we have
just recorded with Mervale,--a night coloured by dreams so
distinct as to seem prophetic, dreams that appeared so to shape
his future according to the hints of Zanoni that he could have
fancied Zanoni himself had sent them from the house of sleep to
haunt his pillow,--he resolved once more to seek Viola; and
though without a definite or distinct object, he yielded himself
up to the impulse of his heart.


CHAPTER 2.X.

O sollecito dubbio e fredda tema
Che pensando l'accresci.
Tasso, Canzone vi.

(O anxious doubt and chilling fear that grows by thinking.)

She was seated outside her door,--the young actress!  The sea
before her in that heavenly bay seemed literally to sleep in the
arms of the shore; while, to the right, not far off, rose the
dark and tangled crags to which the traveller of to-day is duly
brought to gaze on the tomb of Virgil, or compare with the cavern
of Posilipo the archway of Highgate Hill.  There were a few
fisherman loitering by the cliffs, on which their nets were hung
to dry; and at a distance the sound of some rustic pipe (more
common at that day than at this), mingled now and then with the
bells of the lazy mules, broke the voluptuous silence,--the
silence of declining noon on the shores of Naples; never, till
you have enjoyed it, never, till you have felt its enervating but
delicious charm, believe that you can comprehend all the meaning
of the Dolce far niente (The pleasure of doing nothing.); and
when that luxury has been known, when you have breathed that
atmosphere of fairy-land, then you will no longer wonder why the
heart ripens into fruit so sudden and so rich beneath the rosy
skies and the glorious sunshine of the South.

The eyes of the actress were fixed on the broad blue deep beyond.
In the unwonted negligence of her dress might be traced the
abstraction of her mind.  Her beautiful hair was gathered up
loosely, and partially bandaged by a kerchief whose purple colour
served to deepen the golden hue of her tresses.  A stray curl
escaped and fell down the graceful neck.  A loose morning-robe,
girded by a sash, left the breeze.  That came ever and anon from
the sea, to die upon the bust half disclosed; and the tiny
slipper, that Cinderella might have worn, seemed a world too wide
for the tiny foot which it scarcely covered.  It might be the
heat of the day that deepened the soft bloom of the cheeks, and
gave an unwonted languor to the large, dark eyes.  In all the
pomp of her stage attire,--in all the flush of excitement before
the intoxicating lamps,--never had Viola looked so lovely.

By the side of the actress, and filling up the threshold,--stood
Gionetta, with her arms thrust to the elbow in two huge pockets
on either side of her gown.

"But I assure you," said the nurse, in that sharp, quick, ear-
splitting tone in which the old women of the South are more than
a match for those of the North,--"but I assure you, my darling,
that there is not a finer cavalier in all Naples, nor a more
beautiful, than this Inglese; and I am told that all these
Inglesi are much richer than they seem.  Though they have no
trees in their country, poor people! and instead of twenty-four
they have only twelve hours to the day, yet I hear that they shoe
their horses with scudi; and since they cannot (the poor
heretics!) turn grapes into wine, for they have no grapes, they
turn gold into physic, and take a glass or two of pistoles
whenever they are troubled with the colic.  But you don't hear
me, little pupil of my eyes,--you don't hear me!"

"And these things are whispered of Zanoni!" said Viola, half to
herself, and unheeding Gionetta's eulogies on Glyndon and the
English.

"Blessed Maria! do not talk of this terrible Zanoni.  You may be
sure that his beautiful face, like his yet more beautiful
pistoles, is only witchcraft.  I look at the money he gave me the
other night, every quarter of an hour, to see whether it has not
turned into pebbles."

"Do you then really believe," said Viola, with timid earnestness,
"that sorcery still exists?"

"Believe!  Do I believe in the blessed San Gennaro?  How do you
think he cured old Filippo the fisherman, when the doctor gave
him up?  How do you think he has managed himself to live at least
these three hundred years?  How do you think he fascinates every
one to his bidding with a look, as the vampires do?"

"Ah, is this only witchcraft?  It is like it,--it must be!"
murmured Viola, turning very pale.  Gionetta herself was scarcely
more superstitious than the daughter of the musician.  And her
very innocence, chilled at the strangeness of virgin passion,
might well ascribe to magic what hearts more experienced would
have resolved to love.

"And then, why has this great Prince di -- been so terrified by
him?  Why has he ceased to persecute us?  Why has he been so
quiet and still?  Is there no sorcery in all that?"

"Think you, then," said Viola, with sweet inconsistency, "that I
owe that happiness and safety to his protection?  Oh, let me so
believe!  Be silent, Gionetta!  Why have I only thee and my own
terrors to consult?  O beautiful sun!" and the girl pressed her
hand to her heart with wild energy; "thou lightest every spot but
this.  Go, Gionetta! leave me alone,--leave me!"

"And indeed it is time I should leave you; for the polenta will
be spoiled, and you have eat nothing all day.  If you don't eat
you will lose your beauty, my darling, and then nobody will care
for you.  Nobody cares for us when we grow ugly,--I know that;
and then you must, like old Gionetta, get some Viola of your own
to spoil.  I'll go and see to the polenta."

"Since I have known this man," said the girl, half aloud,--"since
his dark eyes have haunted me, I am no longer the same.  I long
to escape from myself,--to glide with the sunbeam over the
hill-tops; to become something that is not of earth.  Phantoms
float before me at night; and a fluttering, like the wing of a
bird, within my heart, seems as if the spirit were terrified, and
would break its cage."

While murmuring these incoherent rhapsodies, a step that she did
not hear approached the actress, and a light hand touched her
arm.

"Viola!--bellissima!--Viola!"

She turned, and saw Glyndon.  The sight of his fair young face
calmed her at once.  His presence gave her pleasure.

"Viola," said the Englishman, taking her hand, and drawing her
again to the bench from which she had risen, as he seated himself
beside her, "you shall hear me speak!  You must know already that
I love thee!  It has not been pity or admiration alone that has
led me ever and ever to thy dear side; reasons there may have
been why I have not spoken, save by my eyes, before; but this
day--I know not how it is--I feel a more sustained and settled
courage to address thee, and learn the happiest or the worst.  I
have rivals, I know,--rivals who are more powerful than the poor
artist; are they also more favoured?"

Viola blushed faintly; but her countenance was grave and
distressed.  Looking down, and marking some hieroglyphical
figures in the dust with the point of her slipper, she said, with
some hesitation, and a vain attempt to be gay, "Signor, whoever
wastes his thoughts on an actress must submit to have rivals.  It
is our unhappy destiny not to be sacred even to ourselves."

"But you do not love this destiny, glittering though it seem;
your heart is not in the vocation which your gifts adorn."

"Ah, no!" said the actress, her eyes filling with tears.  "Once I
loved to be the priestess of song and music; now I feel only that
it is a miserable lot to be slave to a multitude."

"Fly, then, with me," said the artist, passionately; "quit
forever the calling that divides that heart I would have all my
own.  Share my fate now and forever,--my pride, my delight, my
ideal!  Thou shalt inspire my canvas and my song; thy beauty
shall be made at once holy and renowned.  In the galleries of
princes, crowds shall gather round the effigy of a Venus or a
Saint, and a whisper shall break forth, 'It is Viola Pisani!'
Ah! Viola, I adore thee; tell me that I do not worship in vain."

"Thou art good and fair," said Viola, gazing on her lover, as he
pressed nearer to her, and clasped her hand in his; "but what
should I give thee in return?"

"Love, love,--only love!"

"A sister's love?"

"Ah, speak not with such cruel coldness!"

"It is all I have for thee.  Listen to me, signor:  when I look
on your face, when I hear your voice, a certain serene and
tranquil calm creeps over and lulls thoughts,--oh, how feverish,
how wild!  When thou art gone, the day seems a shade more dark;
but the shadow soon flies.  I miss thee not; I think not of thee:
no, I love thee not; and I will give myself only where I love."

"But I would teach thee to love me; fear it not.  Nay, such love
as thou describest, in our tranquil climates, is the love of
innocence and youth."

"Of innocence!" said Viola.  "Is it so?  Perhaps--"  She paused,
and added, with an effort, "Foreigner! and wouldst thou wed the
orphan?  Ah, THOU at least art generous!  It is not the innocence
thou wouldst destroy!"

Glyndon drew back, conscience-stricken.

"No, it may not be!" she said, rising, but not conscious of the
thoughts, half of shame, half suspicion, that passed through the
mind of her lover.  "Leave me, and forget me.  You do not
understand, you could not comprehend, the nature of her whom you
think to love.  From my childhood upward, I have felt as if I
were marked out for some strange and preternatural doom; as if I
were singled from my kind.  This feeling (and, oh! at times it is
one of delirious and vague delight, at others of the darkest
gloom) deepens within me day by day.  It is like the shadow of
twilight, spreading slowly and solemnly around.  My hour
approaches:  a little while, and it will be night!"

As she spoke, Glyndon listened with visible emotion and
perturbation.  "Viola!" he exclaimed, as she ceased, "your words
more than ever enchain me to you.  As you feel, I feel.  I, too,
have been ever haunted with a chill and unearthly foreboding.
Amidst the crowds of men I have felt alone.  In all my pleasures,
my toils, my pursuits, a warning voice has murmured in my ear,
'Time has a dark mystery in store for thy manhood.'  When you
spoke, it was as the voice of my own soul."

Viola gazed upon him in wonder and fear.  Her countenance was as
white as marble; and those features, so divine in their rare
symmetry, might have served the Greek with a study for the
Pythoness, when, from the mystic cavern and the bubbling spring,
she first hears the voice of the inspiring god.  Gradually the
rigour and tension of that wonderful face relaxed, the colour
returned, the pulse beat:  the heart animated the frame.

"Tell me," she said, turning partially aside,--"tell me, have you
seen--do you know--a stranger in this city,--one of whom wild
stories are afloat?"

"You speak of Zanoni?  I have seen him:  I know him,--and you?
Ah, he, too, would be my rival!--he, too, would bear thee from
me!"

"You err," said Viola, hastily, and with a deep sigh; "he pleads
for you:  he informed me of your love; he besought me not--not to
reject it."

"Strange being! incomprehensible enigma!  Why did you name him?"

"Why! ah, I would have asked whether, when you first saw him, the
foreboding, the instinct, of which you spoke, came on you more
fearfully, more intelligibly than before; whether you felt at
once repelled from him, yet attracted towards him; whether you
felt," and the actress spoke with hurried animation, "that with
HIM was connected the secret of your life?"

"All this I felt," answered Glyndon, in a trembling voice, "the
first time I was in his presence.  Though all around me was gay,
--music, amidst lamp-lit trees, light converse near, and heaven
without a cloud above,--my knees knocked together, my hair
bristled, and my blood curdled like ice.  Since then he has
divided my thoughts with thee."

"No more, no more!" said Viola, in a stifled tone; "there must be
the hand of fate in this.  I can speak to you no more now.
Farewell!"  She sprung past him into the house, and closed the
door.  Glyndon did not follow her, nor, strange as it may seem,
was he so inclined.  The thought and recollection of that moonlit
hour in the gardens, of the strange address of Zanoni, froze up
all human passion.  Viola herself, if not forgotten, shrunk back
like a shadow into the recesses of his breast.  He shivered as he
stepped into the sunlight, and musingly retraced his steps into
the more populous parts of that liveliest of Italian cities.


BOOK III.

THEURGIA.

--i cavalier sen vanno
dove il pino fatal gli attende in porto.
Gerus. Lib., cant. xv (Argomento.)

The knights came where the fatal bark
Awaited them in the port.


CHAPTER 3.I.

But that which especially distinguishes the brotherhood is their
marvellous knowledge of all the resources of medical art.  They
work not by charms, but simples.--"MS.  Account of the Origin and
Attributes of the true Rosicrucians," by J. Von D--.

At this time it chanced that Viola had the opportunity to return
the kindness shown to her by the friendly musician whose house
had received and sheltered her when first left an orphan on the
world.  Old Bernardi had brought up three sons to the same
profession as himself, and they had lately left Naples to seek
their fortunes in the wealthier cities of Northern Europe, where
the musical market was less overstocked.  There was only left to
glad the household of his aged wife and himself, a lively,
prattling, dark-eyed girl of some eight years old, the child of
his second son, whose mother had died in giving her birth.  It so
happened that, about a month previous to the date on which our
story has now entered, a paralytic affection had disabled
Bernardi from the duties of his calling.  He had been always a
social, harmless, improvident, generous fellow--living on his
gains from day to day, as if the day of sickness and old age
never was to arrive.  Though he received a small allowance for
his past services, it ill sufficed for his wants,; neither was he
free from debt.  Poverty stood at his hearth,--when Viola's
grateful smile and liberal hand came to chase the grim fiend
away.  But it is not enough to a heart truly kind to send and
give; more charitable is it to visit and console.  "Forget not
thy father's friend."  So almost daily went the bright idol of
Naples to the house of Bernardi.  Suddenly a heavier affliction
than either poverty or the palsy befell the old musician.  His
grandchild, his little Beatrice, fell ill, suddenly and
dangerously ill, of one of those rapid fevers common to the
South; and Viola was summoned from her strange and fearful
reveries of love or fancy, to the sick-bed of the young sufferer.

The child was exceedingly fond of Viola, and the old people
thought that her mere presence would bring healing; but when
Viola arrived, Beatrice was insensible.  Fortunately there was no
performance that evening at San Carlo, and she resolved to stay
the night and partake its fearful cares and dangerous vigil.

But during the night the child grew worse, the physician (the
leechcraft has never been very skilful at Naples) shook his
powdered head, kept his aromatics at his nostrils, administered
his palliatives, and departed.  Old Bernardi seated himself by
the bedside in stern silence; here was the last tie that bound
him to life.  Well, let the anchor break and the battered ship go
down!  It was an iron resolve, more fearful than sorrow.  An old
man, with one foot in the grave, watching by the couch of a dying
child, is one of the most awful spectacles in human calamities.
The wife was more active, more bustling, more hopeful, and more
tearful.  Viola took heed of all three.  But towards dawn,
Beatrice's state became so obviously alarming, that Viola herself
began to despair.  At this time she saw the old woman suddenly
rise from before the image of the saint at which she had been
kneeling, wrap herself in her cloak and hood, and quietly quit
the chamber.  Viola stole after her.

"It is cold for thee, good mother, to brave the air; let me go
for the physician?"

"Child, I am not going to him.  I have heard of one in the city
who has been tender to the poor, and who, they say, has cured the
sick when physicians failed.  I will go and say to him, 'Signor,
we are beggars in all else, but yesterday we were rich in love.
We are at the close of life, but we lived in our grandchild's
childhood.  Give us back our wealth,--give us back our youth.
Let us die blessing God that the thing we love survives us.'"

She was gone.  Why did thy heart beat, Viola?  The infant's sharp
cry of pain called her back to the couch; and there still sat the
old man, unconscious of his wife's movements, not stirring, his
eyes glazing fast as they watched the agonies of that slight
frame.  By degrees the wail of pain died into a low moan,--the
convulsions grew feebler, but more frequent; the glow of fever
faded into the blue, pale tinge that settles into the last
bloodless marble.

The daylight came broader and clearer through the casement; steps
were heard on the stairs,--the old woman entered hastily; she
rushed to the bed, cast a glance on the patient, "She lives yet,
signor, she lives!"

Viola raised her eyes,--the child's head was pillowed on her
bosom,--and she beheld Zanoni.  He smiled on her with a tender
and soft approval, and took the infant from her arms.  Yet even
then, as she saw him bending silently over that pale face, a
superstitious fear mingled with her hopes.  "Was it by lawful--by
holy art that--" her self-questioning ceased abruptly; for his
dark eye turned to her as if he read her soul, and his aspect
accused her conscience for its suspicion, for it spoke reproach
not unmingled with disdain.

"Be comforted," he said, gently turning to the old man, "the
danger is not beyond the reach of human skill;" and, taking from
his bosom a small crystal vase, he mingled a few drops with
water.  No sooner did this medicine moisten the infant's lips,
than it seemed to produce an astonishing effect.  The colour
revived rapidly on the lips and cheeks; in a few moments the
sufferer slept calmly, and with the regular breathing of painless
sleep.  And then the old man rose, rigidly, as a corpse might
rise,--looked down, listened, and creeping gently away, stole to
the corner of the room, and wept, and thanked Heaven!

Now, old Bernardi had been, hitherto, but a cold believer; sorrow
had never before led him aloft from earth.  Old as he was, he had
never before thought as the old should think of death,--that
endangered life of the young had wakened up the careless soul of
age.  Zanoni whispered to the wife, and she drew the old man
quietly from the room.

"Dost thou fear to leave me an hour with thy charge, Viola?
Thinkest thou still that this knowledge is of the Fiend?"

"Ah," said Viola, humbled and yet rejoiced, "forgive me, forgive
me, signor.  Thou biddest the young live and the old pray.  My
thoughts never shall wrong thee more!"

Before the sun rose, Beatrice was out of danger; at noon Zanoni
escaped from the blessings of the aged pair, and as he closed the
door of the house, he found Viola awaiting him without.

She stood before him timidly, her hands crossed meekly on her
bosom, her downcast eyes swimming with tears.

"Do not let me be the only one you leave unhappy!"

"And what cure can the herbs and anodynes effect for thee?  If
thou canst so readily believe ill of those who have aided and yet
would serve thee, thy disease is of the heart; and--nay, weep
not! nurse of the sick, and comforter of the sad, I should rather
approve than chide thee.  Forgive thee!  Life, that ever needs
forgiveness, has, for its first duty, to forgive."

"No, do not forgive me yet.  I do not deserve a pardon; for even
now, while I feel how ungrateful I was to believe, suspect, aught
injurious and false to my preserver, my tears flow from
happiness, not remorse.  Oh!" she continued, with a simple
fervour, unconscious, in her innocence and her generous emotions,
of all the secrets she betrayed,--"thou knowest not how bitter it
was to believe thee not more good, more pure, more sacred than
all the world.  And when I saw thee,--the wealthy, the noble,
coming from thy palace to minister to the sufferings of the
hovel,--when I heard those blessings of the poor breathed upon
thy parting footsteps, I felt my very self exalted,--good in thy
goodness, noble at least in those thoughts that did NOT wrong
thee."

"And thinkest thou, Viola, that in a mere act of science there is
so much virtue?  The commonest leech will tend the sick for his
fee.  Are prayers and blessings a less reward than gold?"

"And mine, then, are not worthless?  Thou wilt accept of mine?"

"Ah, Viola!" exclaimed Zanoni, with a sudden passion, that
covered her face with blushes, "thou only, methinks, on all the
earth, hast the power to wound or delight me!"  He checked
himself, and his face became grave and sad.  "And this," he
added, in an altered tone, "because, if thou wouldst heed my
counsels, methinks I could guide a guileless heart to a happy
fate."

"Thy counsels!  I will obey them all.  Mould me to what thou
wilt.  In thine absence, I am as a child that fears every shadow
in the dark; in thy presence, my soul expands, and the whole
world seems calm with a celestial noonday.  Do not deny to me
that presence.  I am fatherless and ignorant and alone!"

Zanoni averted his face, and, after a moment's silence, replied
calmly,--

"Be it so.  Sister, I will visit thee again!"


CHAPTER 3.II.

Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy.
Shakespeare.

Who so happy as Viola now!  A dark load was lifted from her
heart:  her step seemed to tread on air; she would have sung for
very delight as she went gayly home.  It is such happiness to the
pure to love,--but oh, such more than happiness to believe in the
worth of the one beloved.  Between them there might be human
obstacles,--wealth, rank, man's little world.  But there was no
longer that dark gulf which the imagination recoils to dwell on,
and which separates forever soul from soul.  He did not love her
in return.  Love her!  But did she ask for love?  Did she herself
love?  No; or she would never have been at once so humble and so
bold.  How merrily the ocean murmured in her ear; how radiant an
aspect the commonest passer-by seemed to wear!  She gained her
home,--she looked upon the tree, glancing, with fantastic
branches, in the sun.  "Yes, brother mine!" she said, laughing in
her joy, "like thee, I HAVE struggled to the light!"

She had never hitherto, like the more instructed Daughters of the
North, accustomed herself to that delicious Confessional, the
transfusion of thought to writing.  Now, suddenly, her heart felt
an impulse; a new-born instinct, that bade it commune with
itself, bade it disentangle its web of golden fancies,--made her
wish to look upon her inmost self as in a glass.  Upsprung from
the embrace of Love and Soul--the Eros and the Psyche--their
beautiful offspring, Genius!  She blushed, she sighed, she
trembled as she wrote.  And from the fresh world that she had
built for herself, she was awakened to prepare for the glittering
stage.  How dull became the music, how dim the scene, so
exquisite and so bright of old.  Stage, thou art the Fairy Land
to the vision of the worldly.  Fancy, whose music is not heard by
men, whose scenes shift not by mortal hand, as the stage to the
present world, art thou to the future and the past!


CHAPTER 3.III.

In faith, I do not love thee with mine eyes.
Shakespeare.

The next day, at noon, Zanoni visited Viola; and the next day and
the next and again the next,--days that to her seemed like a
special time set apart from the rest of life.  And yet he never
spoke to her in the language of flattery, and almost of
adoration, to which she had been accustomed.  Perhaps his very
coldness, so gentle as it was, assisted to this mysterious charm.
He talked to her much of her past life, and she was scarcely
surprised (she now never thought of TERROR) to perceive how much
of that past seemed known to him.

He made her speak to him of her father; he made her recall some
of the airs of Pisani's wild music.  And those airs seemed to
charm and lull him into reverie.

"As music was to the musician," said he, "may science be to the
wise.  Your father looked abroad in the world; all was discord to
the fine sympathies that he felt with the harmonies that daily
and nightly float to the throne of Heaven.  Life, with its noisy
ambition and its mean passions, is so poor and base!  Out of his
soul he created the life and the world for which his soul was
fitted.  Viola, thou art the daughter of that life, and wilt be
the denizen of that world."

In his earlier visits he did not speak of Glyndon.  The day soon
came on which he renewed the subject.  And so trustful, obedient,
and entire was the allegiance that Viola now owned to his
dominion, that, unwelcome as that subject was, she restrained her
heart, and listened to him in silence.

At last he said, "Thou hast promised thou wilt obey my counsels,
and if, Viola, I should ask thee, nay adjure, to accept this
stranger's hand, and share his fate, should he offer to thee such
a lot,--wouldst thou refuse?"

And then she pressed back the tears that gushed to her eyes; and
with a strange pleasure in the midst of pain,--the pleasure of
one who sacrifices heart itself to the one who commands that
heart,--she answered falteringly, "If thou CANST ordain it,
why--"

"Speak on."

"Dispose of me as thou wilt!"

Zanoni stood in silence for some moments:  he saw the struggle
which the girl thought she concealed so well; he made an
involuntary movement towards her, and pressed her hand to his
lips; it was the first time he had ever departed even so far from
a certain austerity which perhaps made her fear him and her own
thoughts the less.

"Viola," said he, and his voice trembled, "the danger that I can
avert no more, if thou linger still in Naples, comes hourly near
and near to thee!  On the third day from this thy fate must be
decided.  I accept thy promise.  Before the last hour of that
day, come what may, I shall see thee again, HERE, at thine own
house.  Till then, farewell!"


CHAPTER 3.IV.

Between two worlds life hovers like a star
'Twixt night and morn.
Byron.

When Glyndon left Viola, as recorded in the concluding chapter of
the second division of this work, he was absorbed again in those
mystical desires and conjectures which the haunting recollection
of Zanoni always served to create.  And as he wandered through
the streets, he was scarcely conscious of his own movements till,
in the mechanism of custom, he found himself in the midst of one
of the noble collections of pictures which form the boast of
those Italian cities whose glory is in the past.  Thither he had
been wont, almost daily, to repair, for the gallery contained
some of the finest specimens of a master especially the object of
his enthusiasm and study.  There, before the works of Salvator,
he had often paused in deep and earnest reverence.  The striking
characteristic of that artist is the "Vigour of Will;" void of
the elevated idea of abstract beauty, which furnishes a model and
archetype to the genius of more illustrious order, the singular
energy of the man hews out of the rock a dignity of his own.  His
images have the majesty, not of the god, but the savage; utterly
free, like the sublimer schools, from the common-place of
imitation,--apart, with them, from the conventional littleness of
the Real,--he grasps the imagination, and compels it to follow
him, not to the heaven, but through all that is most wild and
fantastic upon earth; a sorcery, not of the starry magian, but of
the gloomy wizard,--a man of romance whose heart beat strongly,
griping art with a hand of iron, and forcing it to idealise the
scenes of his actual life.  Before this powerful will, Glyndon
drew back more awed and admiring than before the calmer beauty
which rose from the soul of Raphael, like Venus from the deep.

And now, as awaking from his reverie, he stood opposite to that
wild and magnificent gloom of Nature which frowned on him from
the canvas, the very leaves on those gnome-like, distorted trees
seemed to rustle sibylline secrets in his ear.  Those rugged and
sombre Apennines, the cataract that dashed between, suited, more
than the actual scenes would have done, the mood and temper of
his mind.  The stern, uncouth forms at rest on the crags below,
and dwarfed by the giant size of the Matter that reigned around
them, impressed him with the might of Nature and the littleness
of Man.  As in genius of the more spiritual cast, the living man,
and the soul that lives in him, are studiously made the prominent
image; and the mere accessories of scene kept down, and cast
back, as if to show that the exile from paradise is yet the
monarch of the outward world,--so, in the landscapes of Salvator,
the tree, the mountain, the waterfall, become the principal, and
man himself dwindles to the accessory.  The Matter seems to reign
supreme, and its true lord to creep beneath its stupendous
shadow.  Inert matter giving interest to the immortal man, not
the immortal man to the inert matter.  A terrible philosophy in
art!

While something of these thoughts passed through the mind of the
painter, he felt his arm touched, and saw Nicot by his side.

"A great master," said Nicot, "but I do not love the school."

"I do not love, but I am awed by it.  We love the beautiful and
serene, but we have a feeling as deep as love for the terrible
and dark."

"True," said Nicot, thoughtfully.  "And yet that feeling is only
a superstition.  The nursery, with its tales of ghosts and
goblins, is the cradle of many of our impressions in the world.
But art should not seek to pander to our ignorance; art should
represent only truths.  I confess that Raphael pleases me less,
because I have no sympathy with his subjects.  His saints and
virgins are to me only men and women."

"And from what source should painting, then, take its themes?"

"From history, without doubt," returned Nicot, pragmatically,--
"those great Roman actions which inspire men with sentiments of
liberty and valour, with the virtues of a republic.  I wish the
cartoons of Raphael had illustrated the story of the Horatii; but
it remains for France and her Republic to give to posterity the
new and the true school, which could never have arisen in a
country of priestcraft and delusion."

"And the saints and virgins of Raphael are to you only men and
women?" repeated Glyndon, going back to Nicot's candid confession
in amaze, and scarcely hearing the deductions the Frenchman drew
from his proposition.

"Assuredly.  Ha, ha!" and Nicot laughed hideously, "do you ask me
to believe in the calendar, or what?"

"But the ideal?"

"The ideal!" interrupted Nicot.  "Stuff!  The Italian critics,
and your English Reynolds, have turned your head.  They are so
fond of their 'gusto grande,' and their 'ideal beauty that speaks
to the soul!'--soul!--IS there a soul?  I understand a man when
he talks of composing for a refined taste,--for an educated and
intelligent reason; for a sense that comprehends truths.  But as
for the soul,--bah!--we are but modifications of matter, and
painting is modification of matter also."

Glyndon turned his eyes from the picture before him to Nicot, and
from Nicot to the picture.  The dogmatist gave a voice to the
thoughts which the sight of the picture had awakened.  He shook
his head without reply.

"Tell me," said Nicot, abruptly, "that imposter,--Zanoni!--oh!  I
have now learned his name and quackeries, forsooth,--what did he
say to thee of me?"

"Of thee?  Nothing; but to warn me against thy doctrines."

"Aha! was that all?" said Nicot.  "He is a notable inventor, and
since, when we met last, I unmasked his delusions, I thought he
might retaliate by some tale of slander."

"Unmasked his delusions!--how?"

"A dull and long story:  he wished to teach an old doting friend
of mine his secrets of prolonged life and philosophical alchemy.
I advise thee to renounce so discreditable an acquaintance."

With that Nicot nodded significantly, and, not wishing to be
further questioned, went his way.

Glyndon's mind at that moment had escaped to his art, and the
comments and presence of Nicot had been no welcome interruption.
He turned from the landscape of Salvator, and his eye falling on
a Nativity by Coreggio, the contrast between the two ranks of
genius struck him as a discovery.  That exquisite repose, that
perfect sense of beauty, that strength without effort, that
breathing moral of high art, which speaks to the mind through the
eye, and raises the thoughts, by the aid of tenderness and love,
to the regions of awe and wonder,--ay! THAT was the true school.
He quitted the gallery with reluctant steps and inspired ideas;
he sought his own home.  Here, pleased not to find the sober
Mervale, he leaned his face on his hands, and endeavoured to
recall the words of Zanoni in their last meeting.  Yes, he felt
Nicot's talk even on art was crime; it debased the imagination
itself to mechanism.  Could he, who saw nothing in the soul but a
combination of matter, prate of schools that should excel a
Raphael?  Yes, art was magic; and as he owned the truth of the
aphorism, he could comprehend that in magic there may be
religion, for religion is an essential to art.  His old ambition,
freeing itself from the frigid prudence with which Mervale sought
to desecrate all images less substantial than the golden calf of
the world, revived, and stirred, and kindled.  The subtle
detection of what he conceived to be an error in the school he
had hitherto adopted, made more manifest to him by the grinning
commentary of Nicot, seemed to open to him a new world of
invention.  He seized the happy moment,--he placed before him the
colours and the canvas.  Lost in his conceptions of a fresh
ideal, his mind was lifted aloft into the airy realms of beauty;
dark thoughts, unhallowed desires, vanished.  Zanoni was right:
the material world shrunk from his gaze; he viewed Nature as from
a mountain-top afar; and as the waves of his unquiet heart became
calm and still, again the angel eyes of Viola beamed on them as a
holy star.

Locking himself in his chamber, he refused even the visits of
Mervale.  Intoxicated with the pure air of his fresh existence,
he remained for three days, and almost nights, absorbed in his
employment; but on the fourth morning came that reaction to which
all labour is exposed.  He woke listless and fatigued; and as he
cast his eyes on the canvas, the glory seemed to have gone from
it.  Humiliating recollections of the great masters he aspired to
rival forced themselves upon him; defects before unseen magnified
themselves to deformities in his languid and discontented eyes.
He touched and retouched, but his hand failed him; he threw down
his instruments in despair; he opened his casement:  the day
without was bright and lovely; the street was crowded with that
life which is ever so joyous and affluent in the animated
population of Naples.  He saw the lover, as he passed, conversing
with his mistress by those mute gestures which have survived all
changes of languages, the same now as when the Etruscan painted
yon vases in the Museo Borbonico.  Light from without beckoned
his youth to its mirth and its pleasures; and the dull walls
within, lately large enough to comprise heaven and earth, seemed
now cabined and confined as a felon's prison.  He welcomed the
step of Mervale at his threshold, and unbarred the door.

"And is that all you have done?" said Mervale, glancing
disdainfully at the canvas.  "Is it for this that you have shut
yourself out from the sunny days and moonlit nights of Naples?"

"While the fit was on me, I basked in a brighter sun, and imbibed
the voluptuous luxury of a softer moon."

"You own that the fit is over.  Well, that is some sign of
returning sense.  After all, it is better to daub canvas for
three days than make a fool of yourself for life.  This little
siren?"

"Be dumb!  I hate to hear you name her."

Mervale drew his chair nearer to Glyndon's, thrust his hands deep
in his breeches-pockets, stretched his legs, and was about to
begin a serious strain of expostulation, when a knock was heard
at the door, and Nicot, without waiting for leave, obtruded his
ugly head.

"Good-day, mon cher confrere.  I wished to speak to you.  Hein!
you have been at work, I see.  This is well,--very well!  A bold
outline,--great freedom in that right hand.  But, hold! is the
composition good?  You have not got the great pyramidal form.
Don't you think, too, that you have lost the advantage of
contrast in this figure; since the right leg is put forward,
surely the right arm should be put back?  Peste! but that little
finger is very fine!"

Mervale detested Nicot.  For all speculators, Utopians, alterers
of the world, and wanderers from the high road, were equally
hateful to him; but he could have hugged the Frenchman at that
moment.  He saw in Glyndon's expressive countenance all the
weariness and disgust he endured.  After so wrapped a study, to
be prated to about pyramidal forms and right arms and right legs,
the accidence of the art, the whole conception to be overlooked,
and the criticism to end in approval of the little finger!

"Oh," said Glyndon, peevishly, throwing the cloth over his
design, "enough of my poor performance.  What is it you have to
say to me?"

"In the first place," said Nicot, huddling himself together upon
a stool,--"in the first place, this Signor Zanoni,--this second
Cagliostro,--who disputes my doctrines! (no doubt a spy of the
man Capet) I am not vindictive; as Helvetius says, 'our errors
arise from our passions.'  I keep mine in order; but it is
virtuous to hate in the cause of mankind; I would I had the
denouncing and the judging of Signor Zanoni at Paris."  And
Nicot's small eyes shot fire, and he gnashed his teeth.

"Have you any new cause to hate him?"

"Yes," said Nicot, fiercely.  "Yes, I hear he is courting the
girl I mean to marry."

"You!  Whom do you speak of?"

"The celebrated Pisani!  She is divinely handsome.  She would
make my fortune in a republic.  And a republic we shall have
before the year is out."

Mervale rubbed his hands, and chuckled.  Glyndon coloured with
rage and shame.

"Do you know the Signora Pisani?  Have you ever spoken to her?"

"Not yet.  But when I make up my mind to anything, it is soon
done.  I am about to return to Paris.  They write me word that a
handsome wife advances the career of a patriot.  The age of
prejudice is over.  The sublimer virtues begin to be understood.
I shall take back the handsomest wife in Europe."

"Be quiet!  What are you about?" said Mervale, seizing Glyndon as
he saw him advance towards the Frenchman, his eyes sparkling, and
his hands clenched.

"Sir!" said Glyndon, between his teeth, "you know not of whom you
thus speak.  Do you affect to suppose that Viola Pisani would
accept YOU?"

"Not if she could get a better offer," said Mervale, looking up
to the ceiling.

"A better offer?  You don't understand me," said Nicot.  "I, Jean
Nicot, propose to marry the girl; marry her!  Others may make her
more liberal offers, but no one, I apprehend, would make one so
honourable.  I alone have pity on her friendless situation.
Besides, according to the dawning state of things, one will
always, in France, be able to get rid of a wife whenever one
wishes.  We shall have new laws of divorce.  Do you imagine that
an Italian girl--and in no country in the world are maidens, it
seems, more chaste (though wives may console themselves with
virtues more philosophical)--would refuse the hand of an artist
for the settlements of a prince?  No; I think better of the
Pisani than you do.  I shall hasten to introduce myself to her."

"I wish you all success, Monsieur Nicot," said Mervale, rising,
and shaking him heartily by the hand.

Glyndon cast at them both a disdainful glance.

"Perhaps, Monsieur Nicot," said he, at length, constraining his
lips into a bitter smile,--"perhaps you may have rivals."

"So much the better," replied Monsieur Nicot, carelessly, kicking
his heels together, and appearing absorbed in admiration at the
size of his large feet.

"I myself admire Viola Pisani."

"Every painter must!"

"I may offer her marriage as well as yourself."

"That would be folly in you, though wisdom in me.  You would not
know how to draw profit from the speculation!  Cher confrere, you
have prejudices."

"You do not dare to say you would make profit from your own
wife?"

"The virtuous Cato lent his wife to a friend.  I love virtue, and
I cannot do better than imitate Cato.  But to be serious,--I do
not fear you as a rival.  You are good-looking, and I am ugly.
But you are irresolute, and I decisive.  While you are uttering
fine phrases, I shall say, simply, 'I have a bon etat.  Will you
marry me?'  So do your worst, cher confrere.  Au revoir, behind
the scenes!"

So saying, Nicot rose, stretched his long arms and short legs,
yawned till he showed all his ragged teeth from ear to ear,
pressed down his cap on his shaggy head with an air of defiance,
and casting over his left shoulder a glance of triumph and malice
at the indignant Glyndon, sauntered out of the room.

Mervale burst into a violent fit of laughter.  "See how your
Viola is estimated by your friend.  A fine victory, to carry her
off from the ugliest dog between Lapland and the Calmucks."

Glyndon was yet too indignant to answer, when a new visitor
arrived.  It was Zanoni himself.  Mervale, on whom the appearance
and aspect of this personage imposed a kind of reluctant
deference, which he was unwilling to acknowledge, and still more
to betray, nodded to Glyndon, and saying, simply, "More when I
see you again," left the painter and his unexpected visitor.

"I see," said Zanoni, lifting the cloth from the canvas, "that
you have not slighted the advice I gave you.  Courage, young
artist; this is an escape from the schools:  this is full of the
bold self-confidence of real genius.  You had no Nicot--no
Mervale--at your elbow when this image of true beauty was
conceived!"

Charmed back to his art by this unlooked-for praise, Glyndon
replied modestly, "I thought well of my design till this morning;
and then I was disenchanted of my happy persuasion."

"Say, rather, that, unaccustomed to continuous labour, you were
fatigued with your employment."

"That is true.  Shall I confess it?  I began to miss the world
without.  It seemed to me as if, while I lavished my heart and my
youth upon visions of beauty, I was losing the beautiful
realities of actual life.  And I envied the merry fisherman,
singing as he passed below my casement, and the lover conversing
with his mistress."

"And," said Zanoni, with an encouraging smile, "do you blame
yourself for the natural and necessary return to earth, in which
even the most habitual visitor of the Heavens of Invention seeks
his relaxation and repose?  Man's genius is a bird that cannot be
always on the wing; when the craving for the actual world is
felt, it is a hunger that must be appeased.  They who command
best the ideal, enjoy ever most the real.  See the true artist,
when abroad in men's thoroughfares, ever observant, ever diving
into the heart, ever alive to the least as to the greatest of the
complicated truths of existence; descending to what pedants would
call the trivial and the frivolous.  From every mesh in the
social web, he can disentangle a grace.  And for him each airy
gossamer floats in the gold of the sunlight.  Know you not that
around the animalcule that sports in the water there shines a
halo, as around the star (The monas mica, found in the purest
pools, is encompassed with a halo.  And this is frequent amongst
many other species of animalcule.) that revolves in bright
pastime through the space?  True art finds beauty everywhere.  In
the street, in the market-place, in the hovel, it gathers food
for the hive of its thoughts.  In the mire of politics, Dante and
Milton selected pearls for the wreath of song.

"Who ever told you that Raphael did not enjoy the life without,
carrying everywhere with him the one inward idea of beauty which
attracted and imbedded in its own amber every straw that the feet
of the dull man trampled into mud?  As some lord of the forest
wanders abroad for its prey, and scents and follows it over plain
and hill, through brake and jungle, but, seizing it at last,
bears the quarry to its unwitnessed cave,--so Genius searches
through wood and waste, untiringly and eagerly, every sense
awake, every nerve strained to speed and strength, for the
scattered and flying images of matter, that it seizes at last
with its mighty talons, and bears away with it into solitudes no
footstep can invade.  Go, seek the world without; it is for art
the inexhaustible pasture-ground and harvest to the world
within!"

"You comfort me," said Glyndon, brightening.  "I had imagined my
weariness a proof of my deficiency!  But not now would I speak to
you of these labours.  Pardon me, if I pass from the toil to the
reward.  You have uttered dim prophecies of my future, if I wed
one who, in the judgment of the sober world, would only darken
its prospects and obstruct its ambition.  Do you speak from the
wisdom which is experience, or that which aspires to prediction?"

"Are they not allied?  Is it not he best accustomed to
calculation who can solve at a glance any new problem in the
arithmetic of chances?"

"You evade my question."

"No; but I will adapt my answer the better to your comprehension,
for it is upon this very point that I have sought you.  Listen to
me!"  Zanoni fixed his eyes earnestly on his listener, and
continued:  "For the accomplishment of whatever is great and
lofty, the clear perception of truths is the first requisite,--
truths adapted to the object desired.  The warrior thus reduces
the chances of battle to combinations almost of mathematics.  He
can predict a result, if he can but depend upon the materials he
is forced to employ.  At such a loss he can cross that bridge; in
such a time he can reduce that fort.  Still more accurately, for
he depends less on material causes than ideas at his command, can
the commander of the purer science or diviner art, if he once
perceive the truths that are in him and around, foretell what he
can achieve, and in what he is condemned to fail.  But this
perception of truths is disturbed by many causes,--vanity,
passion, fear, indolence in himself, ignorance of the fitting
means without to accomplish what he designs.  He may miscalculate
his own forces; he may have no chart of the country he would
invade.  It is only in a peculiar state of the mind that it is
capable of perceiving truth; and that state is profound serenity.
Your mind is fevered by a desire for truth:  you would compel it
to your embraces; you would ask me to impart to you, without
ordeal or preparation, the grandest secrets that exist in Nature.
But truth can no more be seen by the mind unprepared for it, than
the sun can dawn upon the midst of night.  Such a mind receives
truth only to pollute it:  to use the simile of one who has
wandered near to the secret of the sublime Goetia (or the magic
that lies within Nature, as electricity within the cloud), 'He
who pours water into the muddy well, does but disturb the mud.'"
("Iamb. de Vit. Pythag.")

"What do you tend to?"

"This:  that you have faculties that may attain to surpassing
power, that may rank you among those enchanters who, greater than
the magian, leave behind them an enduring influence, worshipped
wherever beauty is comprehended, wherever the soul is sensible of
a higher world than that in which matter struggles for crude and
incomplete existence.

"But to make available those faculties, need I be a prophet to
tell you that you must learn to concentre upon great objects all
your desires?  The heart must rest, that the mind may be active.
At present you wander from aim to aim.  As the ballast to the
ship, so to the spirit are faith and love.  With your whole
heart, affections, humanity, centred in one object, your mind and
aspirations will become equally steadfast and in earnest.  Viola
is a child as yet; you do not perceive the high nature the trials
of life will develop.  Pardon me, if I say that her soul, purer
and loftier than your own, will bear it upward, as a secret hymn
carries aloft the spirits of the world.  Your nature wants the
harmony, the music which, as the Pythagoreans wisely taught, at
once elevates and soothes.  I offer you that music in her love."

"But am I sure that she does love me?"

"Artist, no; she loves you not at present; her affections are
full of another.  But if I could transfer to you, as the
loadstone transfers its attraction to the magnet, the love that
she has now for me,--if I could cause her to see in you the ideal
of her dreams--"

"Is such a gift in the power of man?"

"I offer it to you, if your love be lawful, if your faith in
virtue and yourself be deep and loyal; if not, think you that I
would disenchant her with truth to make her adore a falsehood?"

"But if," persisted Glyndon,--"if she be all that you tell me,
and if she love you, how can you rob yourself of so priceless a
treasure?"

"Oh, shallow and mean heart of man!" exclaimed Zanoni, with
unaccustomed passion and vehemence, "dost thou conceive so little
of love as not to know that it sacrifices all--love itself--for
the happiness of the thing it loves?  Hear me!"  And Zanoni's
face grew pale.  "Hear me!  I press this upon you, because I love
her, and because I fear that with me her fate will be less fair
than with yourself.  Why,--ask not, for I will not tell you.
Enough!  Time presses now for your answer; it cannot long be
delayed.  Before the night of the third day from this, all choice
will be forbid you!"

"But," said Glyndon, still doubting and suspicious,--"but why
this haste?"

"Man, you are not worthy of her when you ask me.  All I can tell
you here, you should have known yourself.  This ravisher, this
man of will, this son of the old Visconti, unlike you,--
steadfast, resolute, earnest even in his crimes,--never
relinquishes an object.  But one passion controls his lust,--it
is his avarice.  The day after his attempt on Viola, his uncle,
the Cardinal --, from whom he has large expectations of land and
gold, sent for him, and forbade him, on pain of forfeiting all
the possessions which his schemes already had parcelled out, to
pursue with dishonourable designs one whom the Cardinal had
heeded and loved from childhood.  This is the cause of his
present pause from his pursuit.  While we speak, the cause
expires.  Before the hand of the clock reaches the hour of noon,
the Cardinal -- will be no more.  At this very moment thy friend,
Jean Nicot, is with the Prince di --."

"He! wherefore?"

"To ask what dower shall go with Viola Pisani, the morning that
she leaves the palace of the prince."

"And how do you know all this?"

"Fool!  I tell thee again, because a lover is a watcher by night
and day; because love never sleeps when danger menaces the
beloved one!"

"And you it was that informed the Cardinal --?"

"Yes; and what has been my task might as easily have been thine.
 Speak,--thine answer!"

"You shall have it on the third day from this."

"Be it so.  Put off, poor waverer, thy happiness to the last
hour.  On the third day from this, I will ask thee thy resolve."

"And where shall we meet?"

"Before midnight, where you may least expect me.  You cannot shun
me, though you may seek to do so!"

"Stay one moment!  You condemn me as doubtful, irresolute,
suspicious.  Have I no cause?  Can I yield without a struggle to
the strange fascination you exert upon my mind?  What interest
can you have in me, a stranger, that you should thus dictate to
me the gravest action in the life of man?  Do you suppose that
any one in his senses would not pause, and deliberate, and ask
himself, 'Why should this stranger care thus for me?'"

"And yet," said Zanoni, "if I told thee that I could initiate
thee into the secrets of that magic which the philosophy of the
whole existing world treats as a chimera, or imposture; if I
promised to show thee how to command the beings of air and ocean,
how to accumulate wealth more easily than a child can gather
pebbles on the shore, to place in thy hands the essence of the
herbs which prolong life from age to age, the mystery of that
attraction by which to awe all danger and disarm all violence and
subdue man as the serpent charms the bird,--if I told thee that
all these it was mine to possess and to communicate, thou wouldst
listen to me then, and obey me without a doubt!"

"It is true; and I can account for this only by the imperfect
associations of my childhood,--by traditions in our house of--"

"Your forefather, who, in the revival of science, sought the
secrets of Apollonius and Paracelsus."

"What!" said Glyndon, amazed, "are you so well acquainted with
the annals of an obscure lineage?"

"To the man who aspires to know, no man who has been the meanest
student of knowledge should be unknown.  You ask me why I have
shown this interest in your fate?  There is one reason which I
have not yet told you.  There is a fraternity as to whose laws
and whose mysteries the most inquisitive schoolmen are in the
dark.  By those laws all are pledged to warn, to aid, and to
guide even the remotest descendants of men who have toiled,
though vainly, like your ancestor, in the mysteries of the Order.
We are bound to advise them to their welfare; nay, more,--if they
command us to it, we must accept them as our pupils.  I am a
survivor of that most ancient and immemorial union.  This it was
that bound me to thee at the first; this, perhaps, attracted
thyself unconsciously, Son of our Brotherhood, to me."

"If this be so, I command thee, in the name of the laws thou
obeyest, to receive me as thy pupil!"

"What do you ask?" said Zanoni, passionately.  "Learn, first, the
conditions.  No neophyte must have, at his initiation, one
affection or desire that chains him to the world.  He must be
pure from the love of woman, free from avarice and ambition, free
from the dreams even of art, or the hope of earthly fame.  The
first sacrifice thou must make is--Viola herself.  And for what?
For an ordeal that the most daring courage only can encounter,
the most ethereal natures alone survive!  Thou art unfit for the
science that has made me and others what we are or have been; for
thy whole nature is one fear!"

"Fear!" cried Glyndon, colouring with resentment, and rising to
the full height of his stature.

"Fear! and the worst fear,--fear of the world's opinion; fear of
the Nicots and the Mervales; fear of thine own impulses when most
generous; fear of thine own powers when thy genius is most bold;
fear that virtue is not eternal; fear that God does not live in
heaven to keep watch on earth; fear, the fear of little men; and
that fear is never known to the great."

With these words Zanoni abruptly left the artist, humbled,
bewildered, and not convinced.  He remained alone with his
thoughts till he was aroused by the striking of the clock; he
then suddenly remembered Zanoni's prediction of the Cardinal's
death; and, seized with an intense desire to learn its truth, he
hurried into the streets,--he gained the Cardinal's palace.  Five
minutes before noon his Eminence had expired, after an illness of
less than an hour.  Zanoni's visit had occupied more time than
the illness of the Cardinal.  Awed and perplexed, he turned from
the palace, and as he walked through the Chiaja, he saw Jean
Nicot emerge from the portals of the Prince di --.


CHAPTER 3.V.

Two loves I have of comfort and despair,
Which like two spirits do suggest me still.
Shakespeare.

Venerable Brotherhood, so sacred and so little known, from whose
secret and precious archives the materials for this history have
been drawn; ye who have retained, from century to century, all
that time has spared of the august and venerable science,--thanks
to you, if now, for the first time, some record of the thoughts
and actions of no false and self-styled luminary of your Order be
given, however imperfectly, to the world.  Many have called
themselves of your band; many spurious pretenders have been
so-called by the learned ignorance which still, baffled and
perplexed, is driven to confess that it knows nothing of your
origin, your ceremonies or doctrines, nor even if you still have
local habitation on the earth.  Thanks to you if I, the only one
of my country, in this age, admitted, with a profane footstep,
into your mysterious Academe (The reader will have the goodness
to remember that this is said by the author of the original MS.,
not by the editor.), have been by you empowered and instructed to
adapt to the comprehension of the uninitiated, some few of the
starry truths which shone on the great Shemaia of the Chaldean
Lore, and gleamed dimly through the darkened knowledge of latter
disciples, labouring, like Psellus and Iamblichus, to revive the
embers of the fire which burned in the Hamarin of the East.
Though not to us of an aged and hoary world is vouchsafed the
NAME which, so say the earliest oracles of the earth, "rushes
into the infinite worlds," yet is it ours to trace the reviving
truths, through each new discovery of the philosopher and
chemist.  The laws of attraction, of electricity, and of the yet
more mysterious agency of that great principal of life, which, if
drawn from the universe, would leave the universe a grave, were
but the code in which the Theurgy of old sought the guides that
led it to a legislation and science of its own.  To rebuild on
words the fragments of this history, it seems to me as if, in a
solemn trance, I was led through the ruins of a city whose only
remains were tombs.  From the sarcophagus and the urn I awake the
genius (The Greek Genius of Death.) of the extinguished Torch,
and so closely does its shape resemble Eros, that at moments I
scarcely know which of ye dictates to me,--O Love!  O Death!

And it stirred in the virgin's heart,--this new, unfathomable,
and divine emotion!  Was it only the ordinary affection of the
pulse and the fancy, of the eye to the Beautiful, of the ear to
the Eloquent, or did it not justify the notion she herself
conceived of it,--that it was born not of the senses, that it was
less of earthly and human love than the effect of some wondrous
but not unholy charm?  I said that, from that day in which, no
longer with awe and trembling, she surrendered herself to the
influence of Zanoni, she had sought to put her thoughts into
words.  Let the thoughts attest their own nature.

THE SELF CONFESSIONAL.

"Is it the daylight that shines on me, or the memory of thy
presence?  Wherever I look, the world seems full of thee; in
every ray that trembles on the water, that smiles upon the
leaves, I behold but a likeness to thine eyes.  What is this
change, that alters not only myself, but the face of the whole
universe?

...

How instantaneously leaped into life the power with which thou
swayest my heart in its ebb and flow.  Thousands were around me,
and I saw but thee.  That was the night in which I first entered
upon the world which crowds life into a drama, and has no
language but music.  How strangely and how suddenly with thee
became that world evermore connected!  What the delusion of the
stage was to others, thy presence was to me.  My life, too,
seemed to centre into those short hours, and from thy lips I
heard a music, mute to all ears but mine.  I sit in the room
where my father dwelt.  Here, on that happy night, forgetting why
THEY were so happy, I shrunk into the shadow, and sought to guess
what thou wert to me; and my mother's low voice woke me, and I
crept to my father's side, close--close, from fear of my own
thoughts.

"Ah! sweet and sad was the morrow to that night, when thy lips
warned me of the future.  An orphan now,--what is there that
lives for me to think of, to dream upon, to revere, but thou!

"How tenderly thou hast rebuked me for the grievous wrong that my
thoughts did thee!  Why should I have shuddered to feel thee
glancing upon my thoughts like the beam on the solitary tree, to
which thou didst once liken me so well?  It was--it was, that,
like the tree, I struggled for the light, and the light came.
They tell me of love, and my very life of the stage breathes the
language of love into my lips.  No; again and again, I know THAT
is not the love that I feel for thee!--it is not a passion, it is
a thought!  I ask not to be loved again.  I murmur not that thy
words are stern and thy looks are cold.  I ask not if I have
rivals; I sigh not to be fair in thine eyes.  It is my SPIRIT
that would blend itself with thine.  I would give worlds, though
we were apart, though oceans rolled between us, to know the hour
in which thy gaze was lifted to the stars,--in which thy heart
poured itself in prayer.  They tell me thou art more beautiful
than the marble images that are fairer than all human forms; but
I have never dared to gaze steadfastly on thy face, that memory
might compare thee with the rest.  Only thine eyes and thy soft,
calm smile haunt me; as when I look upon the moon, all that
passes into my heart is her silent light.

...

"Often, when the air is calm, I have thought that I hear the
strains of my father's music; often, though long stilled in the
grave, have they waked me from the dreams of the solemn night.
Methinks, ere thou comest to me that I hear them herald thy
approach.  Methinks I hear them wail and moan, when I sink back
into myself on seeing thee depart.  Thou art OF that music,--its
spirit, its genius.  My father must have guessed at thee and thy
native regions, when the winds hushed to listen to his tones, and
the world deemed him mad!  I hear where I sit, the far murmur of
the sea.  Murmur on, ye blessed waters!  The waves are the pulses
of the shore.  They beat with the gladness of the morning wind,--
so beats my heart in the freshness and light that make up the
thoughts of thee!

...

"Often in my childhood I have mused and asked for what I was
born; and my soul answered my heart and said, 'THOU WERT BORN TO
WORSHIP!'  Yes; I know why the real world has ever seemed to me
so false and cold.  I know why the world of the stage charmed and
dazzled me.  I know why it was so sweet to sit apart and gaze my
whole being into the distant heavens.  My  nature is not formed
for this life, happy though that life seem to others.  It is its
very want to have ever before it some image loftier than itself!
 Stranger, in what realm above, when the grave is past, shall my
soul, hour after hour, worship at the same source as thine?

...

"In the gardens of my neighbour there is a small fountain.  I
stood by it this morning after sunrise.  How it sprung up, with
its eager spray, to the sunbeams!  And then I thought that I
should see thee again this day, and so sprung my heart to the new
morning which thou bringest me from the skies.

...

"I HAVE seen, I have LISTENED to thee again.  How bold I have
become!  I ran on with my childlike thoughts and stories, my
recollections of the past, as if I had known thee from an infant.
Suddenly the idea of my presumption struck me.  I stopped, and
timidly sought thine eyes.

"'Well, and when you found that the nightingale refused to
sing?'--

"'Ah!' I said, 'what to thee this history of the heart of a
child?'

"'Viola,' didst thou answer, with that voice, so inexpressibly
calm and earnest!--'Viola, the darkness of a child's heart is
often but the shadow of a star.  Speak on!  And thy nightingale,
when they caught and caged it, refused to sing?'

"'And I placed the cage yonder, amidst the vine-leaves, and took
up my lute, and spoke to it on the strings; for I thought that
all music was its native language, and it would understand that I
sought to comfort it.'

"'Yes,' saidst thou.  'And at last it answered thee, but not with
song,--in a sharp, brief cry; so mournful, that thy hands let
fall the lute, and the tears gushed from thine eyes.  So softly
didst thou unbar the cage, and the nightingale flew into yonder
thicket; and thou heardst the foliage rustle, and, looking
through the moonlight, thine eyes saw that it had found its mate.
It sang to thee then from the boughs a long, loud, joyous
jubilee.  And musing, thou didst feel that it was not the vine-
leaves or the moonlight that made the bird give melody to night,
and that the secret of its music was the presence of a thing
beloved.'

"How didst thou know my thoughts in that childlike time better
than I knew myself!  How is the humble life of my past years,
with its mean events, so mysteriously familiar to thee, bright
stranger!  I wonder,--but I do not again dare to fear thee!

...

"Once the thought of him oppressed and weighed me down.  As an
infant that longs for the moon, my being was one vague desire for
something never to be attained.  Now I feel rather as if to think
of thee sufficed to remove every fetter from my spirit.  I float
in the still seas of light, and nothing seems too high for my
wings, too glorious for my eyes.  It was mine ignorance that made
me fear thee.  A knowledge that is not in books seems to breathe
around thee as an atmosphere.  How little have I read!--how
little have I learned!  Yet when thou art by my side, it seems as
if the veil were lifted from all wisdom and all Nature.  I
startle when I look even at the words I have written; they seem
not to come from myself, but are the signs of another language
which thou hast taught my heart, and which my hand traces
rapidly, as at thy dictation.  Sometimes, while I write or muse,
I could fancy that I heard light wings hovering around me, and
saw dim shapes of beauty floating round, and vanishing as they
smiled upon me.  No unquiet and fearful dream ever comes to me
now in sleep, yet sleep and waking are alike but as one dream.
In sleep I wander with thee, not through the paths of earth, but
through impalpable air--an air which seems a music--upward and
upward, as the soul mounts on the tones of a lyre!  Till I knew
thee, I was as a slave to the earth.  Thou hast given to me the
liberty of the universe!  Before, it was life; it seems to me now
as if I had commenced eternity!

...

"Formerly, when I was to appear upon the stage, my heart beat
more loudly.  I trembled to encounter the audience, whose breath
gave shame or renown; and now I have no fear of them.  I see
them, heed them, hear them not!  I know that there will be music
in my voice, for it is a hymn that I pour to thee.  Thou never
comest to the theatre; and that no longer grieves me.  Thou art
become too sacred to appear a part of the common world, and I
feel glad that thou art not by when crowds have a right to judge
me.

...

"And he spoke to me of ANOTHER:  to another he would consign me!
No, it is not love that I feel for thee, Zanoni; or why did I
hear thee without anger, why did thy command seem to me not a
thing impossible?  As the strings of the instrument obey the hand
of the master, thy look modulates the wildest chords of my heart
to thy will.  If it please thee,--yes, let it be so.  Thou art
lord of my destinies; they cannot rebel against thee!  I almost
think I could love him, whoever it be, on whom thou wouldst shed
the rays that circumfuse thyself.  Whatever thou hast touched, I
love; whatever thou speakest of, I love.  Thy hand played with
these vine leaves; I wear them in my bosom.  Thou seemest to me
the source of all love; too high and too bright to be loved
thyself, but darting light into other objects, on which the eye
can gaze less dazzled.  No, no; it is not love that I feel for
thee, and therefore it is that I do not blush to nourish and
confess it.  Shame on me if I loved, knowing myself so worthless
a thing to thee!

...

"ANOTHER!--my memory echoes back that word.  Another!  Dost thou
mean that I shall see thee no more?  It is not sadness,--it is
not despair that seizes me.  I cannot weep.  It is an utter sense
of desolation.  I am plunged back into the common life; and I
shudder coldly at the solitude.  But I will obey thee, if thou
wilt.  Shall I not see thee again beyond the grave?  O how sweet
it were to die!

"Why do I not struggle from the web in which my will is thus
entangled?  Hast thou a right to dispose of me thus?  Give me
back--give me back the life I knew before I gave life itself away
to thee.  Give me back the careless dreams of my youth,---my
liberty of heart that sung aloud as it walked the earth.  Thou
hast disenchanted me of everything that is not of thyself.  Where
was the sin, at least, to think of thee,--to see thee?  Thy kiss
still glows upon my hand; is that hand mine to bestow?  Thy kiss
claimed and hallowed it to thyself.  Stranger, I will NOT obey
thee.

...

"Another day,--one day of the fatal three is gone!  It is strange
to me that since the sleep of the last night, a deep calm has
settled upon my breast.  I feel so assured that my very being is
become a part of thee, that I cannot believe that my life can be
separated from thine; and in this conviction I repose, and smile
even at thy words and my own fears.  Thou art fond of one maxim,
which thou repeatest in a thousand forms,--that the beauty of the
soul is faith; that as ideal loveliness to the sculptor, faith is
to the heart; that faith, rightly understood, extends over all
the works of the Creator, whom we can know but through belief;
that it embraces a tranquil confidence in ourselves, and a serene
repose as to our future; that it is the moonlight that sways the
tides of the human sea.  That faith I comprehend now.  I reject
all doubt, all fear.  I know that I have inextricably linked the
whole that makes the inner life to thee; and thou canst not tear
me from thee, if thou wouldst!  And this change from struggle
into calm came to me with sleep,--a sleep without a dream; but
when I woke, it was with a mysterious sense of happiness,--an
indistinct memory of something blessed,--as if thou hadst cast
from afar off a smile upon my slumber.  At night I was so sad;
not a blossom that had not closed itself up, as if never more to
open to the sun; and the night itself, in the heart as on the
earth, has ripened the blossoms into flowers.  The world is
beautiful once more, but beautiful in repose,--not a breeze stirs
thy tree, not a doubt my soul!"


CHAPTER 3.VI.

Tu vegga o per violenzia o per inganno
Patire o disonore o mortal danno.
"Orlando Furioso," Cant. xlii. i.

(Thou art about, either through violence or artifice, to suffer
either dishonour or mortal loss.)

It was a small cabinet; the walls were covered with pictures, one
of which was worth more than the whole lineage of the owner of
the palace.  Oh, yes! Zanoni was right.  The painter IS a
magician; the gold he at least wrings from his crucible is no
delusion.  A Venetian noble might be a fribble, or an assassin,--
a scoundrel, or a dolt; worthless, or worse than worthless, yet
he might have sat to Titian, and his portrait may be
inestimable,--a few inches of painted canvas a thousand times
more valuable than a man with his veins and muscles, brain, will,
heart, and intellect!

In this cabinet sat a man of about three-and-forty,--dark-eyed,
sallow, with short, prominent features, a massive conformation of
jaw, and thick, sensual, but resolute lips; this man was the
Prince di --.  His form, above the middle height, and rather
inclined to corpulence, was clad in a loose dressing-robe of rich
brocade.  On a table before him lay an old-fashioned sword and
hat, a mask, dice and dice-box, a portfolio, and an inkstand of
silver curiously carved.

"Well, Mascari," said the prince, looking up towards his
parasite, who stood by the embrasure of the deep-set barricadoed
window,--"well! the Cardinal sleeps with his fathers.  I require
comfort for the loss of so excellent a relation; and where a more
dulcet voice than Viola Pisani's?"

"Is your Excellency serious?  So soon after the death of his
Eminence?"

"It will be the less talked of, and I the less suspected.  Hast
thou ascertained the name of the insolent who baffled us that
night, and advised the Cardinal the next day?"

"Not yet."

"Sapient Mascari!  I will inform thee.  It was the strange
Unknown."

"The Signor Zanoni!  Are you sure, my prince?"

"Mascari, yes.  There is a tone in that man's voice that I never
can mistake; so clear, and so commanding, when I hear it I almost
fancy there is such a thing as conscience.  However, we must rid
ourselves of an impertinent.  Mascari, Signor Zanoni hath not yet
honoured our poor house with his presence.  He is a distinguished
stranger,--we must give a banquet in his honour."

"Ah, and the Cyprus wine!  The cypress is a proper emblem of the
grave."

"But this anon.  I am superstitious; there are strange stories of
Zanoni's power and foresight; remember the death of Ughelli.  No
matter, though the Fiend were his ally, he should not rob me of
my prize; no, nor my revenge."

"Your Excellency is infatuated; the actress has bewitched you."

"Mascari," said the prince, with a haughty smile, "through these
veins rolls the blood of the old Visconti--of those who boasted
that no woman ever escaped their lust, and no man their
resentment.  The crown of my fathers has shrunk into a gewgaw and
a toy,--their ambition and their spirit are undecayed!  My honour
is now enlisted in this pursuit,--Viola must be mine!"

"Another ambuscade?" said Mascari, inquiringly.

"Nay, why not enter the house itself?--the situation is lonely,
and the door is not made of iron."

"But what if, on her return home, she tell the tale of our
violence?  A house forced,--a virgin stolen!  Reflect; though the
feudal privileges are not destroyed, even a Visconti is not now
above the law."

"Is he not, Mascari?  Fool! in what age of the world, even if the
Madmen of France succeed in their chimeras, will the iron of law
not bend itself, like an osier twig, to the strong hand of power
and gold?  But look not so pale, Mascari; I have foreplanned all
things.  The day that she leaves this palace, she will leave it
for France, with Monsieur Jean Nicot."

Before Mascari could reply, the gentleman of the chamber
announced the Signor Zanoni.

The prince involuntarily laid his hand upon the sword placed on
the table, then with a smile at his own impulse, rose, and met
his visitor at the threshold, with all the profuse and respectful
courtesy of Italian simulation.

"This is an honour highly prized," said the prince.  "I have long
desired to clasp the hand of one so distinguished."

"And I give it in the spirit with which you seek it," replied
Zanoni.

The Neapolitan bowed over the hand he pressed; but as he touched
it a shiver came over him, and his heart stood still.  Zanoni
bent on him his dark, smiling eyes, and then seated himself with
a familiar air.

"Thus it is signed and sealed; I mean our friendship, noble
prince.  And now I will tell you the object of my visit.  I find,
Excellency, that, unconsciously perhaps, we are rivals.  Can we
not accommodate out pretensions!"

"Ah!" said the prince, carelessly, "you, then, were the cavalier
who robbed me of the reward of my chase.  All stratagems fair in
love, as in war.  Reconcile our pretensions!  Well, here is the
dice-box; let us throw for her.  He who casts the lowest shall
resign his claim."

"Is this a decision by which you will promise to be bound?"

"Yes, on my faith."

"And for him who breaks his word so plighted, what shall be the
forfeit?"

"The sword lies next to the dice-box, Signor Zanoni.  Let him who
stands not by his honour fall by the sword."

"And you invoke that sentence if either of us fail his word?  Be
it so; let Signor Mascari cast for us."

"Well said!--Mascari, the dice!"

The prince threw himself back in his chair; and, world-hardened
as he was, could not suppress the glow of triumph and
satisfaction that spread itself over his features.  Mascari took
up the three dice, and rattled them noisily in the box.  Zanoni,
leaning his cheek on his hand, and bending over the table, fixed
his eyes steadfastly on the parasite; Mascari in vain struggled
to extricate from that searching gaze; he grew pale, and
trembled, he put down the box.

"I give the first throw to your Excellency.  Signor Mascari, be
pleased to terminate our suspense."

Again Mascari took up the box; again his hand shook so that the
dice rattled within.  He threw; the numbers were sixteen.

"It is a high throw," said Zanoni, calmly; "nevertheless, Signor
Mascari, I do not despond."

Mascari gathered up the dice, shook the box, and rolled the
contents once more on the table:  the number was the highest that
can be thrown,--eighteen.

The prince darted a glance of fire at his minion, who stood with
gaping mouth, staring at the dice, and trembling from head to
foot.

"I have won, you see," said Zanoni; "may we be friends still?"

"Signor," said the prince, obviously struggling with anger and
confusion, "the victory is yours.  But pardon me, you have spoken
lightly of this young girl,--will anything tempt you to yield
your claim?"

"Ah, do not think so ill of my gallantry; and," resumed Zanoni,
with a stern meaning in his voice, "forget not the forfeit your
own lips have named."

The prince knit his brow, but constrained the haughty answer that
was his first impulse.

"Enough!" he said, forcing a smile; "I yield.  Let me prove that
I do not yield ungraciously; will you favour me with your
presence at a little feast I propose to give in honour," he
added, with a sardonic mockery, "of the elevation of my kinsman,
the late Cardinal, of pious memory, to the true seat of St.
Peter?"

"It is, indeed, a happiness to hear one command of yours I can
obey."

Zanoni then turned the conversation, talked lightly and gayly,
and soon afterwards departed.

"Villain!" then exclaimed the prince, grasping Mascari by the
collar, "you betrayed me!"

"I assure your Excellency that the dice were properly arranged;
he should have thrown twelve; but he is the Devil, and that's the
end of it."

"There is no time to be lost," said the prince, quitting his hold
of his parasite, who quietly resettled his cravat.

"My blood is up,--I will win this girl, if I die for it!  What
noise is that?"

"It is but the sword of your illustrious ancestor that has fallen
from the table."


CHAPTER 3.VII.

Il ne faut appeler aucun ordre si ce n'est en tems clair et
serein.
"Les Clavicules du Rabbi Salomon."

(No order of spirits must be invoked unless the weather be clear
and serene.)

Letter from Zanoni to Mejnour.

My art is already dim and troubled.  I have lost the tranquillity
which is power.  I cannot influence the decisions of those whom I
would most guide to the shore; I see them wander farther and
deeper into the infinite ocean where our barks sail evermore to
the horizon that flies before us!  Amazed and awed to find that I
can only warn where I would control, I have looked into my own
soul.  It is true that the desires of earth chain me to the
present, and shut me from the solemn secrets which Intellect,
purified from all the dross of the clay, alone can examine and
survey.  The stern condition on which we hold our nobler and
diviner gifts darkens our vision towards the future of those for
whom we know the human infirmities of jealousy or hate or love.
Mejnour, all around me is mist and haze; I have gone back in our
sublime existence; and from the bosom of the imperishable youth
that blooms only in the spirit, springs up the dark poison-flower
of human love.

This man is not worthy of her,--I know that truth; yet in his
nature are the seeds of good and greatness, if the tares and
weeds of worldly vanities and fears would suffer them to grow.
If she were his, and I had thus transplanted to another soil the
passion that obscures my gaze and disarms my power, unseen,
unheard, unrecognised, I could watch over his fate, and secretly
prompt his deeds, and minister to her welfare through his own.
But time rushes on!  Through the shadows that encircle me, I see,
gathering round her, the darkest dangers.  No choice but flight,
--no escape save with him or me.  With me!--the rapturous
thought,--the terrible conviction!  With me!  Mejnour, canst thou
wonder that I would save her from myself?  A moment in the life
of ages,--a bubble on the shoreless sea.  What else to me can be
human love?  And in this exquisite nature of hers,--more pure,
more spiritual, even in its young affections than ever heretofore
the countless volumes of the heart, race after race, have given
to my gaze:  there is yet a deep-buried feeling that warns me of
inevitable woe.  Thou austere and remorseless Hierophant,--thou
who hast sought to convert to our brotherhood every spirit that
seemed to thee most high and bold,--even thou knowest, by
horrible experience, how vain the hope to banish FEAR from the
heart of woman.

My life would be to her one marvel.  Even if, on the other hand,
I sought to guide her path through the realms of terror to the
light, think of the Haunter of the Threshold, and shudder with me
at the awful hazard!  I have endeavoured to fill the Englishman's
ambition with the true glory of his art; but the restless spirit
of his ancestor still seems to whisper in him, and to attract to
the spheres in which it lost its own wandering way.  There is a
mystery in man's inheritance from his fathers.  Peculiarities of
the mind, as diseases of the body, rest dormant for generations,
to revive in some distant descendant, baffle all treatment and
elude all skill.  Come to me from thy solitude amidst the wrecks
of Rome!  I pant for a living confidant,--for one who in the old
time has himself known jealousy and love.  I have sought commune
with Adon-Ai; but his presence, that once inspired such heavenly
content with knowledge, and so serene a confidence in destiny,
now only troubles and perplexes me.  From the height from which I
strive to search into the shadows of things to come, I see
confused spectres of menace and wrath.  Methinks I behold a
ghastly limit to the wondrous existence I have held,--methinks
that, after ages of the Ideal Life, I see my course merge into
the most stormy whirlpool of the Real.  Where the stars opened to
me their gates, there looms a scaffold,--thick steams of blood
rise as from a shambles.  What is more strange to me, a creature
here, a very type of the false ideal of common men,--body and
mind, a hideous mockery of the art that shapes the Beautiful, and
the desires that seek the Perfect, ever haunts my vision amidst
these perturbed and broken clouds of the fate to be.  By that
shadowy scaffold it stands and gibbers at me, with lips dropping
slime and gore.  Come, O friend of the far-time; for me, at
least, thy wisdom has not purged away thy human affections.
According to the bonds of our solemn order, reduced now to thee
and myself, lone survivors of so many haughty and glorious
aspirants, thou art pledged, too, to warn the descendant of those
whom thy counsels sought to initiate into the great secret in a
former age.  The last of that bold Visconti who was once thy
pupil is the relentless persecutor of this fair child.  With
thoughts of lust and murder, he is digging his own grave; thou
mayest yet daunt him from his doom.  And I also mysteriously, by
the same bond, am pledged to obey, if he so command, a less
guilty descendant of a baffled but nobler student.  If he reject
my counsel, and insist upon the pledge, Mejnour, thou wilt have
another neophyte.  Beware of another victim!  Come to me!  This
will reach thee with all speed.  Answer it by the pressure of one
hand that I can dare to clasp!


CHAPTER 3.VIII.

Il lupo
Ferito, credo, mi conobbe e 'ncontro
Mi venne con la bocca sanguinosa.
"Aminta," At. iv. Sc. i.

(The wounded wolf, I think, knew me, and came to meet me with its
bloody mouth.)

At Naples, the tomb of Virgil, beetling over the cave of
Posilipo, is reverenced, not with the feelings that should hallow
the memory of the poet, but the awe that wraps the memory of the
magician.  To his charms they ascribe the hollowing of that
mountain passage; and tradition yet guards his tomb by the
spirits he had raised to construct the cavern.  This spot, in the
immediate vicinity of Viola's home, had often attracted her
solitary footsteps.  She had loved the dim and solemn fancies
that beset her as she looked into the lengthened gloom of the
grotto, or, ascending to the tomb, gazed from the rock on the
dwarfed figures of the busy crowd that seemed to creep like
insects along the windings of the soil below; and now, at noon,
she bent thither her thoughtful way.  She threaded the narrow
path, she passed the gloomy vineyard that clambers up the rock,
and gained the lofty spot, green with moss and luxuriant foliage,
where the dust of him who yet soothes and elevates the minds of
men is believed to rest.  From afar rose the huge fortress of St.
Elmo, frowning darkly amidst spires and domes that glittered in
the sun.  Lulled in its azure splendour lay the Siren's sea; and
the grey smoke of Vesuvius, in the clear distance, soared like a
moving pillar into the lucid sky.  Motionless on the brink of the
precipice, Viola looked upon the lovely and living world that
stretched below; and the sullen vapour of Vesuvius fascinated her
eye yet more than the scattered gardens, or the gleaming Caprea,
smiling amidst the smiles of the sea.  She heard not a step that
had followed her on her path and started to hear a voice at hand.
So sudden was the apparition of the form that stood by her side,
emerging from the bushes that clad the crags, and so singularly
did it harmonise in its uncouth ugliness with the wild nature of
the scene immediately around her, and the wizard traditions of
the place, that the colour left her cheek, and a faint cry broke
from her lips.

"Tush, pretty trembler!--do not be frightened at my face," said
the man, with a bitter smile.  "After three months' marriage,
there is no different between ugliness and beauty.  Custom is a
great leveller.  I was coming to your house when I saw you leave
it; so, as I have matters of importance to communicate, I
ventured to follow your footsteps.  My name is Jean Nicot, a name
already favourably known as a French artist.  The art of painting
and the art of music are nearly connected, and the stage is an
altar that unites the two."

There was something frank and unembarrassed in the man's address
that served to dispel the fear his appearance had occasioned.  He
seated himself, as he spoke, on a crag beside her, and, looking
up steadily into her face, continued:--

"You are very beautiful, Viola Pisani, and I am not surprised at
the number of your admirers.  If I presume to place myself in the
list, it is because I am the only one who loves thee honestly,
and woos thee fairly.  Nay, look not so indignant!  Listen to me.
Has the Prince di -- ever spoken to thee of marriage; or the
beautiful imposter Zanoni, or the young blue-eyed Englishman,
Clarence Glyndon?  It is marriage,--it is a home, it is safety,
it is reputation, that I offer to thee; and these last when the
straight form grows crooked, and the bright eyes dim.  What say
you?" and he attempted to seize her hand.

Viola shrunk from him, and silently turned to depart.  He rose
abruptly and placed himself on her path.

"Actress, you must hear me!  Do you know what this calling of the
stage is in the eyes of prejudice,--that is, of the common
opinion of mankind?  It is to be a princess before the lamps, and
a Pariah before the day.  No man believes in your virtue, no man
credits your vows; you are the puppet that they consent to trick
out with tinsel for their amusement, not an idol for their
worship.  Are you so enamoured of this career that you scorn even
to think of security and honour?  Perhaps you are different from
what you seem.  Perhaps you laugh at the prejudice that would
degrade you, and would wisely turn it to advantage.  Speak
frankly to me; I have no prejudice either.  Sweet one, I am sure
we should agree.  Now, this Prince di --, I have a message from
him.  Shall I deliver it?"

Never had Viola felt as she felt then, never had she so
thoroughly seen all the perils of her forelorn condition and her
fearful renown.  Nicot continued:--

"Zanoni would but amuse himself with thy vanity; Glyndon would
despise himself, if he offered thee his name, and thee, if thou
wouldst accept it; but the Prince di -- is in earnest, and he is
wealthy.  Listen!"

And Nicot approached his lips to her, and hissed a sentence which
she did not suffer him to complete.  She darted from him with one
glance of unutterable disdain.  As he strove to regain his hold
of her arm, he lost his footing, and fell down the sides of the
rock till, bruised and lacerated, a pine-branch saved him from
the yawning abyss below.  She heard his exclamation of rage and
pain as she bounded down the path, and, without once turning to
look behind, regained her home.  By the porch stood Glyndon,
conversing with Gionetta.  She passed him abruptly, entered the
house, and, sinking on the floor, wept loud and passionately.

Glyndon, who had followed her in surprise, vainly sought to
soothe and calm her.  She would not reply to his questions; she
did not seem to listen to his protestations of love, till
suddenly, as Nicot's terrible picture of the world's judgment of
that profession which to her younger thoughts had seemed the
service of Song and the Beautiful, forced itself upon her, she
raised her face from her hands, and, looking steadily upon the
Englishman, said, "False one, dost thou talk of me of love?"

"By my honour, words fail to tell thee how I love!"

"Wilt thou give me thy home, thy name?  Dost thou woo me as thy
wife?"  And at that moment, had Glyndon answered as his better
angel would have counselled, perhaps, in that revolution of her
whole mind which the words of Nicot had effected, which made her
despise her very self, sicken of her lofty dreams, despair of the
future, and distrust her whole ideal,--perhaps, I say, in
restoring her self-esteem,--he would have won her confidence, and
ultimately secured her love.  But against the prompting of his
nobler nature rose up at that sudden question all those doubts
which, as Zanoni had so well implied, made the true enemies of
his soul.  Was he thus suddenly to be entangled into a snare laid
for his credulity by deceivers?  Was she not instructed to seize
the moment to force him into an avowal which prudence must
repent?  Was not the great actress rehearsing a premeditated
part?  He turned round, as these thoughts, the children of the
world, passed across him, for he literally fancied that he heard
the sarcastic laugh of Mervale without.  Nor was he deceived.
Mervale was passing by the threshold, and Gionetta had told him
his friend was within.  Who does not know the effect of the
world's laugh?  Mervale was the personation of the world.  The
whole world seemed to shout derision in those ringing tones.  He
drew back,--he recoiled.  Viola followed him with her earnest,
impatient eyes.  At last, he faltered forth, "Do all of thy
profession, beautiful Viola, exact marriage as the sole condition
of love?"  Oh, bitter question!  Oh, poisoned taunt!  He repented
it the moment after.  He was seized with remorse of reason, of
feeling, and of conscience.  He saw her form shrink, as it were,
at his cruel words.  He saw the colour come and go, to leave the
writhing lips like marble; and then, with a sad, gentle look of
self-pity, rather than reproach, she pressed her hands tightly to
her bosom, and said,--

"He was right!  Pardon me, Englishman; I see now, indeed, that I
am the Pariah and the outcast."

"Hear me.  I retract.  Viola, Viola! it is for you to forgive!"

But Viola waved him from her, and, smiling mournfully as she
passed him by, glided from the chamber; and he did not dare to
detain her.


CHAPTER 3.IX.

Dafne:  Ma, chi lung' e d'Amor?
Tirsi:  Chi teme e fugge.
Dafne:  E che giova fuggir da lui ch' ha l' ali?
Tirsi:  AMOR NASCENTE HA CORTE L' ALI!
"Aminta," At. ii. Sc. ii.

(Dafne:  But, who is far from Love?
Tirsi:  He who fears and flies.
Dafne:  What use to flee from one who has wings?
Tirsi:  The wings of Love, while he yet grows, are short.)

When Glyndon found himself without Viola's house, Mervale, still
loitering at the door, seized his arm.  Glyndon shook him off
abruptly.

"Thou and thy counsels," said he, bitterly, "have made me a
coward and a wretch.  But I will go home,--I will write to her.
I will pour out my whole soul; she will forgive me yet."

Mervale, who was a man of imperturbable temper, arranged his
ruffles, which his friend's angry gesture had a little
discomposed, and not till Glyndon had exhausted himself awhile by
passionate exclamations and reproaches, did the experienced
angler begin to tighten the line.  He then drew from Glyndon the
explanation of what had passed, and artfully sought not to
irritate, but soothe him.  Mervale, indeed, was by no means a bad
man; he had stronger moral notions than are common amongst the
young.  He sincerely reproved his friend for harbouring
dishonourable intentions with regard to the actress.  "Because I
would not have her thy wife, I never dreamed that thou shouldst
degrade her to thy mistress.  Better of the two an imprudent
match than an illicit connection.  But pause yet, do not act on
the impulse of the moment."

"But there is no time to lose.  I have promised to Zanoni to give
him my answer by to-morrow night.  Later than that time, all
option ceases."

"Ah!" said Mervale, "this seems suspicious.  Explain yourself."

And Glyndon, in the earnestness of his passion, told his friend
what had passed between himself and Zanoni,--suppressing only, he
scarce knew why, the reference to his ancestor and the mysterious
brotherhood.

This recital gave to Mervale all the advantage he could desire.
Heavens! with what sound, shrewd common-sense he talked.  How
evidently some charlatanic coalition between the actress, and
perhaps,--who knows?--her clandestine protector, sated with
possession!  How equivocal the character of one,--the position of
the other!  What cunning in the question of the actress!  How
profoundly had Glyndon, at the first suggestion of his sober
reason, seen through the snare.  What! was he to be thus
mystically cajoled and hurried into a rash marriage, because
Zanoni, a mere stranger, told him with a grave face that he must
decide before the clock struck a certain hour?

"Do this at least," said Mervale, reasonably enough,--"wait till
the time expires; it is but another day.  Baffle Zanoni.  He
tells thee that he will meet thee before midnight to-morrow, and
defies thee to avoid him.  Pooh! let us quit Naples for some
neighbouring place, where, unless he be indeed the Devil, he
cannot possibly find us.  Show him that you will not be led
blindfold even into an act that you meditate yourself.  Defer to
write to her, or to see her, till after to-morrow.  This is all I
ask.  Then visit her, and decide for yourself."

Glyndon was staggered.  He could not combat the reasonings of his
friend; he was not convinced, but he hesitated; and at that
moment Nicot passed them.  He turned round, and stopped, as he
saw Glyndon.

"Well, and do you think still of the Pisani?"

"Yes; and you--"

"Have seen and conversed with her.  She shall be Madame Nicot
before this day week!  I am going to the cafe, in the Toledo; and
hark ye, when next you meet your friend Signor Zanoni, tell him
that he has twice crossed my path.  Jean Nicot, though a painter,
is a plain, honest man, and always pays his debts."

"It is a good doctrine in money matters," said Mervale; "as to
revenge, it is not so moral, and certainly not so wise.  But is
it in your love that Zanoni has crossed your path?  How that, if
your suit prosper so well?"

"Ask Viola Pisani that question.  Bah! Glyndon, she is a prude
only to thee.  But I have no prejudices.  Once more, farewell."

"Rouse thyself, man!" said Mervale, slapping Glyndon on the
shoulder.  "What think you of your fair one now?"

"This man must lie."

"Will you write to her at once?"

"No; if she be really playing a game, I could renounce her
without a sigh.  I will watch her closely; and, at all events,
Zanoni shall not be the master of my fate.  Let us, as you
advise, leave Naples at daybreak to-morrow."


CHAPTER 3.X.

O chiunque tu sia, che fuor d'ogni uso
Pieghi Natura ad opre altere e strane,
E, spiando i segreti, entri al piu chiuso
Spazi' a tua voglia delle menti umane--
Deh, Dimmi!
"Gerus. Lib.," Cant. x. xviii.

(O thou, whoever thou art, who through every use bendest Nature
to works foreign and strange; and by spying into her secrets,
enterest at thy will into the closest recesses of the human
mind,--O speak!  O tell me!)

Early the next morning the young Englishmen mounted their horses,
and took the road towards Baiae.  Glyndon left word at his hotel,
that if Signor Zanoni sought him, it was in the neighbourhood of
that once celebrated watering-place of the ancients that he
should be found.

They passed by Viola's house, but Glyndon resisted the temptation
of pausing there; and after threading the grotto of Posilipo,
they wound by a circuitous route back into the suburbs of the
city, and took the opposite road, which conducts to Portici and
Pompeii.  It was late at noon when they arrived at the former of
these places.  Here they halted to dine; for Mervale had heard
much of the excellence of the macaroni at Portici, and Mervale
was a bon vivant.

They put up at an inn of very humble pretensions, and dined under
an awning.  Mervale was more than usually gay; he pressed the
lacrima upon his friend, and conversed gayly.

"Well, my dear friend, we have foiled Signor Zanoni in one of his
predictions at least.  You will have no faith in him hereafter."

"The ides are come, not gone."

"Tush!  If he be the soothsayer, you are not the Caesar.  It is
your vanity that makes you credulous.  Thank Heaven, I do not
think myself of such importance that the operations of Nature
should be changed in order to frighten me."

"But why should the operations of Nature be changed?  There may
be a deeper philosophy than we dream of,--a philosophy that
discovers the secrets of Nature, but does not alter, by
penetrating, its courses."

"Ah, you relapse into your heretical credulity; you seriously
suppose Zanoni to be a prophet,--a reader of the future; perhaps
an associate of genii and spirits!"

Here the landlord, a little, fat, oily fellow, came up with a
fresh bottle of lacrima.  He hoped their Excellencies were
pleased.  He was most touched--touched to the heart, that they
liked the macaroni.  Were their Excellencies going to Vesuvius?
There was a slight eruption; they could not see it where they
were, but it was pretty, and would be prettier still after
sunset.

"A capital idea!" cried Mervale.  "What say you, Glyndon?"

"I have not yet seen an eruption; I should like it much."

"But is there no danger?" asked the prudent Mervale.

"Oh, not at all; the mountain is very civil at present.  It only
plays a little, just to amuse their Excellencies the English."

"Well, order the horses, and bring the bill; we will go before it
is dark.  Clarence, my friend,--nunc est bibendum; but take care
of the pede libero, which will scarce do for walking on lava!"

The bottle was finished, the bill paid; the gentlemen mounted,
the landlord bowed, and they bent their way, in the cool of the
delightful evening, towards Resina.

The wine, perhaps the excitement of his thoughts, animated
Glyndon, whose unequal spirits were, at times, high and brilliant
as those of a schoolboy released; and the laughter of the
Northern tourists sounded oft and merrily along the melancholy
domains of buried cities.

Hesperus had lighted his lamp amidst the rosy skies as they
arrived at Resina.  Here they quitted their horses, and took
mules and a guide.  As the sky grew darker and more dark, the
mountain fire burned with an intense lustre.  In various streaks
and streamlets, the fountain of flame rolled down the dark
summit, and the Englishmen began to feel increase upon them, as
they ascended, that sensation of solemnity and awe which makes
the very atmosphere that surrounds the Giant of the Plains of the
Antique Hades.

It was night, when, leaving the mules, they ascended on foot,
accompanied by their guide, and a peasant who bore a rude torch.
The guide was a conversable, garrulous fellow, like most of his
country and his calling; and Mervale, who possessed a sociable
temper, loved to amuse or to instruct himself on every incidental
occasion.

"Ah, Excellency," said the guide, "your countrymen have a strong
passion for the volcano.  Long life to them, they bring us plenty
of money!  If our fortunes depended on the Neapolitans, we should
starve."

"True, they have no curiosity," said Mervale.  "Do you remember,
Glyndon, the contempt with which that old count said to us, 'You
will go to Vesuvius, I suppose?  I have never been; why should I
go?  You have cold, you have hunger, you have fatigue, you have
danger, and all for nothing but to see fire, which looks just as
well in a brazier as on a mountain.'  Ha! ha! the old fellow was
right."

"But, Excellency," said the guide, "that is not all:  some
cavaliers think to ascend the mountain without our help.  I am
sure they deserve to tumble into the crater."

"They must be bold fellows to go alone; you don't often find
such."

"Sometimes among the French, signor.  But the other night--I
never was so frightened--I had been with an English party, and a
lady had left a pocket-book on the mountain, where she had been
sketching.  She offered me a handsome sum to return for it, and
bring it to her at Naples.  So I went in the evening.  I found
it, sure enough, and was about to return, when I saw a figure
that seemed to emerge from the crater itself.  The air there was
so pestiferous that I could not have conceived a human creature
could breathe it, and live.  I was so astounded that I stood
still as a stone, till the figure came over the hot ashes, and
stood before me, face to face.  Santa Maria, what a head!"

"What! hideous?"

"No; so beautiful, but so terrible.  It had nothing human in its
aspect."

"And what said the salamander?"

"Nothing!  It did not even seem to perceive me, though I was near
as I am to you; but its eyes seemed to emerge prying into the
air.  It passed by me quickly, and, walking across a stream of
burning lava, soon vanished on the other side of the mountain.  I
was curious and foolhardy, and resolved to see if I could bear
the atmosphere which this visitor had left; but though I did not
advance within thirty yards of the spot at which he had first
appeared, I was driven back by a vapour that wellnigh stifled me.
Cospetto!  I have spat blood ever since."

"Now will I lay a wager that you fancy this fire-king must be
Zanoni," whispered Mervale, laughing.

The little party had now arrived nearly at the summit of the
mountain; and unspeakably grand was the spectacle on which they
gazed.  From the crater arose a vapour, intensely dark, that
overspread the whole background of the heavens; in the centre
whereof rose a flame that assumed a form singularly beautiful.
It might have been compared to a crest of gigantic feathers, the
diadem of the mountain, high-arched, and drooping downward, with
the hues delicately shaded off, and the whole shifting and
tremulous as the plumage on a warrior's helmet.

The glare of the flame spread, luminous and crimson, over the
dark and rugged ground on which they stood, and drew an
innumerable variety of shadows from crag and hollow.  An
oppressive and sulphureous exhalation served to increase the
gloomy and sublime terror of the place.  But on turning from the
mountain, and towards the distant and unseen ocean, the contrast
was wonderfully great; the heavens serene and blue, the stars
still and calm as the eyes of Divine Love.  It was as if the
realms of the opposing principles of Evil and of Good were
brought in one view before the gaze of man!  Glyndon--once more
the enthusiast, the artist--was enchained and entranced by
emotions vague and undefinable, half of delight and half of pain.
Leaning on the shoulder of his friend, he gazed around him, and
heard with deepening awe the rumbling of the earth below, the
wheels and voices of the Ministry of Nature in her darkest and
most inscrutable recess.  Suddenly, as a bomb from a shell, a
huge stone was flung hundreds of yards up from the jaws of the
crater, and falling with a mighty crash upon the rock below,
split into ten thousand fragments, which bounded down the sides
of the mountain, sparkling and groaning as they went.  One of
these, the largest fragment, struck the narrow space of soil
between the Englishmen and the guide, not three feet from the
spot where the former stood.  Mervale uttered an exclamation of
terror, and Glyndon held his breath, and shuddered.

"Diavolo!" cried the guide.  "Descend, Excellencies,--descend! we
have not a moment to lose; follow me close!"

So saying, the guide and the peasant fled with as much swiftness
as they were able to bring to bear.  Mervale, ever more prompt
and ready than his friend, imitated their example; and Glyndon,
more confused than alarmed, followed close.  But they had not
gone many yards, before, with a rushing and sudden blast, came
from the crater an enormous volume of vapour.  It pursued,--it
overtook, it overspread them.  It swept the light from the
heavens.  All was abrupt and utter darkness; and through the
gloom was heard the shout of the guide, already distant, and lost
in an instant amidst the sound of the rushing gust and the groans
of the earth beneath.  Glyndon paused.  He was separated from his
friend, from the guide.  He was alone,--with the Darkness and the
Terror.  The vapour rolled sullenly away; the form of the plumed
fire was again dimly visible, and its struggling and perturbed
reflection again shed a glow over the horrors of the path.
Glyndon recovered himself, and sped onward.  Below, he heard the
voice of Mervale calling on him, though he no longer saw his
form.  The sound served as a guide.  Dizzy and breathless, he
bounded forward; when--hark!--a sullen, slow rolling sounded in
his ear!  He halted,--and turned back to gaze.  The fire had
overflowed its course; it had opened itself a channel amidst the
furrows of the mountain.  The stream pursued him fast--fast; and
the hot breath of the chasing and preternatural foe came closer
and closer upon his cheek!  He turned aside; he climbed
desperately with hands and feet upon a crag that, to the right,
broke the scathed and blasted level of the soil.  The stream
rolled beside and beneath him, and then taking a sudden wind
round the spot on which he stood, interposed its liquid fire,--a
broad and impassable barrier between his resting-place and
escape.  There he stood, cut off from descent, and with no
alternative but to retrace his steps towards the crater, and
thence seek, without guide or clew, some other pathway.

For a moment his courage left him; he cried in despair, and in
that overstrained pitch of voice which is never heard afar off,
to the guide, to Mervale, to return to aid him.

No answer came; and the Englishman, thus abandoned solely to his
own resources, felt his spirit and energy rise against the
danger.  He turned back, and ventured as far towards the crater
as the noxious exhalation would permit; then, gazing below,
carefully and deliberately he chalked out for himself a path by
which he trusted to shun the direction the fire-stream had taken,
and trod firmly and quickly over the crumbling and heated strata.

He had proceeded about fifty yards, when he halted abruptly; an
unspeakable and unaccountable horror, not hitherto experienced
amidst all his peril, came over him.  He shook in every limb; his
muscles refused his will,--he felt, as it were, palsied and
death-stricken.  The horror, I say, was unaccountable, for the
path seemed clear and safe.  The fire, above and behind, burned
clear and far; and beyond, the stars lent him their cheering
guidance.  No obstacle was visible,--no danger seemed at hand.
As thus, spell-bound, and panic-stricken, he stood chained to the
soil,--his breast heaving, large drops rolling down his brow, and
his eyes starting wildly from their sockets,--he saw before him,
at some distance, gradually shaping itself more and more
distinctly to his gaze, a colossal shadow; a shadow that seemed
partially borrowed from the human shape, but immeasurably above
the human stature; vague, dark, almost formless; and differing,
he could not tell where or why, not only from the proportions,
but also from the limbs and outline of man.

The glare of the volcano, that seemed to shrink and collapse from
this gigantic and appalling apparition, nevertheless threw its
light, redly and steadily, upon another shape that stood beside,
quiet and motionless; and it was, perhaps, the contrast of these
two things--the Being and the Shadow--that impressed the beholder
with the difference between them,--the Man and the Superhuman.
It was but for a moment--nay, for the tenth part of a moment--
that this sight was permitted to the wanderer.  A second eddy of
sulphureous vapours from the volcano, yet more rapidly, yet more
densely than its predecessor, rolled over the mountain; and
either the nature of the exhalation, or the excess of his own
dread, was such, that Glyndon, after one wild gasp for breath,
fell senseless on the earth.


CHAPTER 3.XI.

Was hab'ich,
Wenn ich nicht Alles habe?--sprach der Jungling.
"Das Verschleierte Bild zu Sais."

("What have I, if I possess not All?" said the youth.)

Mervale and the Italians arrived in safety at the spot where they
had left the mules; and not till they had recovered their own
alarm and breath did they think of Glyndon.  But then, as the
minutes passed, and he appeared not, Mervale, whose heart was as
good at least as human hearts are in general, grew seriously
alarmed.  He insisted on returning to search for his friend; and
by dint of prodigal promises prevailed at last on the guide to
accompany him.  The lower part of the mountain lay calm and white
in the starlight; and the guide's practised eye could discern all
objects on the surface at a considerable distance.  They had not,
however, gone very far, before they perceived two forms slowly
approaching them.

As they came near, Mervale recognised the form of his friend.
"Thank Heaven, he is safe!" he cried, turning to the guide.

"Holy angels befriend us!" said the Italian, trembling,--"behold
the very being that crossed me last Friday night.  It is he, but
his face is human now!"

"Signor Inglese," said the voice of Zanoni, as Glyndon--pale,
wan, and silent--returned passively the joyous greeting of
Mervale,--"Signor Inglese, I told your friend that we should meet
to-night.  You see you have NOT foiled my prediction."

"But how?--but where?" stammered Mervale, in great confusion and
surprise.

"I found your friend stretched on the ground, overpowered by the
mephitic exhalation of the crater.  I bore him to a purer
atmosphere; and as I know the mountain well, I have conducted him
safely to you.  This is all our history.  You see, sir, that were
it not for that prophecy which you desired to frustrate, your
friend would ere this time have been a corpse; one minute more,
and the vapour had done its work.  Adieu; goodnight, and pleasant
dreams."

"But, my preserver, you will not leave us?" said Glyndon,
anxiously, and speaking for the first time.  "Will you not return
with us?"

Zanoni paused, and drew Glyndon aside.  "Young man," said he,
gravely, "it is necessary that we should again meet to-night.  It
is necessary that you should, ere the first hour of morning,
decide on your own fate.  I know that you have insulted her whom
you profess to love.  It is not too late to repent.  Consult not
your friend:  he is sensible and wise; but not now is his wisdom
needed.  There are times in life when, from the imagination, and
not the reason, should wisdom come,--this, for you, is one of
them.  I ask not your answer now.  Collect your thoughts,--
recover your jaded and scattered spirits.  It wants two hours of
midnight.  Before midnight I will be with you."

"Incomprehensible being!" replied the Englishman, "I would leave
the life you have preserved in your own hands; but what I have
seen this night has swept even Viola from my thoughts.  A fiercer
desire than that of love burns in my veins,--the desire not to
resemble but to surpass my kind; the desire to penetrate and to
share the secret of your own existence--the desire of a
preternatural knowledge and unearthly power.  I make my choice.
In my ancestor's name, I adjure and remind thee of thy pledge.
Instruct me; school me; make me thine; and I surrender to thee
at once, and without a murmur, the woman whom, till I saw thee, I
would have defied a world to obtain."

"I bid thee consider well:  on the one hand, Viola, a tranquil
home, a happy and serene life; on the other hand, all is
darkness,--darkness, that even these eyes cannot penetrate."

"But thou hast told me, that if I wed Viola, I must be contented
with the common existence,--if I refuse, it is to aspire to thy
knowledge and thy power."

"Vain man, knowledge and power are not happiness."

"But they are better than happiness.  Say!--if I marry Viola,
wilt thou be my master,--my guide?  Say this, and I am resolved.

"It were impossible."

"Then I renounce her?  I renounce love.  I renounce happiness.
Welcome solitude,--welcome despair; if they are the entrances to
thy dark and sublime secret."

"I will not take thy answer now.  Before the last hour of night
thou shalt give it in one word,--ay or no!  Farewell till then."

Zanoni waved his hand, and, descending rapidly, was seen no more.

Glyndon rejoined his impatient and wondering friend; but Mervale,
gazing on his face, saw that a great change had passed there.
The flexile and dubious expression of youth was forever gone.
The features were locked, rigid, and stern; and so faded was the
natural bloom, that an hour seemed to have done the work of
years.


CHAPTER 3.XII.

Was ist's
Das hinter diesem Schleier sich verbirgt?
"Das Verschleierte Bild zu Sais."

(What is it that conceals itself behind this veil?)

On returning from Vesuvius or Pompeii, you enter Naples through
its most animated, its most Neapolitan quarter,--through that
quarter in which modern life most closely resembles the ancient;
and in which, when, on a fair-day, the thoroughfare swarms alike
with Indolence and Trade, you are impressed at once with the
recollection of that restless, lively race from which the
population of Naples derives its origin; so that in one day you
may see at Pompeii the habitations of a remote age; and on the
Mole, at Naples, you may imagine you behold the very beings with
whom those habitations had been peopled.

But now, as the Englishmen rode slowly through the deserted
streets, lighted but by the lamps of heaven, all the gayety of
day was hushed and breathless.  Here and there, stretched under a
portico or a dingy booth, were sleeping groups of houseless
Lazzaroni,--a tribe now merging its indolent individuality amidst
an energetic and active population.

The Englishman rode on in silence; for Glyndon neither appeared
to heed nor hear the questions and comments of Mervale, and
Mervale himself was almost as weary as the jaded animal he
bestrode.

Suddenly the silence of earth and ocean was broken by the sound
of a distant clock that proclaimed the quarter preceding the last
hour of night.  Glyndon started from his reverie, and looked
anxiously round.  As the final stroke died, the noise of hoofs
rung on the broad stones of the pavement, and from a narrow
street to the right emerged the form of a solitary horseman.  He
neared the Englishmen, and Glyndon recognised the features and
mien of Zanoni.

"What! do we meet again, signor?" said Mervale, in a vexed but
drowsy tone.

"Your friend and I have business together," replied Zanoni, as he
wheeled his steed to the side of Glyndon.  "But it will be soon
transacted.  Perhaps you, sir, will ride on to your hotel."

"Alone!"

"There is no danger!" returned Zanoni, with a slight expression
of disdain in his voice.

"None to me; but to Glyndon?"

"Danger from me!  Ah, perhaps you are right."

"Go on, my dear Mervale," said Glyndon; "I will join you before
you reach the hotel."

Mervale nodded, whistled, and pushed his horse into a kind of
amble.

"Now your answer,--quick?"

"I have decided.  The love of Viola has vanished from my heart.
The pursuit is over."

"You have decided?"

"I have; and now my reward."

"Thy reward!  Well; ere this hour to-morrow it shall await thee."

Zanoni gave the rein to his horse; it sprang forward with a
bound:  the sparks flew from its hoofs, and horse and rider
disappeared amidst the shadows of the street whence they had
emerged.

Mervale was surprised to see his friend by his side, a minute
after they had parted.

"What has passed between you and Zanoni?"

"Mervale, do not ask me to-night!  I am in a dream."

"I do not wonder at it, for even I am in a sleep.  Let us push
on."

In the retirement of his chamber, Glyndon sought to recollect his
thoughts.  He sat down on the foot of his bed, and pressed his
hands tightly to his throbbing temples.  The events of the last
few hours; the apparition of the gigantic and shadowy Companion
of the Mystic, amidst the fires and clouds of Vesuvius; the
strange encounter with Zanoni himself, on a spot in which he
could never, by ordinary reasoning, have calculated on finding
Glyndon, filled his mind with emotions, in which terror and awe
the least prevailed.  A fire, the train of which had been long
laid, was lighted at his heart,--the asbestos-fire that, once
lit, is never to be quenched.  All his early aspirations--his
young ambition, his longings for the laurel--were merged in one
passionate yearning to surpass the bounds of the common knowledge
of man, and reach that solemn spot, between two worlds, on which
the mysterious stranger appeared to have fixed his home.

Far from recalling with renewed affright the remembrance of the
apparition that had so appalled him, the recollection only served
to kindle and concentrate his curiosity into a burning focus.  He
had said aright,--LOVE HAD VANISHED FROM HIS HEART; there was no
longer a serene space amidst its disordered elements for human
affection to move and breathe.  The enthusiast was rapt from this
earth; and he would have surrendered all that mortal beauty ever
promised, that mortal hope ever whispered, for one hour with
Zanoni beyond the portals of the visible world.

He rose, oppressed and fevered with the new thoughts that raged
within him, and threw open his casement for air.  The ocean lay
suffused in the starry light, and the stillness of the heavens
never more eloquently preached the morality of repose to the
madness of earthly passions.  But such was Glyndon's mood that
their very hush only served to deepen the wild desires that
preyed upon his soul; and the solemn stars, that are mysteries in
themselves, seemed, by a kindred sympathy, to agitate the wings
of the spirit no longer contented with its cage.  As he gazed, a
star shot from its brethren, and vanished from the depth of
space!


CHAPTER 3.XIII.

O, be gone!
By Heaven, I love thee better than myself,
For I came hither armed against myself.
"Romeo and Juliet."

The young actress and Gionetta had returned from the theatre; and
Viola fatigued and exhausted, had thrown herself on a sofa, while
Gionetta busied herself with the long tresses which, released
from the fillet that bound them, half-concealed the form of the
actress, like a veil of threads of gold.  As she smoothed the
luxuriant locks, the old nurse ran gossiping on about the little
events of the night, the scandal and politics of the scenes and
the tireroom.  Gionetta was a worthy soul.  Almanzor, in Dryden's
tragedy of "Almahide," did not change sides with more gallant
indifference than the exemplary nurse.  She was at last grieved
and scandalised that Viola had not selected one chosen cavalier.
But the choice she left wholly to her fair charge.  Zegri or
Abencerrage, Glyndon or Zanoni, it had been the same to her,
except that the rumours she had collected respecting the latter,
combined with his own recommendations of his rival, had given her
preference to the Englishman.  She interpreted ill the impatient
and heavy sigh with which Viola greeted her praises of Glyndon,
and her wonder that he had of late so neglected his attentions
behind the scenes, and she exhausted all her powers of panegyric
upon the supposed object of the sigh.  "And then, too," she said,
"if nothing else were to be said against the other signor, it is
enough that he is about to leave Naples."

"Leave Naples!--Zanoni?"

"Yes, darling!  In passing by the Mole to-day, there was a crowd
round some outlandish-looking sailors.  His ship arrived this
morning, and anchors in the bay.  The sailors say that they are
to be prepared to sail with the first wind; they were taking in
fresh stores.  They--"

"Leave me, Gionetta!  Leave me!"

The time had already passed when the girl could confide in
Gionetta.  Her thoughts had advanced to that point when the heart
recoils from all confidence, and feels that it cannot be
comprehended.  Alone now, in the principal apartment of the
house, she paced its narrow boundaries with tremulous and
agitated steps:  she recalled the frightful suit of Nicot,--the
injurious taunt of Glyndon; and she sickened at the remembrance
of the hollow applauses which, bestowed on the actress, not the
woman, only subjected her to contumely and insult.  In that room
the recollection of her father's death, the withered laurel and
the broken chords, rose chillingly before her.  Hers, she felt,
was a yet gloomier fate,--the chords may break while the laurel
is yet green.  The lamp, waning in its socket, burned pale and
dim, and her eyes instinctively turned from the darker corner of
the room.  Orphan, by the hearth of thy parent, dost thou fear
the presence of the dead!

And was Zanoni indeed about to quit Naples?  Should she see him
no more?  Oh, fool, to think that there was grief in any other
thought!  The past!--that was gone!  The future!--there was no
future to her, Zanoni absent!  But this was the night of the
third day on which Zanoni had told her that, come what might, he
would visit her again.  It was, then, if she might believe him,
some appointed crisis in her fate; and how should she tell him of
Glyndon's hateful words?  The pure and the proud mind can never
confide its wrongs to another, only its triumphs and its
happiness.  But at that late hour would Zanoni visit her,--could
she receive him?  Midnight was at hand.  Still in undefined
suspense, in intense anxiety, she lingered in the room.  The
quarter before midnight sounded, dull and distant.  All was
still, and she was about to pass to her sleeping-room, when she
heard the hoofs of a horse at full speed; the sound ceased, there
was a knock at the door.  Her heart beat violently; but fear gave
way to another sentiment when she heard a voice, too well known,
calling on her name.  She paused, and then, with the fearlessness
of innocence, descended and unbarred the door.

Zanoni entered with a light and hasty step.  His horseman's cloak
fitted tightly to his noble form, and his broad hat threw a
gloomy shade over his commanding features.

The girl followed him into the room she had just left, trembling
and blushing deeply, and stood before him with the lamp she held
shining upward on her cheek and the long hair that fell like a
shower of light over the half-clad shoulders and heaving bust.

"Viola," said Zanoni, in a voice that spoke deep emotion, "I am
by thy side once more to save thee.  Not a moment is to be lost.
Thou must fly with me, or remain the victim of the Prince di --.
I would have made the charge I now undertake another's; thou
knowest I would,--thou knowest it!--but he is not worthy of thee,
the cold Englishman!  I throw myself at thy feet; have trust in
me, and fly."

He grasped her hand passionately as he dropped on his knee, and
looked up into her face with his bright, beseeching eyes.

"Fly with thee!" said Viola, scarce believing her senses.

"With me.  Name, fame, honour,--all will be sacrificed if thou
dost not."

"Then--then," said the wild girl, falteringly, and turning aside
her face,--"then I am not indifferent to thee; thou wouldst not
give me to another?"

Zanoni was silent; but his breast heaved, his cheeks flushed, his
eyes darted dark and impassioned fire.

"Speak!" exclaimed Viola, in jealous suspicion of his silence.

"Indifferent to me!  No; but I dare not yet say that I love
thee."

"Then what matters my fate?" said Viola, turning pale, and
shrinking from his side; "leave me,--I fear no danger.  My life,
and therefore my honour, is in mine own hands."

"Be not so mad," said Zanoni.  "Hark! do you hear the neigh of my
steed?--it is an alarm that warns us of the approaching peril.
Haste, or you are lost!"

"Why dost thou care for me?" said the girl, bitterly.  "Thou hast
read my heart; thou knowest that thou art become the lord of my
destiny.  But to be bound beneath the weight of a cold
obligation; to be the beggar on the eyes of indifference; to cast
myself on one who loves me not,--THAT were indeed the vilest sin
of my sex.  Ah, Zanoni, rather let me die!"

She had thrown back her clustering hair from her face while she
spoke; and as she now stood, with her arms drooping mournfully,
and her hands clasped together with the proud bitterness of her
wayward spirit, giving new zest and charm to her singular beauty,
it was impossible to conceive a sight more irresistible to the
eye and the heart.

"Tempt me not to thine own danger,--perhaps destruction!"
exclaimed Zanoni, in faltering accents.  "Thou canst not dream of
what thou wouldst demand,--come!" and, advancing, he wound his
arm round her waist.  "Come, Viola; believe at least in my
friendship, my honour, my protection--"

"And not thy love," said the Italian, turning on him her
reproachful eyes.  Those eyes met his, and he could not withdraw
from the charm of their gaze.  He felt her heart throbbing
beneath his own; her breath came warm upon his cheek.  He
trembled,--HE! the lofty, the mysterious Zanoni, who seemed to
stand aloof from his race.  With a deep and burning sigh, he
murmured, "Viola, I love thee!  Oh!" he continued passionately,
and, releasing his hold, he threw himself abruptly at her feet,
"I no more command,--as woman should be wooed, I woo thee.  From
the first glance of those eyes, from the first sound of thy
voice, thou becamest too fatally dear to me.  Thou speakest of
fascination,--it lives and it breathes in thee!  I fled from
Naples to fly from thy presence,--it pursued me.  Months, years
passed, and thy sweet face still shone upon my heart.  I
returned, because I pictured thee alone and sorrowful in the
world, and knew that dangers, from which I might save thee, were
gathering near thee and around.  Beautiful Soul! whose leaves I
have read with reverence, it was for thy sake, thine alone, that
I would have given thee to one who might make thee happier on
earth than I can.  Viola!  Viola! thou knowest not--never canst
thou know--how dear thou art to me!"

It is in vain to seek for words to describe the delight--the
proud, the full, the complete, and the entire delight--that
filled the heart of the Neapolitan.  He whom she had considered
too lofty even for love,--more humble to her than those she had
half-despised!  She was silent, but her eyes spoke to him; and
then slowly, as aware, at last, that the human love had advanced
on the ideal, she shrank into the terrors of a modest and
virtuous nature.  She did not dare,--she did not dream to ask him
the question she had so fearlessly made to Glyndon; but she felt
a sudden coldness,--a sense that a barrier was yet between love
and love.  "Oh, Zanoni!" she murmured, with downcast eyes, "ask
me not to fly with thee; tempt me not to my shame.  Thou wouldst
protect me from others.  Oh, protect me from thyself!"

"Poor orphan!" said he, tenderly, "and canst thou think that I
ask from thee one sacrifice,--still less the greatest that woman
can give to love?  As my wife I woo thee, and by every tie, and
by every vow that can hallow and endear affection.  Alas! they
have belied love to thee indeed, if thou dost not know the
religion that belongs to it!  They who truly love would seek, for
the treasure they obtain, every bond that can make it lasting and
secure.  Viola, weep not, unless thou givest me the holy right to
kiss away thy tears!"

And that beautiful face, no more averted, drooped upon his bosom;
and as he bent down, his lips sought the rosy mouth:  a long and
burning kiss,--danger, life, the world was forgotten!  Suddenly
Zanoni tore himself from her.

"Hearest thou the wind that sighs, and dies away?  As that wind,
my power to preserve thee, to guard thee, to foresee the storm in
thy skies, is gone.  No matter.  Haste, haste; and may love
supply the loss of all that it has dared to sacrifice!  Come."

Viola hesitated no more.  She threw her mantle over her
shoulders, and gathered up her dishevelled hair; a moment, and
she was prepared, when a sudden crash was heard below.

"Too late!--fool that I was, too late!" cried Zanoni, in a sharp
tone of agony, as he hurried to the door.  He opened it, only to
be borne back by the press of armed men.  The room literally
swarmed with the followers of the ravisher, masked, and armed to
the teeth.

Viola was already in the grasp of two of the myrmidons.  Her
shriek smote the ear of Zanoni.  He sprang forward; and Viola
heard his wild cry in a foreign tongue.  She saw the blades of
the ruffians pointed at his breast!  She lost her senses; and
when she recovered, she found herself gagged, and in a carriage
that was driven rapidly, by the side of a masked and motionless
figure.  The carriage stopped at the portals of a gloomy mansion.
The gates opened noiselessly; a broad flight of steps,
brilliantly illumined, was before her.  She was in the palace of
the Prince di --.


CHAPTER 3.XIV.

Ma lasciamo, per Dio, Signore, ormai
Di parlar d' ira, e di cantar di morte.
"Orlando Furioso," Canto xvii. xvii.

(But leave me, I solemnly conjure thee, signor, to speak of
wrath, and to sing of death.)

The young actress was led to, and left alone in a chamber adorned
with all the luxurious and half-Eastern taste that at one time
characterised the palaces of the great seigneurs of Italy.  Her
first thought was for Zanoni.  Was he yet living?  Had he escaped
unscathed the blades of the foe,--her new treasure, the new light
of her life, her lord, at last her lover?

She had short time for reflection.  She heard steps approaching
the chamber; she drew back, but trembled not.  A courage not of
herself, never known before, sparkled in her eyes, and dilated
her stature.  Living or dead, she would be faithful still to
Zanoni!  There was a new motive to the preservation of honour.
The door opened, and the prince entered in the gorgeous and gaudy
custume still worn at that time in Naples.

"Fair and cruel one," said he, advancing with a half-sneer upon
his lip, "thou wilt not too harshly blame the violence of love."
He attempted to take her hand as he spoke.

"Nay," said he, as she recoiled, "reflect that thou art now in
the power of one that never faltered in the pursuit of an object
less dear to him than thou art.  Thy lover, presumptuous though
he be, is not by to save thee.  Mine thou art; but instead of thy
master, suffer me to be thy slave."

"Prince," said Viola, with a stern gravity, "your boast is in
vain.  Your power!  I am NOT in your power.  Life and death are
in my own hands.  I will not defy; but I do not fear you.  I
feel--and in some feelings," added Viola, with a solemnity almost
thrilling, "there is all the strength, and all the divinity of
knowledge--I feel that I am safe even here; but you--you, Prince
di --, have brought danger to your home and hearth!"

The Neapolitan seemed startled by an earnestness and boldness he
was but little prepared for.  He was not, however, a man easily
intimidated or deterred from any purpose he had formed; and,
approaching Viola, he was about to reply with much warmth, real
or affected, when a knock was heard at the door of the chamber.
The sound was repeated, and the prince, chafed at the
interruption, opened the door and demanded impatiently who had
ventured to disobey his orders, and invade his leisure.  Mascari
presented himself, pale and agitated:  "My lord," said he, in a
whisper, "pardon me; but a stranger is below, who insists on
seeing you; and, from some words he let fall, I judged it
advisable even to infringe your commands."

"A stranger!--and at this hour!  What business can he pretend?
Why was he even admitted?"

"He asserts that your life is in imminent danger.  The source
whence it proceeds he will relate to your Excellency alone."

The prince frowned; but his colour changed.  He mused a moment,
and then, re-entering the chamber and advancing towards Viola, he
said,--

"Believe me, fair creature, I have no wish to take advantage of
my power.  I would fain trust alone to the gentler authorities of
affection.  Hold yourself queen within these walls more
absolutely than you have ever enacted that part on the stage.
To-night, farewell!  May your sleep be calm, and your dreams
propitious to my hopes."

With these words he retired, and in a few moments Viola was
surrounded by officious attendants, whom she at length, with some
difficulty, dismissed; and, refusing to retire to rest, she spent
the night in examining the chamber, which she found was secured,
and in thoughts of Zanoni, in whose power she felt an almost
preternatural confidence.

Meanwhile the prince descended the stairs and sought the room
into which the stranger had been shown.

He found the visitor wrapped from head to foot in a long robe,
half-gown, half-mantle, such as was sometimes worn by
ecclesiastics.  The face of this stranger was remarkable.  So
sunburnt and swarthy were his hues, that he must, apparently,
have derived his origin amongst the races of the farthest East.
His forehead was lofty, and his eyes so penetrating yet so calm
in their gaze that the prince shrank from them as we shrink from
a questioner who is drawing forth the guiltiest secret of our
hearts.

"What would you with me?" asked the prince, motioning his visitor
to a seat.

"Prince of --," said the stranger, in a voice deep and sweet, but
foreign in its accent,--"son of the most energetic and masculine
race that ever applied godlike genius to the service of Human
Will, with its winding wickedness and its stubborn grandeur;
descendant of the great Visconti in whose chronicles lies the
history of Italy in her palmy day, and in whose rise was the
development of the mightiest intellect, ripened by the most
restless ambition,--I come to gaze upon the last star in a
darkening firmament.  By this hour to-morrow space shall know it
not.  Man, unless thy whole nature change, thy days are
numbered!"

"What means this jargon?" said the prince, in visible
astonishment and secret awe.  "Comest thou to menace me in my own
halls, or wouldst thou warn me of a danger?  Art thou some
itinerant mountebank, or some unguessed-of friend?  Speak out,
and plainly.  What danger threatens me?"

"Zanoni and thy ancestor's sword," replied the stranger.

"Ha! ha!" said the prince, laughing scournfully; "I
half-suspected thee from the first.  Thou art then the accomplice
or the tool of that most dexterous, but, at present, defeated
charlatan?  And I suppose thou wilt tell me that if I were to
release a certain captive I have made, the danger would vanish,
and the hand of the dial would be put back?"

"Judge of me as thou wilt, Prince di --.  I confess my knowledge
of Zanoni.  Thou, too, wilt know his power, but not till it
consume thee.  I would save, therefore I warn thee.  Dost thou
ask me why?  I will tell thee.  Canst thou remember to have heard
wild tales of thy grandsire; of his desire for a knowledge that
passes that of the schools and cloisters; of a strange man from
the East who was his familiar and master in lore against which
the Vatican has, from age to age, launched its mimic thunder?
Dost thou call to mind the fortunes of thy ancestor?--how he
succeeded in youth to little but a name; how, after a career wild
and dissolute as thine, he disappeared from Milan, a pauper, and
a self-exile; how, after years spent, none knew in what climes or
in what pursuits, he again revisited the city where his
progenitors had reigned; how with him came the wise man of the
East, the mystic Mejnour; how they who beheld him, beheld with
amaze and fear that time had ploughed no furrow on his brow; that
youth seemed fixed, as by a spell, upon his face and form?  Dost
thou not know that from that hour his fortunes rose?  Kinsmen the
most remote died; estate upon estate fell into the hands of the
ruined noble.  He became the guide of princes, the first magnate
of Italy.  He founded anew the house of which thou art the last
lineal upholder, and transferred his splendour from Milan to the
Sicilian realms.  Visions of high ambition were then present with
him nightly and daily.  Had he lived, Italy would have known a
new dynasty, and the Visconti would have reigned over Magna-
Graecia.  He was a man such as the world rarely sees; but his
ends, too earthly, were at war with the means he sought.  Had his
ambition been more or less, he had been worthy of a realm
mightier than the Caesars swayed; worthy of our solemn order;
worthy of the fellowship of Mejnour, whom you now behold before
you."

The prince, who had listened with deep and breathless attention
to the words of his singular guest, started from his seat at his
last words.  "Imposter!" he cried, "can you dare thus to play
with my credulity?  Sixty years have flown since my grandsire
died; were he living, he had passed his hundred and twentieth
year; and you, whose old age is erect and vigorous, have the
assurance to pretend to have been his contemporary!  But you have
imperfectly learned your tale.  You know not, it seems, that my
grandsire, wise and illustrious indeed, in all save his faith in
a charlatan, was found dead in his bed, in the very hour when his
colossal plans were ripe for execution, and that Mejnour was
guilty of his murder."

"Alas!" answered the stranger, in a voice of great sadness, "had
he but listened to Mejnour,--had he but delayed the last and most
perilous ordeal of daring wisdom until the requisite training and
initiation had been completed,--your ancestor would have stood
with me upon an eminence which the waters of Death itself wash
everlastingly, but cannot overflow.  Your grandsire resisted my
fervent prayers, disobeyed my most absolute commands, and in the
sublime rashness of a soul that panted for secrets, which he who
desires orbs and sceptres never can obtain, perished, the victim
of his own frenzy."

"He was poisoned, and Mejnour fled."

"Mejnour fled not," answered the stranger, proudly--"Mejnour
could not fly from danger; for to him danger is a thing long left
behind.  It was the day before the duke took the fatal draft
which he believed was to confer on the mortal the immortal boon,
that, finding my power over him was gone, I abandoned him to his
doom.  But a truce with this:  I loved your grandsire!  I would
save the last of his race.  Oppose not thyself to Zanoni.  Yield
not thy soul to thine evil passions.  Draw back from the
precipice while there is yet time.  In thy front, and in thine
eyes, I detect some of that diviner glory which belonged to thy
race.  Thou hast in thee some germs of their hereditary genius,
but they are choked up by worse than thy hereditary vices.
Recollect that by genius thy house rose; by vice it ever failed
to perpetuate its power.  In the laws which regulate the
universe, it is decreed that nothing wicked can long endure.  Be
wise, and let history warn thee.  Thou standest on the verge of
two worlds, the past and the future; and voices from either
shriek omen in thy ear.  I have done.  I bid thee farewell!"

"Not so; thou shalt not quit these walls.  I will make experiment
of thy boasted power.  What, ho there!--ho!"

The prince shouted; the room was filled with his minions.

"Seize that man!" he cried, pointing to the spot which had been
filled by the form of Mejnour.  To his inconceivable amaze and
horror, the spot was vacant.  The mysterious stranger had
vanished like a dream; but a thin and fragrant mist undulated, in
pale volumes, round the walls of the chamber.  "Look to my lord,"
cried Mascari.  The prince had fallen to the floor insensible.
For many hours he seemed in a kind of trance.  When he recovered,
he dismissed his attendants, and his step was heard in his
chamber, pacing to and fro, with heavy and disordered strides.
Not till an hour before his banquet the next day did he seem
restored to his wonted self.


CHAPTER 3.XV.

Oime! come poss' io
Altri trovar, se me trovar non posso.
"Amint.," At. i. Sc. ii.

(Alas! how can I find another when I cannot find myself?)

The sleep of Glyndon, the night after his last interview with
Zanoni, was unusually profound; and the sun streamed full upon
his eyes as he opened them to the day.  He rose refreshed, and
with a strange sentiment of calmness that seemed more the result
of resolution than exhaustion.  The incidents and emotions of the
past night had settled into distinct and clear impressions.  He
thought of them but slightly,--he thought rather of the future.
He was as one of the initiated in the old Egyptian mysteries who
have crossed the gate only to long more ardently for the
penetralia.

He dressed himself, and was relieved to find that Mervale had
joined a party of his countrymen on an excursion to Ischia.  He
spent the heat of noon in thoughtful solitude, and gradually the
image of Viola returned to his heart.  It was a holy--for it was
a HUMAN--image.  He had resigned her; and though he repented not,
he was troubled at the thought that repentance would have come
too late.

He started impatiently from his seat, and strode with rapid steps
to the humble abode of the actress.

The distance was considerable, and the air oppressive.  Glyndon
arrived at the door breathless and heated.  He knocked; no answer
came.  He lifted the latch and entered.  He ascended the stairs;
no sound, no sight of life met his ear and eye.  In the front
chamber, on a table, lay the guitar of the actress, and some
manuscript parts in the favourite operas.  He paused, and,
summoning courage, tapped at the door which seemed to lead into
the inner apartment.  The door was ajar; and, hearing no sound
within, he pushed it open.  It was the sleeping-chamber of the
young actress, that holiest ground to a lover; and well did the
place become the presiding deity:  none of the tawdry finery of
the profession was visible, on the one hand; none of the slovenly
disorder common to the humbler classes of the South, on the
other.  All was pure and simple; even the ornaments were those of
an innocent refinement,--a few books, placed carefully on
shelves, a few half-faded flowers in an earthen vase, which was
modelled and painted in the Etruscan fashion.  The sunlight
streamed over the snowy draperies of the bed, and a few articles
of clothing on the chair beside it.  Viola was not there; but the
nurse!--was she gone also?  He made the house resound with the
name of Gionetta, but there was not even an echo to reply.  At
last, as he reluctantly quitted the desolate abode, he perceived
Gionetta coming towards him from the street.

The poor old woman uttered an exclamation of joy on seeing him;
but, to their mutual disappointment, neither had any cheerful
tidings or satisfactory explanation to afford the other.
Gionetta had been aroused from her slumber the night before by
the noise in the rooms below; but ere she could muster courage to
descend, Viola was gone!  She found the marks of violence on the
door without; and all she had since been able to learn in the
neighbourhood was, that a Lazzarone, from his nocturnal resting-
place on the Chiaja, had seen by the moonlight a carriage, which
he recognised as belonging to the Prince di --, pass and repass
that road about the first hour of morning.  Glyndon, on gathering
from the confused words and broken sobs of the old nurse the
heads of this account, abruptly left her, and repaired to the
palace of Zanoni. There he was informed that the signor was gone
to the banquet of the Prince di --, and would not return till
late.  Glyndon stood motionless with perplexity and dismay; he
knew not what to believe, or how to act.  Even Mervale was not at
hand to advise him.  His conscience smote him bitterly.  He had
had the power to save the woman he had loved, and had foregone
that power; but how was it that in this Zanoni himself had
failed?  How was it that he was gone to the very banquet of the
ravisher?  Could Zanoni be aware of what had passed?  If not,
should he lose a moment in apprising him?  Though mentally
irresolute, no man was more physically brave.  He would repair at
once to the palace of the prince himself; and if Zanoni failed in
the trust he had half-appeared to arrogate, he, the humble
foreigner, would demand the captive of fraud and force, in the
very halls and before the assembled guests of the Prince di --.


CHAPTER 3.XVI.

Ardua vallatur duris sapientia scrupis.
Hadr. Jun., "Emblem." xxxvii.

(Lofty wisdom is circled round with rugged rocks.)

We must go back some hours in the progress of this narrative.  It
was the first faint and gradual break of the summer dawn; and two
men stood in a balcony overhanging a garden fragrant with the
scents of the awakening flowers.  The stars had not yet left the
sky,--the birds were yet silent on the boughs:  all was still,
hushed, and tranquil; but how different the tranquillity of
reviving day from the solemn repose of night!  In the music of
silence there are a thousand variations.  These men, who alone
seemed awake in Naples, were Zanoni and the mysterious stranger
who had but an hour or two ago startled the Prince di -- in his
voluptuous palace.

"No," said the latter; "hadst thou delayed the acceptance of the
Arch-gift until thou hadst attained to the years, and passed
through all the desolate bereavements that chilled and seared
myself ere my researches had made it mine, thou wouldst have
escaped the curse of which thou complainest now,--thou wouldst
not have mourned over the brevity of human affection as compared
to the duration of thine own existence; for thou wouldst have
survived the very desire and dream of the love of woman.
Brightest, and, but for that error, perhaps the loftiest, of the
secret and solemn race that fills up the interval in creation
between mankind and the children of the Empyreal, age after age
wilt thou rue the splendid folly which made thee ask to carry the
beauty and the passions of youth into the dreary grandeur of
earthly immortality."

"I do not repent, nor shall I," answered Zanoni.  "The transport
and the sorrow, so wildly blended, which have at intervals
diversified my doom, are better than the calm and bloodless tenor
of thy solitary way--thou, who lovest nothing, hatest nothing,
feelest nothing, and walkest the world with the noiseless and
joyless footsteps of a dream!"

"You mistake," replied he who had owned the name of Mejnour,--
"though I care not for love, and am dead to every PASSION that
agitates the sons of clay, I am not dead to their more serene
enjoyments.  I carry down the stream of the countless years, not
the turbulent desires of youth, but the calm and spiritual
delights of age.  Wisely and deliberately I abandoned youth
forever when I separated my lot from men.  Let us not envy or
reproach each other.  I would have saved this Neapolitan, Zanoni
(since so it now pleases thee to be called), partly because his
grandsire was but divided by the last airy barrier from our own
brotherhood, partly because I know that in the man himself lurk
the elements of ancestral courage and power, which in earlier
life would have fitted him for one of us.  Earth holds but few to
whom Nature has given the qualities that can bear the ordeal.
But time and excess, that have quickened his grosser senses, have
blunted his imagination.  I relinquish him to his doom."

"And still, then, Mejnour, you cherish the desire to revive our
order, limited now to ourselves alone, by new converts and
allies.  Surely--surely--thy experience might have taught thee,
that scarcely once in a thousand years is born the being who can
pass through the horrible gates that lead into the worlds
without!  Is not thy path already strewed with thy victims?  Do
not their ghastly faces of agony and fear--the blood-stained
suicide, the raving maniac--rise before thee, and warn what is
yet left to thee of human sympathy from thy insane ambition?"

"Nay," answered Mejnour; "have I not had success to
counterbalance failure?  And can I forego this lofty and august
hope, worthy alone of our high condition,--the hope to form a
mighty and numerous race with a force and power sufficient to
permit them to acknowledge to mankind their majestic conquests
and dominion, to become the true lords of this planet, invaders,
perchance, of others, masters of the inimical and malignant
tribes by which at this moment we are surrounded:  a race that
may proceed, in their deathless destinies, from stage to stage of
celestial glory, and rank at last amongst the nearest ministrants
and agents gathered round the Throne of Thrones?  What matter a
thousand victims for one convert to our band?  And you, Zanoni,"
continued Mejnour, after a pause,--"you, even you, should this
affection for a mortal beauty that you have dared, despite
yourself, to cherish, be more than a passing fancy; should it,
once admitted into your inmost nature, partake of its bright and
enduring essence,--even you may brave all things to raise the
beloved one into your equal.  Nay, interrupt me not.  Can you see
sickness menace her; danger hover around; years creep on; the
eyes grow dim; the beauty fade, while the heart, youthful still,
clings and fastens round your own,--can you see this, and know it
is yours to--"

"Cease!" cried Zanoni, fiercely.  "What is all other fate as
compared to the death of terror?  What, when the coldest sage,
the most heated enthusiast, the hardiest warrior with his nerves
of iron, have been found dead in their beds, with straining
eyeballs and horrent hair, at the first step of the Dread
Progress,--thinkest thou that this weak woman--from whose cheek a
sound at the window, the screech of the night-owl, the sight of a
drop of blood on a man's sword, would start the colour--could
brave one glance of--Away! the very thought of such sights for
her makes even myself a coward!"

"When you told her you loved her,--when you clasped her to your
breast, you renounced all power to foresee her future lot, or
protect her from harm.  Henceforth to her you are human, and
human only.  How know you, then, to what you may be tempted; how
know you what her curiosity may learn and her courage brave?  But
enough of this,--you are bent on your pursuit?"

"The fiat has gone forth."

"And to-morrow?"

"To-morrow, at this hour, our bark will be bounding over yonder
ocean, and the weight of ages will have fallen from my heart!  I
compassionate thee, O foolish sage,--THOU hast given up THY
youth!"


CHAPTER 3.XVII.

Alch:  Thou always speakest riddles.  Tell me if thou art that
fountain of which Bernard Lord Trevizan writ?

Merc:  I am not that fountain, but I am the water.  The fountain
compasseth me about.

Sandivogius, "New Light of Alchymy."

The Prince di -- was not a man whom Naples could suppose to be
addicted to superstitious fancies.  Still, in the South of Italy,
there was then, and there still lingers a certain spirit of
credulity, which may, ever and anon, be visible amidst the
boldest dogmas of their philosophers and sceptics.  In his
childhood, the prince had learned strange tales of the ambition,
the genius, and the career of his grandsire,--and secretly,
perhaps influenced by ancestral example, in earlier youth he
himself had followed science, not only through her legitimate
course, but her antiquated and erratic windings.  I have, indeed,
been shown in Naples a little volume, blazoned with the arms of
the Visconti, and ascribed to the nobleman I refer to, which
treats of alchemy in a spirit half-mocking and half-reverential.

Pleasure soon distracted him from such speculations, and his
talents, which were unquestionably great, were wholly perverted
to extravagant intrigues, or to the embellishment of a gorgeous
ostentation with something of classic grace.  His immense wealth,
his imperious pride, his unscrupulous and daring character, made
him an object of no inconsiderable fear to a feeble and timid
court; and the ministers of the indolent government willingly
connived at excesses which allured him at least from ambition.
The strange visit and yet more strange departure of Mejnour
filled the breast of the Neapolitan with awe and wonder, against
which all the haughty arrogance and learned scepticism of his
maturer manhood combated in vain.  The apparition of Mejnour
served, indeed, to invest Zanoni with a character in which the
prince had not hitherto regarded him.  He felt a strange alarm at
the rival he had braved,--at the foe he had provoked.  When, a
little before his banquet, he had resumed his self-possession, it
was with a fell and gloomy resolution that he brooded over the
perfidious schemes he had previously formed.  He felt as if the
death of the mysterious Zanoni were necessary for the
preservation of his own life; and if at an earlier period of
their rivalry he had determined on the fate of Zanoni, the
warnings of Mejnour only served to confirm his resolve.

"We will try if his magic can invent an antidote to the bane,"
said he, half-aloud, and with a stern smile, as he summoned
Mascari to his presence.  The poison which the prince, with his
own hands, mixed into the wine intended for his guest, was
compounded from materials, the secret of which had been one of
the proudest heir-looms of that able and evil race which gave to
Italy her wisest and guiltiest tyrants.  Its operation was quick
yet not sudden:  it produced no pain,--it left on the form no
grim convulsion, on the skin no purpling spot, to arouse
suspicion; you might have cut and carved every membrane and fibre
of the corpse, but the sharpest eyes of the leech would not have
detected the presence of the subtle life-queller.  For twelve
hours the victim felt nothing save a joyous and elated
exhilaration of the blood; a delicious languor followed, the sure
forerunner of apoplexy.  No lancet then could save!  Apoplexy had
run much in the families of the enemies of the Visconti!

The hour of the feast arrived,--the guests assembled.  There were
the flower of the Neapolitan seignorie, the descendants of the
Norman, the Teuton, the Goth; for Naples had then a nobility, but
derived it from the North, which has indeed been the Nutrix
Leonum,--the nurse of the lion-hearted chivalry of the world.

Last of the guests came Zanoni; and the crowd gave way as the
dazzling foreigner moved along to the lord of the palace.  The
prince greeted him with a meaning smile, to which Zanoni answered
by a whisper, "He who plays with loaded dice does not always
win."

The prince bit his lip, and Zanoni, passing on, seemed deep in
conversation with the fawning Mascari.

"Who is the prince's heir?" asked the guest.

"A distant relation on the mother's side; with his Excellency
dies the male line."

"Is the heir present at our host's banquet?"

"No; they are not friends."

"No matter; he will be here to-morrow."

Mascari stared in surprise; but the signal for the banquet was
given, and the guests were marshalled to the board.  As was the
custom then, the feast took place not long after mid-day.  It was
a long, oval hall, the whole of one side opening by a marble
colonnade upon a court or garden, in which the eye rested
gratefully upon cool fountains and statues of whitest marble,
half-sheltered by orange-trees.  Every art that luxury could
invent to give freshness and coolness to the languid and
breezeless heat of the day without (a day on which the breath of
the sirocco was abroad) had been called into existence.
Artificial currents of air through invisible tubes, silken blinds
waving to and fro, as if to cheat the senses into the belief of
an April wind, and miniature jets d'eau in each corner of the
apartment, gave to the Italians the same sense of exhilaration
and COMFORT (if I may use the word) which the well-drawn curtains
and the blazing hearth afford to the children of colder climes.

The conversation was somewhat more lively and intellectual than
is common amongst the languid pleasure-hunters of the South; for
the prince, himself accomplished, sought his acquaintance not
only amongst the beaux esprits of his own country, but amongst
the gay foreigners who adorned and relieved the monotony of the
Neapolitan circles.  There were present two or three of the
brilliant Frenchmen of the old regime, who had already emigrated
from the advancing Revolution; and their peculiar turn of thought
and wit was well calculated for the meridian of a society that
made the dolce far niente at once its philosophy and its faith.
The prince, however, was more silent than usual; and when he
sought to rouse himself, his spirits were forced and exaggerated.
To the manners of his host, those of Zanoni afforded a striking
contrast.  The bearing of this singular person was at all times
characterised by a calm and polished ease, which was attributed
by the courtiers to the long habit of society.  He could scarcely
be called gay; yet few persons more tended to animate the general
spirits of a convivial circle.  He seemed, by a kind of
intuition, to elicit from each companion the qualities in which
he most excelled; and if occasionally a certain tone of latent
mockery characterised his remarks upon the topics on which the
conversation fell, it appeared to men who took nothing in earnest
to be the language both of wit and wisdom.  To the Frenchmen, in
particular, there was something startling in his intimate
knowledge of the minutest events in their own capital and
country, and his profound penetration (evinced but in epigrams
and sarcasms) into the eminent characters who were then playing a
part upon the great stage of continental intrigue.

It was while this conversation grew animated, and the feast was
at its height, that Glyndon arrived at the palace.  The porter,
perceiving by his dress that he was not one of the invited
guests, told him that his Excellency was engaged, and on no
account could be disturbed; and Glyndon then, for the first time,
became aware how strange and embarrassing was the duty he had
taken on himself.  To force an entrance into the banquet-hall of
a great and powerful noble, surrounded by the rank of Naples, and
to arraign him for what to his boon-companions would appear but
an act of gallantry, was an exploit that could not fail to be at
once ludicrous and impotent.  He mused a moment, and, slipping a
piece of gold into the porter's hand, said that he was
commissioned to seek the Signor Zanoni upon an errand of life and
death, and easily won his way across the court, and into the
interior building.  He passed up the broad staircase, and the
voices and merriment of the revellers smote his ear at a
distance.  At the entrance of the reception-rooms he found a
page, whom he despatched with a message to Zanoni.  The page did
the errand; and Zanoni, on hearing the whispered name of Glyndon,
turned to his host.

"Pardon me, my lord; an English friend of mine, the Signor
Glyndon (not unknown by name to your Excellency) waits without,--
the business must indeed be urgent on which he has sought me in
such an hour.  You will forgive my momentary absence."

"Nay, signor," answered the prince, courteously, but with a
sinister smile on his countenance, "would it not be better for
your friend to join us?  An Englishman is welcome everywhere; and
even were he a Dutchman, your friendship would invest his
presence with attraction.  Pray his attendance; we would not
spare you even for a moment."

Zanoni bowed; the page was despatched with all flattering
messages to Glyndon,--a seat next to Zanoni was placed for him,
and the young Englishman entered.

"You are most welcome, sir.  I trust your business to our
illustrious guest is of good omen and pleasant import.  If you
bring evil news, defer it, I pray you."

Glyndon's brow was sullen; and he was about to startle the guests
by his reply, when Zanoni, touching his arm significantly,
whispered in English, "I know why you have sought me.  Be silent,
and witness what ensues."

"You know then that Viola, whom you boasted you had the power to
save from danger--"

"Is in this house!--yes.  I know also that Murder sits at the
right hand of our host.  But his fate is now separated from hers
forever; and the mirror which glasses it to my eye is clear
through the streams of blood.  Be still, and learn the fate that
awaits the wicked!

"My lord," said Zanoni, speaking aloud, "the Signor Glyndon has
indeed brought me tidings not wholly unexpected.  I am compelled
to leave Naples,--an additional motive to make the most of the
present hour."

"And what, if I may venture to ask, may be the cause that brings
such affliction on the fair dames of Naples?"

"It is the approaching death of one who honoured me with most
loyal friendship," replied Zanoni, gravely.  "Let us not speak of
it; grief cannot put back the dial.  As we supply by new flowers
those that fade in our vases, so it is the secret of worldly
wisdom to replace by fresh friendships those that fade from our
path."

"True philosophy!" exclaimed the prince.  "'Not to admire,' was
the Roman's maxim; 'Never to mourn,' is mine.  There is nothing
in life to grieve for, save, indeed, Signor Zanoni, when some
young beauty, on whom we have set our hearts, slips from our
grasp.  In such a moment we have need of all our wisdom, not to
succumb to despair, and shake hands with death.  What say you,
signor?  You smile!  Such never could be your lot.  Pledge me in
a sentiment, 'Long life to the fortunate lover,--a quick release
to the baffled suitor'?"

"I pledge you," said Zanoni; and, as the fatal wine was poured
into his glass, he repeated, fixing his eyes on the prince, "I
pledge you even in this wine!"

He lifted the glass to his lips.  The prince seemed ghastly pale,
while the gaze of his guest bent upon him, with an intent and
stern brightness, beneath which the conscience-stricken host
cowered and quailed.  Not till he had drained his draft, and
replaced the glass upon the board, did Zanoni turn his eyes from
the prince; and he then said, "Your wine has been kept too long;
it has lost its virtues.  It might disagree with many, but do not
fear: it will not harm me, prince, Signor Mascari, you are a
judge of the grape; will you favour us with your opinion?"

"Nay," answered Mascari, with well-affected composure, "I like
not the wines of Cyprus; they are heating.  Perhaps Signor
Glyndon may not have the same distaste?  The English are said to
love their potations warm and pungent."

"Do you wish my friend also to taste the wine, prince?" said
Zanoni.  "Recollect, all cannot drink it with the same impunity
as myself."

"No," said the prince, hastily; "if you do not recommend the
wine, Heaven forbid that we should constrain our guests!  My lord
duke," turning to one of the Frenchmen, "yours is the true soil
of Bacchus.  What think you of this cask from Burgundy?  Has it
borne the journey?"

"Ah," said Zanoni, "let us change both the wine and the theme."

With that, Zanoni grew yet more animated and brilliant.  Never
did wit more sparkling, airy, exhilarating, flash from the lips
of reveller.  His spirits fascinated all present--even the prince
himself, even Glyndon--with a strange and wild contagion.  The
former, indeed, whom the words and gaze of Zanoni, when he
drained the poison, had filled with fearful misgivings, now
hailed in the brilliant eloquence of his wit a certain sign of
the operation of the bane.  The wine circulated fast; but none
seemed conscious of its effects.  One by one the rest of the
party fell into a charmed and spellbound silence, as Zanoni
continued to pour forth sally upon sally, tale upon tale.  They
hung on his words, they almost held their breath to listen.  Yet,
how bitter was his mirth; how full of contempt for the triflers
present, and for the trifles which made their life!

Night came on; the room grew dim, and the feast had lasted
several hours longer than was the customary duration of similar
entertainments at that day.  Still the guests stirred not, and
still Zanoni continued, with glittering eye and mocking lip, to
lavish his stores of intellect and anecdote; when suddenly the
moon rose, and shed its rays over the flowers and fountains in
the court without, leaving the room itself half in shadow, and
half tinged by a quiet and ghostly light.

It was then that Zanoni rose.  "Well, gentlemen," said he, "we
have not yet wearied our host, I hope; and his garden offers a
new temptation to protract our stay.  Have you no musicians among
your train, prince, that might regale our ears while we inhale
the fragrance of your orange-trees?"

"An excellent thought!" said the prince.  "Mascari, see to the
music."

The party rose simultaneously to adjourn to the garden; and then,
for the first time, the effect of the wine they had drunk seemed
to make itself felt.

With flushed cheeks and unsteady steps they came into the open
air, which tended yet more to stimulate that glowing fever of the
grape.  As if to make up for the silence with which the guests
had hitherto listened to Zanoni, every tongue was now loosened,--
every man talked, no man listened.  There was something wild and
fearful in the contrast between the calm beauty of the night and
scene, and the hubbub and clamour of these disorderly roysters.
One of the Frenchmen, in especial, the young Duc de R--, a
nobleman of the highest rank, and of all the quick, vivacious,
and irascible temperament of his countrymen, was particularly
noisy and excited.  And as circumstances, the remembrance of
which is still preserved among certain circles of Naples,
rendered it afterwards necessary that the duc should himself give
evidence of what occurred, I will here translate the short
account he drew up, and which was kindly submitted to me some few
years ago by my accomplished and lively friend, Il Cavaliere di
B--.

"I never remember," writes the duc, "to have felt my spirits so
excited as on that evening; we were like so many boys released
from school, jostling each other as we reeled or ran down the
flight of seven or eight stairs that led from the colonnade into
the garden,--some laughing, some whooping, some scolding, some
babbling.  The wine had brought out, as it were, each man's
inmost character.  Some were loud and quarrelsome, others
sentimental and whining; some, whom we had hitherto thought dull,
most mirthful; some, whom we had ever regarded as discreet and
taciturn, most garrulous and uproarious.  I remember that in the
midst of our clamorous gayety, my eye fell upon the cavalier
Signor Zanoni, whose conversation had so enchanted us all; and I
felt a certain chill come over me to perceive that he wore the
same calm and unsympathising smile upon his countenance which had
characterised it in his singular and curious stories of the court
of Louis XIV.  I felt, indeed, half-inclined to seek a quarrel
with one whose composure was almost an insult to our disorder.
Nor was such an effect of this irritating and mocking
tranquillity confined to myself alone.  Several of the party have
told me since, that on looking at Zanoni they felt their blood
yet more heated, and gayety change to resentment.  There seemed
in his icy smile a very charm to wound vanity and provoke rage.
It was at this moment that the prince came up to me, and, passing
his arm into mine, led me a little apart from the rest.  He had
certainly indulged in the same excess as ourselves, but it did
not produce the same effect of noisy excitement.  There was, on
the contrary, a certain cold arrogance and supercilious scorn in
his bearing and language, which, even while affecting so much
caressing courtesy towards me, roused my self-love against him.
He seemed as if Zanoni had infected him; and in imitating the
manner of his guest, he surpassed the original.  He rallied me on
some court gossip, which had honoured my name by associating it
with a certain beautiful and distinguished Sicilian lady, and
affected to treat with contempt that which, had it been true, I
should have regarded as a boast.  He spoke, indeed, as if he
himself had gathered all the flowers of Naples, and left us
foreigners only the gleanings he had scorned.  At this my natural
and national gallantry was piqued, and I retorted by some
sarcasms that I should certainly have spared had my blood been
cooler.  He laughed heartily, and left me in a strange fit of
resentment and anger.  Perhaps (I must own the truth) the wine
had produced in me a wild disposition to take offence and provoke
quarrel.  As the prince left me, I turned, and saw Zanoni at my
side.

"'The prince is a braggart,' said he, with the same smile that
displeased me before.  'He would monopolize all fortune and all
love.  Let us take our revenge.'

"'And how?'

"'He has at this moment, in his house, the most enchanting singer
in Naples,--the celebrated Viola Pisani.  She is here, it is
true, not by her own choice; he carried her hither by force, but
he will pretend that she adores him.  Let us insist on his
producing this secret treasure, and when she enters, the Duc de
R-- can have no doubt that his flatteries and attentions will
charm the lady, and provoke all the jealous fears of our host.
It would be a fair revenge upon his imperious self-conceit.'

"This suggestion delighted me.  I hastened to the prince.  At
that instant the musicians had just commenced; I waved my hand,
ordered the music to stop, and, addressing the prince, who was
standing in the centre of one of the gayest groups, complained of
his want of hospitality in affording to us such poor proficients
in the art, while he reserved for his own solace the lute and
voice of the first performer in Naples.  I demanded,
half-laughingly, half-seriously, that he should produce the
Pisani.  My demand was received with shouts of applause by the
rest.  We drowned the replies of our host with uproar, and would
hear no denial.  'Gentlemen,' at last said the prince, when he
could obtain an audience, 'even were I to assent to your
proposal, I could not induce the signora to present herself
before an assemblage as riotous as they are noble.  You have too
much chivalry to use compulsion with her, though the Duc de R--
forgets himself sufficiently to administer it to me.'

"I was stung by this taunt, however well deserved.  'Prince,'
said I, 'I have for the indelicacy of compulsion so illustrious
an example that I cannot hesitate to pursue the path honoured by
your own footsteps.  All Naples knows that the Pisani despises at
once your gold and your love; that force alone could have brought
her under your roof; and that you refuse to produce her, because
you fear her complaints, and know enough of the chivalry your
vanity sneers at to feel assured that the gentlemen of France are
not more disposed to worship beauty than to defend it from
wrong.'

"'You speak well, sir,' said Zanoni, gravely.  'The prince dares
not produce his prize!'

"The prince remained speechless for a few moments, as if with
indignation.  At last he broke out into expressions the most
injurious and insulting against Signor Zanoni and myself.  Zanoni
replied not; I was more hot and hasty.  The guests appeared to
delight in our dispute.  None, except Mascari, whom we pushed
aside and disdained to hear, strove to conciliate; some took one
side, some another.  The issue may be well foreseen.  Swords were
called for and procured.  Two were offered me by one of the
party.  I was about to choose one, when Zanoni placed in my hand
the other, which, from its hilt, appeared of antiquated
workmanship.  At the same moment, looking towards the prince, he
said, smilingly, 'The duc takes your grandsire's sword.  Prince,
you are too brave a man for superstition; you have forgot the
forfeit!'  Our host seemed to me to recoil and turn pale at those
words; nevertheless, he returned Zanoni's smile with a look of
defiance.  The next moment all was broil and disorder.  There
might be some six or eight persons engaged in a strange and
confused kind of melee, but the prince and myself only sought
each other.  The noise around us, the confusion of the guests,
the cries of the musicians, the clash of our own swords, only
served to stimulate our unhappy fury.  We feared to be
interrupted by the attendants, and fought like madmen, without
skill or method.  I thrust and parried mechanically, blind and
frantic, as if a demon had entered into me, till I saw the prince
stretched at my feet, bathed in his blood, and Zanoni bending
over him, and whispering in his ear.  That sight cooled us all.
The strife ceased; we gathered, in shame, remorse, and horror,
round our ill-fated host; but it was too late,--his eyes rolled
fearfully in his head.  I have seen many men die, but never one
who wore such horror on his countenance.  At last all was over!
Zanoni rose from the corpse, and, taking, with great composure,
the sword from my hand, said calmly, 'Ye are witnesses,
gentlemen, that the prince brought his fate upon himself.  The
last of that illustrious house has perished in a brawl.'

"I saw no more of Zanoni.  I hastened to our envoy to narrate the
event, and abide the issue.  I am grateful to the Neapolitan
government, and to the illustrious heir of the unfortunate
nobleman, for the lenient and generous, yet just, interpretation
put upon a misfortune the memory of which will afflict me to the
last hour of my life.

(Signed) "Louis Victor, Duc de R."

In the above memorial, the reader will find the most exact and
minute account yet given of an event which created the most
lively sensation at Naples in that day.

Glyndon had taken no part in the affray, neither had he
participated largely in the excesses of the revel.  For his
exemption from both he was perhaps indebted to the whispered
exhortations of Zanoni.  When the last rose from the corpse, and
withdrew from that scene of confusion, Glyndon remarked that in
passing the crowd he touched Mascari on the shoulder, and said
something which the Englishman did not overhear.  Glyndon
followed Zanoni into the banquet-room, which, save where the
moonlight slept on the marble floor, was wrapped in the sad and
gloomy shadows of the advancing night.

"How could you foretell this fearful event?  He fell not by your
arm!" said Glyndon, in a tremulous and hollow tone.

"The general who calculates on the victory does not fight in
person," answered Zanoni; "let the past sleep with the dead.
Meet me at midnight by the sea-shore, half a mile to the left of
your hotel.  You will know the spot by a rude pillar--the only
one near--to which a broken chain is attached.  There and then,
if thou wouldst learn our lore, thou shalt find the master.  Go;
I have business here yet.  Remember, Viola is still in the house
of the dead man!"

Here Mascari approached, and Zanoni, turning to the Italian, and
waving his hand to Glyndon, drew the former aside.  Glyndon
slowly departed.

"Mascari," said Zanoni, "your patron is no more; your services
will be valueless to his heir,--a sober man whom poverty has
preserved from vice.  For yourself, thank me that I do not give
you up to the executioner; recollect the wine of Cyprus.  Well,
never tremble, man; it could not act on me, though it might react
on others; in that it is a common type of crime.  I forgive you;
and if the wine should kill me, I promise you that my ghost shall
not haunt so worshipful a penitent.  Enough of this; conduct me
to the chamber of Viola Pisani.  You have no further need of her.
The death of the jailer opens the cell of the captive.  Be quick;
I would be gone."

Mascari muttered some inaudible words, bowed low, and led the way
to the chamber in which Viola was confined.


CHAPTER 3.XVIII.

Merc:  Tell me, therefore, what thou seekest after, and what thou
wilt have.  What dost thou desire to make?

Alch:  The Philosopher's Stone.

Sandivogius.

It wanted several minutes of midnight, and Glyndon repaired to
the appointed spot.  The mysterious empire which Zanoni had
acquired over him, was still more solemnly confirmed by the
events of the last few hours; the sudden fate of the prince, so
deliberately foreshadowed, and yet so seemingly accidental,
brought out by causes the most commonplace, and yet associated
with words the most prophetic, impressed him with the deepest
sentiments of admiration and awe.  It was as if this dark and
wondrous being could convert the most ordinary events and the
meanest instruments into the agencies of his inscrutable will;
yet, if so, why have permitted the capture of Viola?  Why not
have prevented the crime rather than punish the criminal?  And
did Zanoni really feel love for Viola?  Love, and yet offer to
resign her to himself,--to a rival whom his arts could not have
failed to baffle.  He no longer reverted to the belief that
Zanoni or Viola had sought to dupe him into marriage.  His fear
and reverence for the former now forbade the notion of so poor an
imposture.  Did he any longer love Viola himself?  No; when that
morning he had heard of her danger, he had, it is true, returned
to the sympathies and the fears of affection; but with the death
of the prince her image faded from his heart, and he felt no
jealous pang at the thought that she had been saved by Zanoni,--
that at that moment she was perhaps beneath his roof.  Whoever
has, in the course of his life, indulged the absorbing passion of
the gamester, will remember how all other pursuits and objects
vanished from his mind; how solely he was wrapped in the one wild
delusion; with what a sceptre of magic power the despot-demon
ruled every feeling and every thought.  Far more intense than the
passion of the gamester was the frantic yet sublime desire that
mastered the breast of Glyndon.  He would be the rival of Zanoni,
not in human and perishable affections, but in preternatural and
eternal lore.  He would have laid down life with content--nay,
rapture--as the price of learning those solemn secrets which
separated the stranger from mankind.  Enamoured of the goddess of
goddesses, he stretched forth his arms--the wild Ixion--and
embraced a cloud!

The night was most lovely and serene, and the waves scarcely
rippled at his feet as the Englishman glided on by the cool and
starry beach.  At length he arrived at the spot, and there,
leaning against the broken pillar, he beheld a man wrapped in a
long mantle, and in an attitude of profound repose.  He
approached, and uttered the name of Zanoni.  The figure turned,
and he saw the face of a stranger:  a face not stamped by the
glorious beauty of Zanoni, but equally majestic in its aspect,
and perhaps still more impressive from the mature age and the
passionless depth of thought that characterised the expanded
forehead, and deep-set but piercing eyes.

"You seek Zanoni," said the stranger; "he will be here anon; but,
perhaps, he whom you see before you is more connected with your
destiny, and more disposed to realise your dreams."

"Hath the earth, then, another Zanoni?"

"If not," replied the stranger, "why do you cherish the hope and
the wild faith to be yourself a Zanoni?  Think you that none
others have burned with the same godlike dream?  Who, indeed in
his first youth,--youth when the soul is nearer to the heaven
from which it sprang, and its divine and primal longings are not
all effaced by the sordid passions and petty cares that are begot
in time,--who is there in youth that has not nourished the belief
that the universe has secrets not known to the common herd, and
panted, as the hart for the water-springs, for the fountains that
lie hid and far away amidst the broad wilderness of trackless
science?  The music of the fountain is heard in the soul WITHIN,
till the steps, deceived and erring, rove away from its waters,
and the wanderer dies in the mighty desert.  Think you that none
who have cherished the hope have found the truth, or that the
yearning after the Ineffable Knowledge was given to us utterly in
vain?  No!  Every desire in human hearts is but a glimpse of
things that exist, alike distant and divine.  No! in the world
there have been from age to age some brighter and happier spirits
who have attained to the air in which the beings above mankind
move and breathe.  Zanoni, great though he be, stands not alone.
He has had his predecessors, and long lines of successors may be
yet to come."

"And will you tell me," said Glyndon, "that in yourself I behold
one of that mighty few over whom Zanoni has no superiority in
power and wisdom?"

"In me," answered the stranger, "you see one from whom Zanoni
himself learned some of his loftiest secrets.  On these shores,
on this spot, have I stood in ages that your chroniclers but
feebly reach.  The Phoenician, the Greek, the Oscan, the Roman,
the Lombard, I have seen them all!--leaves gay and glittering on
the trunk of the universal life, scattered in due season and
again renewed; till, indeed, the same race that gave its glory to
the ancient world bestowed a second youth upon the new.  For the
pure Greeks, the Hellenes, whose origin has bewildered your
dreaming scholars, were of the same great family as the Norman
tribe, born to be the lords of the universe, and in no land on
earth destined to become the hewers of wood.  Even the dim
traditions of the learned, which bring the sons of Hellas from
the vast and undetermined territories of Northern Thrace, to be
the victors of the pastoral Pelasgi, and the founders of the line
of demi-gods; which assign to a population bronzed beneath the
suns of the West, the blue-eyed Minerva and the yellow-haired
Achilles (physical characteristics of the North); which
introduce, amongst a pastoral people, warlike aristocracies and
limited monarchies, the feudalism of the classic time,--even
these might serve you to trace back the primeval settlements of
the Hellenes to the same region whence, in later times, the
Norman warriors broke on the dull and savage hordes of the Celt,
and became the Greeks of the Christian world.  But this interests
you not, and you are wise in your indifference.  Not in the
knowledge of things without, but in the perfection of the soul
within, lies the empire of man aspiring to be more than man."

"And what books contain that science; from what laboratory is it
wrought?"

"Nature supplies the materials; they are around you in your daily
walks.  In the herbs that the beast devours and the chemist
disdains to cull; in the elements from which matter in its
meanest and its mightiest shapes is deduced; in the wide bosom of
the air; in the black abysses of the earth; everywhere are given
to mortals the resources and libraries of immortal lore.  But as
the simplest problems in the simplest of all studies are obscure
to one who braces not his mind to their comprehension; as the
rower in yonder vessel cannot tell you why two circles can touch
each other only in one point,--so though all earth were carved
over and inscribed with the letters of diviner knowledge, the
characters would be valueless to him who does not pause to
inquire the language and meditate the truth.  Young man, if thy
imagination is vivid, if thy heart is daring, if thy curiosity is
insatiate, I will accept thee as my  pupil.  But the first
lessons are stern and dread."

"If thou hast mastered them, why not I?" answered Glyndon,
boldly.  "I have felt from my boyhood that strange mysteries were
reserved for my career; and from the proudest ends of ordinary
ambition I have carried my gaze into the cloud and darkness that
stretch beyond.  The instant I beheld Zanoni, I felt as if I had
discovered the guide and the tutor for which my youth had idly
languished and vainly burned."

"And to me his duty is transferred," replied the stranger.
"Yonder lies, anchored in the bay, the vessel in which Zanoni
seeks a fairer home; a little while and the breeze will rise, the
sail will swell; and the stranger will have passed, like a wind,
away.  Still, like the wind, he leaves in thy heart the seeds
that may bear the blossom and the fruit.  Zanoni hath performed
his task,--he is wanted no more; the perfecter of his work is at
thy side.  He comes!  I hear the dash of the oar.  You will have
your choice submitted to you.  According as you decide we shall
meet again."  With these words the stranger moved slowly away,
and disappeared beneath the shadow of the cliffs.  A boat glided
rapidly across the waters:  it touched land; a man leaped on
shore, and Glyndon recognised Zanoni.

"I give thee, Glyndon,--I give thee no more the option of happy
love and serene enjoyment.  That hour is past, and fate has
linked the hand that might have been thine own to mine.  But I
have ample gifts to bestow upon thee, if thou wilt abandon the
hope that gnaws thy heart, and the realisation of which even _I_
have not the power to foresee.  Be thine ambition human, and I
can gratify it to the full.  Men desire four things in life,--
love, wealth, fame, power.  The first I cannot give thee, the
rest are at my disposal.  Select which of them thou wilt, and let
us part in peace."

"Such are not the gifts I covet.  I choose knowledge; that
knowledge must be thine own.  For this, and for this alone, I
surrendered the love of Viola; this, and this alone, must be my
recompense."

"I cannot gain say thee, though I can warn.  The desire to learn
does not always contain the faculty to acquire.  I can give thee,
it is true, the teacher,--the rest must depend on thee.  Be wise
in time, and take that which I can assure to thee."

"Answer me but these questions, and according to your answer I
will decide.  Is it in the power of man to attain intercourse
with the beings of other worlds?  Is it in the power of man to
influence the elements, and to insure life against the sword and
against disease?"

"All this may be possible," answered Zanoni, evasively, "to the
few; but for one who attains such secrets, millions may perish in
the attempt."

"One question more.  Thou--"

"Beware!  Of myself, as I have said before, I render no account."

"Well, then, the stranger I have met this night,--are his boasts
to be believed?  Is he in truth one of the chosen seers whom you
allow to have mastered the mysteries I yearn to fathom?"

"Rash man," said Zanoni, in a tone of compassion, "thy crisis is
past, and thy choice made!  I can only bid thee be bold and
prosper; yes, I resign thee to a master who HAS the power and the
will to open to thee the gates of an awful world.  Thy weal or
woe are as nought in the eyes of his relentless wisdom.  I would
bid him spare thee, but he will heed me not.  Mejnour, receive
thy pupil!"  Glyndon turned, and his heart beat when he perceived
that the stranger, whose footsteps he had not heard upon the
pebbles, whose approach he had not beheld in the moonlight, was
once more by his side.

"Farewell," resumed Zanoni; "thy trial commences.  When next we
meet, thou wilt be the victim or the victor."

Glyndon's eyes followed the receding form of the mysterious
stranger.  He saw him enter the boat, and he then for the first
time noticed that besides the rowers there was a female, who
stood up as Zanoni gained the boat.  Even at the distance he
recognised the once-adored form of Viola.  She waved her hand to
him, and across the still and shining air came her voice,
mournfully and sweetly, in her mother's tongue, "Farewell,
Clarence,--I forgive thee!--farewell, farewell!"

He strove to answer; but the voice touched a chord at his heart,
and the words failed him.  Viola was then lost forever, gone with
this dread stranger; darkness was round her lot!  And he himself
had decided her fate and his own!  The boat bounded on, the soft
waves flashed and sparkled beneath the oars, and it was along one
sapphire track of moonlight that the frail vessel bore away the
lovers.  Farther and farther from his gaze sped the boat, till at
last the speck, scarcely visible, touched the side of the ship
that lay lifeless in the glorious bay.  At that instant, as if by
magic, up sprang, with a glad murmur, the playful and freshening
wind:  and Glyndon turned to Mejnour and broke the silence.

"Tell me--if thou canst read the future--tell me that HER lot
will be fair, and that HER choice at least is wise?"

"My pupil!" answered Mejnour, in a voice the calmness of which
well accorded with the chilling words, "thy first task must be to
withdraw all thought, feeling, sympathy from others.  The
elementary stage of knowledge is to make self, and self alone,
thy study and thy world.  Thou hast decided thine own career;
thou hast renounced love; thou hast rejected wealth, fame, and
the vulgar pomps of power.  What, then, are all mankind to thee?
To perfect thy faculties, and concentrate thy emotions, is
henceforth thy only aim!"

"And will happiness be the end?"

"If happiness exist," answered Mejnour, "it must be centred in a
SELF to which all passion is unknown.  But happiness is the last
state of being; and as yet thou art on the threshold of the
first."

As Mejnour spoke, the distant vessel spread its sails to the
wind, and moved slowly along the deep.  Glyndon sighed, and the
pupil and the master retraced their steps towards the city.



BOOK IV.

THE DWELLER OF THE THRESHOLD.

Bey hinter ihm was will! Ich heb ihn auf.
"Das Verschleierte Bildzu Sais"

(Be behind what there may, - I raise the veil.)


CHAPTER 4.I.

Come vittima io vengo all' ara.
"Metast.," At. ii. Sc. 7.

(As a victim I go to the altar.)

It was about a month after the date of Zanoni's departure and
Glyndon's introduction to Mejnour, when two Englishmen were
walking, arm-in-arm, through the Toledo.

"I tell you," said one (who spoke warmly), "that if you have a
particle of common-sense left in you, you will accompany me to
England.  This Mejnour is an imposter more dangerous, because
more in earnest, than Zanoni.  After all, what do his promises
amount to?  You allow that nothing can be more equivocal.  You
say that he has left Naples,--that he has selected a retreat more
congenial than the crowded thoroughfares of men to the studies in
which he is to initiate you; and this retreat is among the haunts
of the fiercest bandits of Italy,--haunts which justice itself
dares not penetrate.  Fitting hermitage for a sage!  I tremble
for you.  What if this stranger--of whom nothing is known--be
leagued with the robbers; and these lures for your credulity bait
but the traps for your property,--perhaps your life?  You might
come off cheaply by a ransom of half your fortune.  You smile
indignantly!  Well, put common-sense out of the question; take
your own view of the matter.  You are to undergo an ordeal which
Mejnour himself does not profess to describe as a very tempting
one.  It may, or it may not, succeed:  if it does not, you are
menaced with the darkest evils; and if it does, you cannot be
better off than the dull and joyless mystic whom you have taken
for a master.  Away with this folly; enjoy youth while it is left
to you; return with me to England; forget these dreams; enter
your proper career; form affections more respectable than those
which lured you awhile to an Italian adventuress.  Attend to your
fortune, make money, and become a happy and distinguished man.
This is the advice of sober friendship; yet the promises I hold
out to you are fairer than those of Mejnour."

"Mervale," said Glyndon, doggedly, "I cannot, if I would, yield
to your wishes.  A power that is above me urges me on; I cannot
resist its influence.  I will proceed to the last in the strange
career I have commenced.  Think of me no more.  Follow yourself
the advice you give to me, and be happy."

"This is madness," said Mervale; "your health is already failing;
you are so changed I should scarcely know you.  Come; I have
already had your name entered in my passport; in another hour I
shall be gone, and you, boy that you are, will be left, without a
friend, to the deceits of your own fancy and the machinations of
this relentless mountebank."

"Enough," said Glyndon, coldly; "you cease to be an effective
counsellor when you suffer your prejudices to be thus evident.  I
have already had ample proof," added the Englishman, and his pale
cheek grew more pale, "of the power of this man,--if man he be,
which I sometimes doubt,--and, come life, come death, I will not
shrink from the paths that allure me.  Farewell, Mervale; if we
never meet again,--if you hear, amidst our old and cheerful
haunts, that Clarence Glyndon sleeps the last sleep by the shores
of Naples, or amidst yon distant hills, say to the friends of our
youth, 'He died worthily, as thousands of martyr-students have
died before him, in the pursuit of knowledge.'"

He wrung Mervale's hand as he spoke, darted from his side, and
disappeared amidst the crowd.

By the corner of the Toledo he was arrested by Nicot.

"Ah, Glyndon!  I have not seen you this month.  Where have you
hid yourself?  Have you been absorbed in your studies?"

"Yes."

"I am about to leave Naples for Paris.  Will you accompany me?
Talent of all order is eagerly sought for there, and will be sure
to rise."

"I thank you; I have other schemes for the present."

"So laconic!--what ails you?  Do you grieve for the loss of the
Pisani?  Take example by me.  I have already consoled myself with
Bianca Sacchini,--a handsome woman, enlightened, no prejudices.
A valuable creature I shall find her, no doubt.  But as for this
Zanoni!"

"What of him?"

"If ever I paint an allegorical subject, I will take his likeness
as Satan.  Ha, ha! a true painter's revenge,--eh?  And the way of
the world, too!  When we can do nothing else against a man whom
we hate, we can at least paint his effigies as the Devil's.
Seriously, though:  I abhor that man."

"Wherefore?'

"Wherefore!  Has he not carried off the wife and the dowry I had
marked for myself!  Yet, after all," added Nicot, musingly, "had
he served instead of injured me, I should have hated him all the
same.  His very form, and his very face, made me at once envy and
detest him.  I felt that there is something antipathetic in our
natures.  I feel, too, that we shall meet again, when Jean
Nicot's hate may be less impotent.  We, too, cher confrere,--we,
too, may meet again!  Vive la Republique!  I to my new world!"

"And I to mine.  Farewell!"

That day Mervale left Naples; the next morning Glyndon also
quitted the City of Delight alone, and on horseback.  He bent his
way into those picturesque but dangerous parts of the country
which at that time were infested by banditti, and which few
travellers dared to pass, even in broad daylight, without a
strong escort.  A road more lonely cannot well be conceived than
that on which the hoofs of his steed, striking upon the fragments
of rock that encumbered the neglected way, woke a dull and
melancholy echo.  Large tracts of waste land, varied by the rank
and profuse foliage of the South, lay before him; occasionally a
wild goat peeped down from some rocky crag, or the discordant cry
of a bird of prey, startled in its sombre haunt, was heard above
the hills.  These were the only signs of life; not a human being
was met,--not a hut was visible.  Wrapped in his own ardent and
solemn thoughts, the young man continued his way, till the sun
had spent its noonday heat, and a breeze that announced the
approach of eve sprung up from the unseen ocean which lay far
distant to his right.  It was then that a turn in the road
brought before him one of those long, desolate, gloomy villages
which are found in the interior of the Neapolitan dominions:  and
now he came upon a small chapel on one side the road, with a
gaudily painted image of the Virgin in the open shrine.  Around
this spot, which, in the heart of a Christian land, retained the
vestige of the old idolatry (for just such were the chapels that
in the pagan age were dedicated to the demon-saints of
mythology), gathered six or seven miserable and squalid wretches,
whom the curse of the leper had cut off from mankind.  They set
up a shrill cry as they turned their ghastly visages towards the
horseman; and, without stirring from the spot, stretched out
their gaunt arms, and implored charity in the name of the
Merciful Mother!  Glyndon hastily threw them some small coins,
and, turning away his face, clapped spurs to his horse, and
relaxed not his speed till he entered the village.  On either
side the narrow and miry street, fierce and haggard forms--some
leaning against the ruined walls of blackened huts, some seated
at the threshold, some lying at full length in the mud--presented
groups that at once invoked pity and aroused alarm:  pity for
their squalor, alarm for the ferocity imprinted on their savage
aspects.  They gazed at him, grim and sullen, as he rode slowly
up the rugged street; sometimes whispering significantly to each
other, but without attempting to stop his way.  Even the children
hushed their babble, and ragged urchins, devouring him with
sparkling eyes, muttered to their mothers; "We shall feast well
to-morrow!"  It was, indeed, one of those hamlets in which Law
sets not its sober step, in which Violence and Murder house
secure,--hamlets common then in the wilder parts of Italy, in
which the peasant was but the gentler name for the robber.

Glyndon's heart somewhat failed him as he looked around, and the
question he desired to ask died upon his lips.  At length from
one of the dismal cabins emerged a form superior to the rest.
Instead of the patched and ragged over-all, which made the only
garment of the men he had hitherto seen, the dress of this person
was characterised by all the trappings of the national bravery.
Upon his raven hair, the glossy curls of which made a notable
contrast to the matted and elfin locks of the savages around, was
placed a cloth cap, with a gold tassel that hung down to his
shoulder; his mustaches were trimmed with care, and a silk
kerchief of gay hues was twisted round a well-shaped but sinewy
throat; a short jacket of rough cloth was decorated with several
rows of gilt filagree buttons; his nether garments fitted tight
to his limbs, and were curiously braided; while in a broad parti-
coloured sash were placed two silver-hilted pistols, and the
sheathed knife, usually worn by Italians of the lower order,
mounted in ivory elaborately carved.  A small carbine of handsome
workmanship was slung across his shoulder and completed his
costume.  The man himself was of middle size, athletic yet
slender, with straight and regular features, sunburnt, but not
swarthy; and an expression of countenance which, though reckless
and bold, had in it frankness rather than ferocity, and, if
defying, was not altogether unprepossessing.

Glyndon, after eyeing this figure for some moments with great
attention, checked his rein, and asked the way to the "Castle of
the Mountain."

The man lifted his cap as he heard the question, and, approaching
Glyndon, laid his hand upon the neck of the horse, and said, in a
low voice, "Then you are the cavalier whom our patron the signor
expected.  He bade me wait for you here, and lead you to the
castle.  And indeed, signor, it might have been unfortunate if I
had neglected to obey the command."

The man then, drawing a little aside, called out to the
bystanders in a loud voice, "Ho, ho! my friends, pay henceforth
and forever all respect to this worshipful cavalier.  He is the
expected guest of our blessed patron of the Castle of the
Mountain.  Long life to him!  May he, like his host, be safe by
day and by night; on the hill and in the waste; against the
dagger and the bullet,--in limb and in life!  Cursed be he who
touches a hair of his head, or a baioccho in his pouch.  Now and
forever we will protect and honour him,--for the law or against
the law; with the faith and to the death.  Amen!  Amen!"

"Amen!" responded, in wild chorus, a hundred voices; and the
scattered and straggling groups pressed up the street, nearer and
nearer to the horseman.

"And that he may be known," continued the Englishman's strange
protector, "to the eye and to the ear, I place around him the
white sash, and I give him the sacred watchword, 'Peace to the
Brave.'  Signor, when you wear this sash, the proudest in these
parts will bare the head and bend the knee.  Signor, when you
utter this watchword, the bravest hearts will be bound to your
bidding.  Desire you safety, or ask you revenge--to gain a
beauty, or to lose a foe,--speak but the word, and we are yours:
we are yours!  Is it not so, comrades?"

And again the hoarse voices shouted, "Amen, Amen!"

"Now, signor," whispered the bravo, "if you have a few coins to
spare, scatter them amongst the crowd, and let us be gone."

Glyndon, not displeased at the concluding sentence, emptied his
purse in the streets; and while, with mingled oaths, blessings,
shrieks, and yells, men, women, and children scrambled for the
money, the bravo, taking the rein of the horse, led it a few
paces through the village at a brisk trot, and then, turning up a
narrow lane to the left, in a few minutes neither houses nor men
were visible, and the mountains closed their path on either side.
It was then that, releasing the bridle and slackening his pace,
the guide turned his dark eyes on Glyndon with an arch
expression, and said,--

"Your Excellency was not, perhaps, prepared for the hearty
welcome we have given you."

"Why, in truth, I OUGHT to have been prepared for it, since the
signor, to whose house I am bound, did not disguise from me the
character of the neighbourhood.  And your name, my friend, if I
may so call you?"

"Oh, no ceremonies with me, Excellency.  In the village I am
generally called Maestro Paolo.  I had a surname once, though a
very equivocal one; and I have forgotten THAT since I retired
from the world."

"And was it from disgust, from poverty, or from some--some
ebullition of passion which entailed punishment, that you betook
yourself to the mountains?"

"Why, signor," said the bravo, with a gay laugh, "hermits of my
class seldom love the confessional.  However, I have no secrets
while my step is in these defiles, my whistle in my pouch, and my
carbine at my back."  With that the robber, as if he loved
permission to talk at his will, hemmed thrice, and began with
much humour; though, as his tale proceeded, the memories it
roused seemed to carry him farther than he at first intended, and
reckless and light-hearted ease gave way to that fierce and
varied play of countenance and passion of gesture which
characterise the emotions of his countrymen.

"I was born at Terracina,--a fair spot, is it not?  My father was
a learned monk of high birth; my mother--Heaven rest her!--an
innkeeper's pretty daughter.  Of course there could be no
marriage in the case; and when I was born, the monk gravely
declared my appearance to be miraculous.  I was dedicated from my
cradle to the altar; and my head was universally declared to be
the orthodox shape for a cowl.  As I grew up, the monk took great
pains with my education; and I learned Latin and psalmody as soon
as less miraculous infants learn crowing.  Nor did the holy man's
care stint itself to my interior accomplishments.  Although vowed
to poverty, he always contrived that my mother should have her
pockets full; and between her pockets and mine there was soon
established a clandestine communication; accordingly, at
fourteen, I wore my cap on one side, stuck pistols in my belt,
and assumed the swagger of a cavalier and a gallant.  At that age
my poor mother died; and about the same period my father, having
written a History of the Pontifical Bulls, in forty volumes, and
being, as I said, of high birth, obtained a cardinal's hat.  From
that time he thought fit to disown your humble servant.  He bound
me over to an honest notary at Naples, and gave me two hundred
crowns by way of provision.  Well, signor, I saw enough of the
law to convince me that I should never be rogue enough to shine
in the profession.  So, instead of spoiling parchment, I made
love to the notary's daughter.  My master discovered our innocent
amusement, and turned me out of doors; that was disagreeable.
But my Ninetta loved me, and took care that I should not lie out
in the streets with the Lazzaroni.  Little jade!  I think I see
her now with her bare feet, and her finger to her lips, opening
the door in the summer nights, and bidding me creep softly into
the kitchen, where, praised be the saints! a flask and a manchet
always awaited the hungry amoroso.  At last, however, Ninetta
grew cold.  It is the way of the sex, signor.  Her father found
her an excellent marriage in the person of a withered old
picture-dealer.  She took the spouse, and very properly clapped
the door in the face of the lover.  I was not disheartened,
Excellency; no, not I.  Women are plentiful while we are young.
So, without a ducat in my pocket or a crust for my teeth, I set
out to seek my fortune on board of a Spanish merchantman.  That
was duller work than I expected; but luckily we were attacked by
a pirate,--half the crew were butchered, the rest captured.  I
was one of the last:  always in luck, you see, signor,--monks'
sons have a knack that way!  The captain of the pirates took a
fancy to me.  'Serve with us?' said he.  'Too happy,' said I.
Behold me, then, a pirate!  O jolly life! how I blessed the old
notary for turning me out of doors!  What feasting, what
fighting, what wooing, what quarrelling!  Sometimes we ran ashore
and enjoyed ourselves like princes; sometimes we lay in a calm
for days together on the loveliest sea that man ever traversed.
And then, if the breeze rose and a sail came in sight, who so
merry as we?  I passed three years in that charming profession,
and then, signor, I grew ambitious.  I caballed against the
captain; I wanted his post.  One still night we struck the blow.
The ship was like a log in the sea, no land to be seen from the
mast-head, the waves like glass, and the moon at its full.  Up we
rose, thirty of us and more.  Up we rose with a shout; we poured
into the captain's cabin, I at the head.  The brave old boy had
caught the alarm, and there he stood at the doorway, a pistol in
each hand; and his one eye (he had only one) worse to meet than
the pistols were.

"'Yield!' cried I; 'your life shall be safe.'

"'Take that,' said he, and whiz went the pistol; but the saints
took care of their own, and the ball passed by my cheek, and shot
the boatswain behind me.  I closed with the captain, and the
other pistol went off without mischief in the struggle.  Such a
fellow he was,--six feet four without his shoes!  Over we went,
rolling each on the other.  Santa Maria! no time to get hold of
one's knife.  Meanwhile all the crew were up, some for the
captain, some for me,--clashing and firing, and swearing and
groaning, and now and then a heavy splash in the sea.  Fine
supper for the sharks that night!  At last old Bilboa got
uppermost; out flashed his knife; down it came, but not in my
heart.  No! I gave my left arm as a shield; and the blade went
through to the hilt, with the blood spurting up like the rain
from a whale's nostril!  With the weight of the blow the stout
fellow came down so that his face touched mine; with my right
hand I caught him by the throat, turned him over like a lamb,
signor, and faith it was soon all up with him:  the boatswain's
brother, a fat Dutchman, ran him through with a pike.

"'Old fellow,' said I, as he turned his terrible eye to me, 'I
bear you no malice, but we must try to get on in the world, you
know.'  The captain grinned and gave up the ghost.  I went upon
deck,--what a sight!  Twenty bold fellows stark and cold, and the
moon sparkling on the puddles of blood as calmly as if it were
water.  Well, signor, the victory was ours, and the ship mine; I
ruled merrily enough for six months.  We then attacked a French
ship twice our size; what sport it was!  And we had not had a
good fight so long, we were quite like virgins at it!  We got the
best of it, and won ship and cargo.  They wanted to pistol the
captain, but that was against my laws:  so we gagged him, for he
scolded as loud as if we were married to him; left him and the
rest of his crew on board our own vessel, which was terribly
battered; clapped our black flag on the Frenchman's, and set off
merrily, with a brisk wind in our favour.  But luck deserted us
on forsaking our own dear old ship.  A storm came on, a plank
struck; several of us escaped in a boat; we had lots of gold with
us, but no water.  For two days and two nights we suffered
horribly; but at last we ran ashore near a French seaport.  Our
sorry plight moved compassion, and as we had money, we were not
suspected,--people only suspect the poor.  Here we soon recovered
our fatigues, rigged ourselves out gayly, and your humble servant
was considered as noble a captain as ever walked deck.  But now,
alas! my fate would have it that I should fall in love with a
silk-mercer's daughter.  Ah, how I loved her!--the pretty Clara!
Yes, I loved her so well that I was seized with horror at my past
life!  I resolved to repent, to marry her, and settle down into
an honest man.  Accordingly, I summoned my messmates, told them
my resolution, resigned my command, and persuaded them to depart.
They were good fellows, engaged with a Dutchman, against whom I
heard afterwards they made a successful mutiny, but I never saw
them more.  I had two thousand crowns still left; with this sum I
obtained the consent of the silk-mercer, and it was agreed that I
should become a partner in the firm.  I need not say that no one
suspected that I had been so great a man, and I passed for a
Neapolitan goldsmith's son instead of a cardinal's.  I was very
happy then, signor, very,--I could not have harmed a fly!  Had I
married Clara, I had been as gentle a mercer as ever handled a
measure."

The bravo paused a moment, and it was easy to see that he felt
more than his words and tone betokened.  "Well, well, we must not
look back at the past too earnestly,--the sunlight upon it makes
one's eyes water.  The day was fixed for our wedding,--it
approached.  On the evening before the appointed day, Clara, her
mother, her little sister, and myself, were walking by the port;
and as we looked on the sea, I was telling them old gossip-tales
of mermaids and sea-serpents, when a red-faced, bottle-nosed
Frenchman clapped himself right before me, and, placing his
spectacles very deliberately astride his proboscis, echoed out,
'Sacre, mille tonnerres! this is the damned pirate who boarded
the "Niobe"!'

"'None of your jests,' said I, mildly.  'Ho, ho!' said he; 'I
can't be mistaken; help there!' and he griped me by the collar.
I replied, as you may suppose, by laying him in the kennel; but
it would not do.  The French captain had a French lieutenant at
his back, whose memory was as good as his chief's.  A crowd
assembled; other sailors came up:  the odds were against me.  I
slept that night in prison; and in a few weeks afterwards I was
sent to the galleys.  They spared my life, because the old
Frenchman politely averred that I had made my crew spare his.
You may believe that the oar and the chain were not to my taste.
I and two others escaped; they took to the road, and have, no
doubt, been long since broken on the wheel.  I, soft soul, would
not commit another crime to gain my bread, for Clara was still at
my heart with her sweet eyes; so, limiting my rogueries to the
theft of a beggar's rags, which I compensated by leaving him my
galley attire instead, I begged my way to the town where I left
Clara.  It was a clear winter's day when I approached the
outskirts of the town.  I had no fear of detection, for my beard
and hair were as good as a mask.  Oh, Mother of Mercy! there came
across my way a funeral procession!  There, now you know it; I
can tell you no more.  She had died, perhaps of love, more likely
of shame.  Can you guess how I spent that night?--I stole a
pickaxe from a mason's shed, and all alone and unseen, under the
frosty heavens, I dug the fresh mould from the grave; I lifted
the coffin, I wrenched the lid, I saw her again--again!  Decay
had not touched her.  She was always pale in life!  I could have
sworn she lived!  It was a blessed thing to see her once more,
and all alone too!  But then, at dawn, to give her back to the
earth,--to close the lid, to throw down the mould, to hear the
pebbles rattle on the coffin:  that was dreadful!  Signor, I
never knew before, and I don't wish to think now, how valuable a
thing human life is.  At sunrise I was again a wanderer; but now
that Clara was gone, my scruples vanished, and again I was at war
with my betters.  I contrived at last, at O--, to get taken on
board a vessel bound to Leghorn, working out my passage.  From
Leghorn I went to Rome, and stationed myself at the door of the
cardinal's palace.  Out he came, his gilded coach at the gate.

"'Ho, father!' said I; 'don't you know me?'

"'Who are you?'

"'Your son,' said I, in a whisper.

"The cardinal drew back, looked at me earnestly, and mused a
moment.  'All men are my sons,' quoth he then, very mildly;
'there is gold for thee!  To him who begs once, alms are due; to
him who begs twice, jails are open.  Take the hint and molest me
no more.  Heaven bless thee!'  With that he got into his coach,
and drove off to the Vatican.  His purse which he had left behind
was well supplied.  I was grateful and contented, and took my way
to Terracina.  I had not long passed the marshes when I saw two
horsemen approach at a canter.

"'You look poor, friend,' said one of them, halting; 'yet you are
strong.'

"'Poor men and strong are both serviceable and dangerous, Signor
Cavalier.'

"'Well said; follow us.'

"I obeyed, and became a bandit.  I rose by degrees; and as I have
always been mild in my calling, and have taken purses without
cutting throats, I bear an excellent character, and can eat my
macaroni at Naples without any danger to life and limb.  For the
last two years I have settled in these parts, where I hold sway,
and where I have purchased land.  I am called a farmer, signor;
and I myself now only rob for amusement, and to keep my hand in.
I trust I have satisfied your curiosity.  We are within a hundred
yards of the castle."

"And how," asked the Englishman, whose interest had been much
excited by his companion's narrative,--"and how came you
acquainted with my host?--and by what means has he so well
conciliated the goodwill of yourself and friends?"

Maestro Paolo turned his black eyes very gravely towards his
questioner.  "Why, signor," said he, "you must surely know more
of the foreign cavalier with the hard name than I do.  All I can
say is, that about a fortnight ago I chanced to be standing by a
booth in the Toledo at Naples, when a sober-looking gentleman
touched me by the arm, and said, 'Maestro Paolo, I want to make
your acquaintance; do me the favour to come into yonder tavern,
and drink a flask of lacrima.'  'Willingly,' said I.  So we
entered the tavern.  When we were seated, my new acquaintance
thus accosted me:  'The Count d'O-- has offered to let me hire
his old castle near B--.  You know the spot?'

"'Extremely well; no one has inhabited it for a century at least;
it is half in ruins, signor.  A queer place to hire; I hope the
rent is not heavy.'

"'Maestro Paolo,' said he, 'I am a philosopher, and don't care
for luxuries.  I want a quiet retreat for some scientific
experiments.  The castle will suit me very well, provided you
will accept me as a neighbour, and place me and my friends under
your special protection.  I am rich; but I shall take nothing to
the castle worth robbing.  I will pay one rent to the count, and
another to you.'

"With that we soon came to terms; and as the strange signor
doubled the sum I myself proposed, he is in high favour with all
his neighbours.  We would guard the whole castle against an army.
And now, signor, that I have been thus frank, be frank with me.
Who is this singular cavalier?"

"Who?--he himself told you, a philosopher."

"Hem! searching for the Philosopher's Stone,--eh, a bit of a
magician; afraid of the priests?"

"Precisely; you have hit it."

"I thought so; and you are his pupil?"

"I am."

"I wish you well through it," said the robber, seriously, and
crossing himself with much devotion; "I am not much better than
other people, but one's soul is one's soul.  I do not mind a
little honest robbery, or knocking a man on the head if need be,
--but to make a bargain with the devil!  Ah, take care, young
gentleman, take care!"

"You need not fear," said Glyndon, smiling; "my preceptor is too
wise and too good for such a compact.  But here we are, I
suppose.  A noble ruin,--a glorious prospect!"

Glyndon paused delightedly, and surveyed the scene before and
below with the eye of a painter.  Insensibly, while listening to
the bandit, he had wound up a considerable ascent, and now he was
upon a broad ledge of rock covered with mosses and dwarf shrubs.
Between this eminence and another of equal height, upon which the
castle was built, there was a deep but narrow fissure, overgrown
with the most profuse foliage, so that the eye could not
penetrate many yards below the rugged surface of the abyss; but
the profoundness might be well conjectured by the hoarse, low,
monotonous roar of waters unseen that rolled below, and the
subsequent course of which was visible at a distance in a
perturbed and rapid stream that intersected the waste and
desolate valleys.

To the left, the prospect seemed almost boundless,--the extreme
clearness of the purple air serving to render distinct the
features of a range of country that a conqueror of old might have
deemed in itself a kingdom.  Lonely and desolate as the road
which Glyndon had passed that day had appeared, the landscape now
seemed studded with castles, spires, and villages.  Afar off,
Naples gleamed whitely in the last rays of the sun, and the
rose-tints of the horizon melted into the azure of her glorious
bay.  Yet more remote, and in another part of the prospect, might
be caught, dim and shadowy, and backed by the darkest foliage,
the ruined pillars of the ancient Posidonia. There, in the midst
of his blackened and sterile realms, rose the dismal Mount of
Fire; while on the other hand, winding through variegated plains,
to which distance lent all its magic, glittered many and many a
stream by which Etruscan and Sybarite, Roman and Saracen and
Norman had, at intervals of ages, pitched the invading tent.  All
the visions of the past--the stormy and dazzling histories of
Southern Italy--rushed over the artist's mind as he gazed below.
 And then, slowly turning to look behind, he saw the grey and
mouldering walls of the castle in which he sought the secrets
that were to give to hope in the future a mightier empire than
memory owns in the past.  It was one of those baronial fortresses
with which Italy was studded in the earlier middle ages, having
but little of the Gothic grace or grandeur which belongs to the
ecclesiastical architecture of the same time, but rude, vast, and
menacing, even in decay.  A wooden bridge was thrown over the
chasm, wide enough to admit two horsemen abreast; and the planks
trembled and gave back a hollow sound as Glyndon urged his jaded
steed across.

A road which had once been broad and paved with rough flags, but
which now was half-obliterated by long grass and rank weeds,
conducted to the outer court of the castle hard by; the gates
were open, and half the building in this part was dismantled; the
ruins partially hid by ivy that was the growth of centuries.  But
on entering the inner court, Glyndon was not sorry to notice that
there was less appearance of neglect and decay; some wild roses
gave a smile to the grey walls, and in the centre there was a
fountain in which the waters still trickled coolly, and with a
pleasing murmur, from the jaws of a gigantic Triton.  Here he was
met by Mejnour with a smile.

"Welcome, my friend and pupil," said he:  "he who seeks for Truth
can find in these solitudes an immortal Academe."


CHAPTER 4.II.

And Abaris, so far from esteeming Pythagoras, who taught these
things, a necromancer or wizard, rather revered and admired him
as something divine.--Iamblich., "Vit. Pythag."

The attendants whom Mejnour had engaged for his strange abode
were such as might suit a philosopher of few wants.  An old
Armenian whom Glyndon recognised as in the mystic's service at
Naples, a tall, hard-featured woman from the village, recommended
by Maestro Paolo, and two long-haired, smooth-spoken, but
fierce-visaged youths from the same place, and honoured by the
same sponsorship, constituted the establishment.  The rooms used
by the sage were commodious and weather-proof, with some remains
of ancient splendour in the faded arras that clothed the walls,
and the huge tables of costly marble and elaborate carving.
Glyndon's sleeping apartment communicated with a kind of
belvedere, or terrace, that commanded prospects of unrivalled
beauty and extent, and was separated on the other side by a long
gallery, and a flight of ten or a dozen stairs, from the private
chambers of the mystic.  There was about the whole place a sombre
and yet not displeasing depth of repose.  It suited well with the
studies to which it was now to be appropriated.

For several days Mejnour refused to confer with Glyndon on the
subjects nearest to his heart.

"All without," said he, "is prepared, but not all within; your
own soul must grow accustomed to the spot, and filled with the
surrounding nature; for Nature is the source of all inspiration."

With these words Mejnour turned to lighter topics.  He made the
Englishman accompany him in long rambles through the wild scenes
around, and he smiled approvingly when the young artist gave way
to the enthusiasm which their fearful beauty could not have
failed to rouse in a duller breast; and then Mejnour poured forth
to his wondering pupil the stores of a knowledge that seemed
inexhaustible and boundless.  He gave accounts the most curious,
graphic, and minute of the various races (their characters,
habits, creeds, and manners) by which that fair land had been
successively overrun.  It is true that his descriptions could not
be found in books, and were unsupported by learned authorities;
but he possessed the true charm of the tale-teller, and spoke of
all with the animated confidence of a personal witness.
Sometimes, too, he would converse upon the more durable and the
loftier mysteries of Nature with an eloquence and a research
which invested them with all the colours rather of poetry than
science.  Insensibly the young artist found himself elevated and
soothed by the lore of his companion; the fever of his wild
desires was slaked.  His mind became more and more lulled into
the divine tranquillity of contemplation; he felt himself a
nobler being, and in the silence of his senses he imagined that
he heard the voice of his soul.

It was to this state that Mejnour evidently sought to bring the
neophyte, and in this elementary initiation the mystic was like
every more ordinary sage.  For he who seeks to DISCOVER must
first reduce himself into a kind of abstract idealism, and be
rendered up, in solemn and sweet bondage, to the faculties which
CONTEMPLATE and IMAGINE.

Glyndon noticed that, in their rambles, Mejnour often paused,
where the foliage was rifest, to gather some herb or flower; and
this reminded him that he had seen Zanoni similarly occupied.
"Can these humble children of Nature," said he one day to
Mejnour,--"things that bloom and wither in a day, be serviceable
to the science of the higher secrets?  Is there a pharmacy for
the soul as well as the body, and do the nurslings of the summer
minister not only to human health but spiritual immortality?"

"If," answered Mejnour, "a stranger had visited a wandering tribe
before one property of herbalism was known to them; if he had
told the savages that the herbs which every day they trampled
under foot were endowed with the most potent virtues; that one
would restore to health a brother on the verge of death; that
another would paralyse into idiocy their wisest sage; that a
third would strike lifeless to the dust their most stalwart
champion; that tears and laughter, vigour and disease, madness
and reason, wakefulness and sleep, existence and dissolution,
were coiled up in those unregarded leaves,--would they not have
held him a sorcerer or a liar?  To half the virtues of the
vegetable world mankind are yet in the darkness of the savages I
have supposed.  There are faculties within us with which certain
herbs have affinity, and over which they have power.  The moly of
the ancients is not all a fable."

The apparent character of Mejnour differed in much from that of
Zanoni; and while it fascinated Glyndon less, it subdued and
impressed him more.  The conversation of Zanoni evinced a deep
and general interest for mankind,--a feeling approaching to
enthusiasm for art and beauty.  The stories circulated concerning
his habits elevated the mystery of his life by actions of charity
and beneficence.  And in all this there was something genial and
humane that softened the awe he created, and tended, perhaps, to
raise suspicions as to the loftier secrets that he arrogated to
himself.  But Mejnour seemed wholly indifferent to all the actual
world.  If he committed no evil, he seemed equally apathetic to
good.  His deeds relieved no want, his words pitied no distress.
What we call the heart appeared to have merged into the
intellect.  He moved, thought, and lived like some regular and
calm abstraction, rather than one who yet retained, with the
form, the feelings and sympathies of his kind.

Glyndon once, observing the tone of supreme indifference with
which he spoke of those changes on the face of earth which he
asserted he had witnessed, ventured to remark to him the
distinction he had noted.

"It is true," said Mejnour, coldly.  "My life is the life that
contemplates,--Zanoni's is the life that enjoys:  when I gather
the herb, I think but of its uses; Zanoni will pause to admire
its beauties."

"And you deem your own the superior and the loftier existence?"

"No.  His is the existence of youth,--mine of age.  We have
cultivated different faculties.  Each has powers the other cannot
aspire to.  Those with whom he associates live better,--those who
associate with me know more."

"I have heard, in truth," said Glyndon, "that his companions at
Naples were observed to lead purer and nobler lives after
intercourse with Zanoni; yet were they not strange companions, at
the best, for a sage?  This terrible power, too, that he
exercises at will, as in the death of the Prince di --, and that
of the Count Ughelli, scarcely becomes the tranquil seeker after
good."

"True," said Mejnour, with an icy smile; "such must ever be the
error of those philosophers who would meddle with the active life
of mankind.  You cannot serve some without injuring others; you
cannot protect the good without warring on the bad; and if you
desire to reform the faulty, why, you must lower yourself to live
with the faulty to know their faults.  Even so saith Paracelsus,
a great man, though often wrong.  ("It is as necessary to know
evil things as good; for who can know what is good without the
knowing what is evil?" etc.--Paracelsus, "De Nat. Rer.," lib. 3.)
Not mine this folly; I live but in knowledge,--I have no life in
mankind!"

Another time Glyndon questioned the mystic as to the nature of
that union or fraternity to which Zanoni had once referred.

"I am right, I suppose," said he, "in conjecturing that you and
himself profess to be the brothers of the Rosy Cross?"

"Do you imagine," answered Mejnour, "that there were no mystic
and solemn unions of men seeking the same end through the same
means before the Arabians of Damus, in 1378, taught to a
wandering German the secrets which founded the Institution of the
Rosicrucians?  I allow, however, that the Rosicrucians formed a
sect descended from the greater and earlier school.  They were
wiser than the Alchemists,--their masters are wiser than they."

"And of this early and primary order how many still exist?"

"Zanoni and myself."

"What, two only!--and you profess the power to teach to all the
secret that baffles Death?"

"Your ancestor attained that secret; he died rather than survive
the only thing he loved.  We have, my pupil, no arts by which we
CAN PUT DEATH OUT OF OUR OPTION, or out of the will of Heaven.
These walls may crush me as I stand.  All that we profess to do
is but this,--to find out the secrets of the human frame; to know
why the parts ossify and the blood stagnates, and to apply
continual preventives to the effects of time.  This is not magic;
it is the art of medicine rightly understood.  In our order we
hold most noble,--first, that knowledge which elevates the
intellect; secondly, that which preserves the body.  But the mere
art (extracted from the juices and simples) which recruits the
animal vigour and arrests the progress of decay, or that more
noble secret, which I will only hint to thee at present, by which
HEAT, or CALORIC, as ye call it, being, as Heraclitus wisely
taught, the primordial principle of life, can be made its
perpetual renovater,--these I say, would not suffice for safety.
It is ours also to disarm and elude the wrath of men, to turn the
swords of our foes against each other, to glide (if not
incorporeal) invisible to eyes over which we can throw a mist and
darkness.  And this some seers have professed to be the virtue of
a stone of agate.  Abaris placed it in his arrow.  I will find
you an herb in yon valley that will give a surer charm than the
agate and the arrow.  In one word, know this, that the humblest
and meanest products of Nature are those from which the sublimest
properties are to be drawn."

"But," said Glyndon, "if possessed of these great secrets, why so
churlish in withholding their diffusion?  Does not the false or
charlatanic science differ in this from the true and
indisputable,--that the last communicates to the world the
process by which it attains its discoveries; the first boasts of
marvellous results, and refuses to explain the causes?"

"Well said, O Logician of the Schools; but think again.  Suppose
we were to impart all our knowledge to all mankind
indiscriminately,--alike to the vicious and the virtuous,--should
we be benefactors or scourges?  Imagine the tyrant, the
sensualist, the evil and corrupted being possessed of these
tremendous powers; would he not be a demon let loose on earth?
Grant that the same privilege be accorded also to the good; and
in what state would be society?  Engaged in a Titan war,--the
good forever on the defensive, the bad forever in assault.  In
the present condition of the earth, evil is a more active
principle than good, and the evil would prevail.  It is for these
reasons that we are not only solemnly bound to administer our
lore only to those who will not misuse and pervert it, but that
we place our ordeal in tests that purify the passions and elevate
the desires.  And Nature in this controls and assists us:  for it
places awful guardians and insurmountable barriers between the
ambition of vice and the heaven of the loftier science."

Such made a small part of the numerous conversations Mejnour held
with his pupil,--conversations that, while they appeared to
address themselves to the reason, inflamed yet more the fancy.
It was the very disclaiming of all powers which Nature, properly
investigated, did not suffice to create, that gave an air of
probability to those which Mejnour asserted Nature might bestow.

Thus days and weeks rolled on; and the mind of Glyndon, gradually
fitted to this sequestered and musing life, forgot at last the
vanities and chimeras of the world without.

One evening he had lingered alone and late upon the ramparts,
watching the stars as, one by one, they broke upon the twilight.
Never had he felt so sensibly the mighty power of the heavens and
the earth upon man; how much the springs of our intellectual
being are moved and acted upon by the solemn influences of
Nature.  As a patient on whom, slowly and by degrees, the
agencies of mesmerism are brought to bear, he acknowledged to his
heart the growing force of that vast and universal magnetism
which is the life of creation, and binds the atom to the whole.
A strange and ineffable consciousness of power, of the SOMETHING
GREAT within the perishable clay, appealed to feelings at once
dim and glorious,--like the faint recognitions of a holier and
former being.  An impulse, that he could not resist, led him to
seek the mystic.  He would demand, that hour, his initiation into
the worlds beyond our world,--he was prepared to breathe a
diviner air.  He entered the castle, and strode the shadowy and
starlit gallery which conducted to Mejnour's apartment.


CHAPTER 4.III.

Man is the eye of things.--Euryph, "de Vit. Hum."

...There is, therefore, a certain ecstatical or transporting
power, which, if at any time it shall be excited or stirred up by
an ardent desire and most strong imagination, is able to conduct
the spirit of the more outward even to some absent and
far-distant object.--Von Helmont.

The rooms that Mejnour occupied consisted of two chambers
communicating with each other, and a third in which he slept.
All these rooms were placed in the huge square tower that beetled
over the dark and bush-grown precipice.  The first chamber which
Glyndon entered was empty.  With a noiseless step he passed on,
and opened the door that admitted into the inner one.  He drew
back at the threshold, overpowered by a strong fragrance which
filled the chamber:  a kind of mist thickened the air rather than
obscured it, for this vapour was not dark, but resembled a snow-
cloud moving slowly, and in heavy undulations, wave upon wave
regularly over the space.  A mortal cold struck to the
Englishman's heart, and his blood froze.  He stood rooted to the
spot; and as his eyes strained involuntarily through the vapour,
he fancied (for he could not be sure that it was not the trick of
his imagination) that he saw dim, spectre-like, but gigantic
forms floating through the mist; or was it not rather the mist
itself that formed its vapours fantastically into those moving,
impalpable, and bodiless apparitions?  A great painter of
antiquity is said, in a picture of Hades, to have represented the
monsters that glide through the ghostly River of the Dead, so
artfully, that the eye perceived at once that the river itself
was but a spectre, and the bloodless things that tenanted it had
no life, their forms blending with the dead waters till, as the
eye continued to gaze, it ceased to discern them from the
preternatural element they were supposed to inhabit.  Such were
the moving outlines that coiled and floated through the mist; but
before Glyndon had even drawn breath in this atmosphere--for his
life itself seemed arrested or changed into a kind of horrid
trance--he felt his hand seized, and he was led from that room
into the outer one.  He heard the door close,--his blood rushed
again through his veins, and he saw Mejnour by his side.  Strong
convulsions then suddenly seized his whole frame,--he fell to the
ground insensible.  When he recovered, he found himself in the
open air in a rude balcony of stone that jutted from the chamber,
the stars shining serenely over the dark abyss below, and resting
calmly upon the face of the mystic, who stood beside him with
folded arms.

"Young man," said Mejnour, "judge by what you have just felt, how
dangerous it is to seek knowledge until prepared to receive it.
Another moment in the air of that chamber and you had been a
corpse."

"Then of what nature was the knowledge that you, once mortal like
myself, could safely have sought in that icy atmosphere, which it
was death for me to breathe?  Mejnour," continued Glyndon, and
his wild desire, sharpened by the very danger he had passed, once
more animated and nerved him, "I am prepared at least for the
first steps.  I come to you as of old the pupil to the
Hierophant, and demand the initiation."

Mejnour passed his hand over the young man's heart,--it beat
loud, regularly, and boldly.  He looked at him with something
almost like admiration in his passionless and frigid features,
and muttered, half to himself, "Surely, in so much courage the
true disciple is found at last."  Then, speaking aloud, he added,
"Be it so; man's first initiation is in TRANCE.  In dreams
commences all human knowledge; in dreams hovers over measureless
space the first faint bridge between spirit and spirit,--this
world and the worlds beyond!  Look steadfastly on yonder star!"

Glyndon obeyed, and Mejnour retired into the chamber, from which
there then slowly emerged a vapour, somewhat paler and of fainter
odour than that which had nearly produced so fatal an effect on
his frame.  This, on the contrary, as it coiled around him, and
then melted in thin spires into the air, breathed a refreshing
and healthful fragrance.  He still kept his eyes on the star, and
the star seemed gradually to fix and command his gaze.  A sort of
languor next seized his frame, but without, as he thought,
communicating itself to the mind; and as this crept over him, he
felt his temples sprinkled with some volatile and fiery essence.
At the same moment a slight tremor shook his limbs and thrilled
through his veins.  The languor increased, still he kept his gaze
upon the star, and now its luminous circumference seemed to
expand and dilate.  It became gradually softer and clearer in its
light; spreading wider and broader, it diffused all space,--all
space seemed swallowed up in it.  And at last, in the midst of a
silver shining atmosphere, he felt as if something burst within
his brain,--as if a strong chain were broken; and at that moment
a sense of heavenly liberty, of unutterable delight, of freedom
from the body, of birdlike lightness, seemed to float him into
the space itself.  "Whom, now upon earth, dost thou wish to see?"
whispered the voice of Mejnour.  "Viola and Zanoni!" answered
Glyndon, in his heart; but he felt that his lips moved not.

Suddenly at that thought,--through this space, in which nothing
save one mellow translucent light had been discernible,--a swift
succession of shadowy landscapes seemed to roll:  trees,
mountains, cities, seas, glided along like the changes of a
phantasmagoria; and at last, settled and stationary, he saw a
cave by the gradual marge of an ocean shore,--myrtles and
orange-trees clothing the gentle banks.  On a height, at a
distance, gleamed the white but shattered relics of some ruined
heathen edifice; and the moon, in calm splendour, shining over
all, literally bathed with its light two forms without the cave,
at whose feet the blue waters crept, and he thought that he even
heard them murmur.  He recognised both the figures.  Zanoni was
seated on a fragment of stone; Viola, half-reclining by his side,
was looking into his face, which was bent down to her, and in her
countenance was the expression of that perfect happiness which
belongs to perfect love.  "Wouldst thou hear them speak?"
whispered Mejnour; and again, without sound, Glyndon inly
answered, "Yes!"  Their voices then came to his ear, but in tones
that seemed to him strange; so subdued were they, and sounding,
as it were, so far off, that they were as voices heard in the
visions of some holier men from a distant sphere.

"And how is it," said Viola, "that thou canst find pleasure in
listening to the ignorant?"

"Because the heart is never ignorant; because the mysteries of
the feelings are as full of wonder as those of the intellect.  If
at times thou canst not comprehend the language of my thoughts,
at times also I hear sweet enigmas in that of thy emotions."

"Ah, say not so!" said Viola, winding her arm tenderly round his
neck, and under that heavenly light her face seemed lovelier for
its blushes.  "For the enigmas are but love's common language,
and love should solve them.  Till I knew thee,--till I lived with
thee; till I learned to watch for thy footstep when absent:  yet
even in absence to see thee everywhere!--I dreamed not how strong
and all-pervading is the connection between nature and the human
soul!...

"And yet," she continued, "I am now assured of what I at first
believed,--that the feelings which attracted me towards thee at
first were not those of love.  I know THAT, by comparing the
present with the past,--it was a sentiment then wholly of the
mind or the spirit!  I could not hear thee now say, 'Viola, be
happy with another!'"

"And I could not now tell thee so!  Ah, Viola, never be weary of
assuring me that thou art happy!"

"Happy while thou art so.  Yet at times, Zanoni, thou art so
sad!"

"Because human life is so short; because we must part at last;
because yon moon shines on when the nightingale sings to it no
more!  A little while, and thine eyes will grow dim, and thy
beauty haggard, and these locks that I toy with now will be grey
and loveless."

"And thou, cruel one!" said Viola, touchingly, "I shall never see
the signs of age in thee!  But shall we not grow old together,
and our eyes be accustomed to a change which the heart shall not
share!"

Zanoni sighed.  He turned away, and seemed to commune with
himself.

Glyndon's attention grew yet more earnest.

"But were it so," muttered Zanoni; and then looking steadfastly
at Viola, he said, with a half-smile, "Hast thou no curiosity to
learn more of the lover thou once couldst believe the agent of
the Evil One?"

"None; all that one wishes to know of the beloved one, I know--
THAT THOU LOVEST ME!"

"I have told thee that my life is apart from others.  Wouldst
thou not seek to share it?"

"I share it now!"

"But were it possible to be thus young and fair forever, till the
world blazes round us as one funeral pyre!"

"We shall be so, when we leave the world!"

Zanoni was mute for some moments, and at length he said,--

"Canst thou recall those brilliant and aerial dreams which once
visited thee, when thou didst fancy that thou wert preordained to
some fate aloof and afar from the common children of the earth?"

"Zanoni, the fate is found."

"And hast thou no terror of the future?"

"The future!  I forget it!  Time past and present and to come
reposes in thy smile.  Ah, Zanoni, play not with the foolish
credulities of my youth!  I have been better and humbler since
thy presence has dispelled the mist of the air.  The future!--
well, when I have cause to dread it, I will look up to heaven,
and remember who guides our fate!"

As she lifted her eyes above, a dark cloud swept suddenly over
the scene.  It wrapped the orange-trees, the azure ocean, the
dense sands; but still the last images that it veiled from the
charmed eyes of Glyndon were the forms of Viola and Zanoni.  The
face of the one rapt, serene, and radiant; the face of the other,
dark, thoughtful, and locked in more than its usual rigidness of
melancholy beauty and profound repose.

"Rouse thyself," said Mejnour; "thy ordeal has commenced!  There
are pretenders to the solemn science who could have shown thee
the absent, and prated to thee, in their charlatanic jargon, of
the secret electricities and the magnetic fluid of whose true
properties they know but the germs and elements.  I will lend
thee the books of those glorious dupes, and thou wilt find, in
the dark ages, how many erring steps have stumbled upon the
threshold of the mighty learning, and fancied they had pierced
the temple.  Hermes and Albert and Paracelsus, I knew ye all;
but, noble as ye were, ye were fated to be deceived.  Ye had not
souls of faith, and daring fitted for the destinies at which ye
aimed!  Yet Paracelsus--modest Paracelsus--had an arrogance that
soared higher than all our knowledge.  Ho, ho!--he thought he
could make a race of men from chemistry; he arrogated to himself
the Divine gift,--the breath of life.  (Paracelsus, "De Nat.
Rer.," lib. i.)

He would have made men, and, after all, confessed that they could
be but pygmies!  My art is to make men above mankind.  But you
are impatient of my digressions.  Forgive me.  All these men
(they were great dreamers, as you desire to be) were intimate
friends of mine.  But they are dead and rotten. They talked of
spirits,--but they dreaded to be in other company than that of
men.  Like orators whom I have heard, when I stood by the Pnyx of
Athens, blazing with words like comets in the assembly, and
extinguishing their ardour like holiday rockets when they were in
the field.  Ho, ho! Demosthenes, my hero-coward, how nimble were
thy heels at Chaeronea!  And thou art impatient still!  Boy, I
could tell thee such truths of the past as would make thee the
luminary of schools.  But thou lustest only for the shadows of
the future.  Thou shalt have thy wish.  But the mind must be
first exercised and trained.  Go to thy room, and sleep; fast
austerely, read no books; meditate, imagine, dream, bewilder
thyself if thou wilt.  Thought shapes out its own chaos at last.
Before midnight, seek me again!"


CHAPTER 4.IV.

It is fit that we who endeavour to rise to an elevation so
sublime, should study first to leave behind carnal affections,
the frailty of the senses, the passions that belong to matter;
secondly, to learn by what means we may ascend to the climax of
pure intellect, united with the powers above, without which never
can we gain the lore of secret things, nor the magic that effects
true wonders.--Tritemius "On Secret Things and Secret Spirits."

It wanted still many minutes of midnight, and Glyndon was once
more in the apartment of the mystic.  He had rigidly observed the
fast ordained to him; and in the rapt and intense reveries into
which his excited fancy had plunged him, he was not only
insensible to the wants of the flesh,--he felt above them.

Mejnour, seated beside his disciple, thus addressed him:--

"Man is arrogant in proportion to his ignorance.  Man's natural
tendency is to egotism.  Man, in his infancy of knowledge, thinks
that all creation was formed for him.  For several ages he saw in
the countless worlds that sparkle through space like the bubbles
of a shoreless ocean only the petty candles, the household
torches, that Providence had been pleased to light for no other
purpose but to make the night more agreeable to man.  Astronomy
has corrected this delusion of human vanity; and man now
reluctantly confesses that the stars are worlds larger and more
glorious than his own,--that the earth on which he crawls is a
scarce visible speck on the vast chart of creation.  But in the
small as in the vast, God is equally profuse of life.  The
traveller looks upon the tree, and fancies its boughs were formed
for his shelter in the summer sun, or his fuel in the winter
frosts.  But in each leaf of these boughs the Creator has made a
world; it swarms with innumerable races.  Each drop of the water
in yon moat is an orb more populous than a kingdom is of men.
Everywhere, then, in this immense design, science brings new life
to light.  Life is the one pervading principle, and even the
thing that seems to die and putrify but engenders new life, and
changes to fresh forms of matter.  Reasoning, then, by evident
analogy:  if not a leaf, if not a drop of water, but is, no less
than yonder star, a habitable and breathing world,--nay, if even
man himself is a world to other lives, and millions and myriads
dwell in the rivers of his blood, and inhabit man's frame as man
inhabits earth, commonsense (if your schoolmen had it) would
suffice to teach that the circumfluent infinite which you call
space--the countless Impalpable which divides earth from the moon
and stars--is filled also with its correspondent and appropriate
life.  Is it not a visible absurdity to suppose that being is
crowded upon every leaf, and yet absent from the immensities of
space?  The law of the Great System forbids the waste even of an
atom; it knows no spot where something of life does not breathe.
In the very charnel-house is the nursery of production and
animation.  Is that true?  Well, then, can you conceive that
space, which is the Infinite itself, is alone a waste, is alone
lifeless, is less useful to the one design of universal being
than the dead carcass of a dog, than the peopled leaf, than the
swarming globule?  The microscope shows you the creatures on the
leaf; no mechanical tube is yet invented to discover the nobler
and more gifted things that hover in the illimitable air.  Yet
between these last and man is a mysterious and terrible affinity.
And hence, by tales and legends, not wholly false nor wholly
true, have arisen from time to time, beliefs in apparitions and
spectres.  If more common to the earlier and simpler tribes than
to the men of your duller age, it is but that, with the first,
the senses are more keen and quick.  And as the savage can see or
scent miles away the traces of a foe, invisible to the gross
sense of the civilised animal, so the barrier itself between him
and the creatures of the airy world is less thickened and
obscured.  Do you listen?"

"With my soul!"

"But first, to penetrate this barrier, the soul with which you
listen must be sharpened by intense enthusiasm, purified from all
earthlier desires.  Not without reason have the so-styled
magicians, in all lands and times, insisted on chastity and
abstemious reverie as the communicants of inspiration.  When thus
prepared, science can be brought to aid it; the sight itself may
be rendered more subtle, the nerves more acute, the spirit more
alive and outward, and the element itself--the air, the space--
may be made, by certain secrets of the higher chemistry, more
palpable and clear.  And this, too, is not magic, as the
credulous call it; as I have so often said before, magic (or
science that violates Nature) exists not:  it is but the science
by which Nature can be controlled.  Now, in space there are
millions of beings not literally spiritual, for they have all,
like the animalculae unseen by the naked eye, certain forms of
matter, though matter so delicate, air-drawn, and subtle, that it
is, as it were, but a film, a gossamer that clothes the spirit.
Hence the Rosicrucian's lovely phantoms of sylph and gnome.  Yet,
in truth, these races and tribes differ more widely, each from
each, than the Calmuc from the Greek,--differ in attributes and
powers.  In the drop of water you see how the animalculae vary,
how vast and terrible are some of those monster mites as compared
with others.  Equally so with the inhabitants of the atmosphere:
some of surpassing wisdom, some of horrible malignity; some
hostile as fiends to men, others gentle as messengers between
earth and heaven.

He who would establish intercourse with these varying beings
resembles the traveller who would penetrate into unknown lands.
He is exposed to strange dangers and unconjectured terrors.  THAT
INTERCOURSE ONCE GAINED, I CANNOT SECURE THEE FROM THE CHANCES TO
WHICH THY JOURNEY IS EXPOSED.  I cannot direct thee to paths free
from the wanderings of the deadliest foes.  Thou must alone, and
of thyself, face and hazard all.  But if thou art so enamoured of
life as to care only to live on, no matter for what ends,
recruiting the nerves and veins with the alchemist's vivifying
elixir, why seek these dangers from the intermediate tribes?
Because the very elixir that pours a more glorious life into the
frame, so sharpens the senses that those larvae of the air become
to thee audible and apparent; so that, unless trained by degrees
to endure the phantoms and subdue their malice, a life thus
gifted would be the most awful doom man could bring upon himself.
Hence it is, that though the elixir be compounded of the simplest
herbs, his frame only is prepared to receive it who has gone
through the subtlest trials.  Nay, some, scared and daunted into
the most intolerable horror by the sights that burst upon their
eyes at the first draft, have found the potion less powerful to
save than the agony and travail of Nature to destroy.  To the
unprepared the elixir is thus but the deadliest poison.  Amidst
the dwellers of the threshold is ONE, too, surpassing in
malignity and hatred all her tribe,--one whose eyes have
paralyzed the bravest, and whose power increases over the spirit
precisely in proportion to its fear.  Does thy courage falter?"

"Nay; thy words but kindle it."

"Follow me, then, and submit to the initiatory labours."

With that, Mejnour led him into the interior chamber, and
proceeded to explain to him certain chemical operations which,
though extremely simple in themselves, Glyndon soon perceived
were capable of very extraordinary results.

"In the remoter times," said Mejnour, smiling, "our brotherhood
were often compelled to recur to delusions to protect realities;
and, as dexterous mechanicians or expert chemists, they obtained
the name of sorcerers.  Observe how easy to construct is the
Spectre Lion that attended the renowned Leonardo da Vinci!"

And Glyndon beheld with delighted surprise the simple means by
which the wildest cheats of the imagination can be formed.  The
magical landscapes in which Baptista Porta rejoiced; the apparent
change of the seasons with which Albertus Magnus startled the
Earl of Holland; nay, even those more dread delusions of the
Ghost and Image with which the necromancers of Heraclea woke the
conscience of the conqueror of Plataea (Pausanias,--see
Plutarch.),--all these, as the showman enchants some trembling
children on a Christmas Eve with his lantern and phantasmagoria,
Mejnour exhibited to his pupil.

...

"And now laugh forever at magic! when these, the very tricks, the
very sports and frivolities of science, were the very acts which
men viewed with abhorrence, and inquisitors and kings rewarded
with the rack and the stake."

"But the alchemist's transmutation of metals--"

"Nature herself is a laboratory in which metals, and all
elements, are forever at change.  Easy to make gold,--easier,
more commodious, and cheaper still, to make the pearl, the
diamond, and the ruby.  Oh, yes; wise men found sorcery in this
too; but they found no sorcery in the discovery that by the
simplest combination of things of every-day use they could raise
a devil that would sweep away thousands of their kind by the
breath of consuming fire.  Discover what will destroy life, and
you are a great man!--what will prolong it, and you are an
imposter!  Discover some invention in machinery that will make
the rich more rich and the poor more poor, and they will build
you a statue!  Discover some mystery in art that will equalise
physical disparities, and they will pull down their own houses to
stone you!  Ha, ha, my pupil! such is the world Zanoni still
cares for!--you and I will leave this world to itself.  And now
that you have seen some few of the effects of science, begin to
learn its grammar."

Mejnour then set before his pupil certain tasks, in which the
rest of the night wore itself away.


CHAPTER 4.V.

Great travell hath the gentle Calidore
And toyle endured...
There on a day,--
He chaunst to spy a sort of shepheard groomes,
Playing on pipes and caroling apace.
...He, there besyde
Saw a faire damzell.
Spenser, "Faerie Queene," cant. ix.

For a considerable period the pupil of Mejnour was now absorbed
in labour dependent on the most vigilant attention, on the most
minute and subtle calculation.  Results astonishing and various
rewarded his toils and stimulated his interest.  Nor were these
studies limited to chemical discovery,--in which it is permitted
me to say that the greatest marvels upon the organisation of
physical life seemed wrought by experiments of the vivifying
influence of heat.  Mejnour professed to find a link between all
intellectual beings in the existence of a certain all-pervading
and invisible fluid resembling electricity, yet distinct from the
known operations of that mysterious agency--a fluid that
connected thought to thought with the rapidity and precision of
the modern telegraph, and the influence of this fluid, according
to Mejnour, extended to the remotest past,--that is to say,
whenever and wheresoever man had thought.  Thus, if the doctrine
were true, all human knowledge became attainable through a medium
established between the brain of the individual inquirer and all
the farthest and obscurest regions in the universe of ideas.
Glyndon was surprised to find Mejnour attached to the abstruse
mysteries which the Pythagoreans ascribed to the occult science
of NUMBERS.  In this last, new lights glimmered dimly on his
eyes; and he began to perceive that even the power to predict, or
rather to calculate, results, might by-- (Here there is an
erasure in the MS.)

...

But he observed that the last brief process by which, in each of
these experiments, the wonder was achieved, Mejnour reserved for
himself, and refused to communicate the secret.  The answer he
obtained to his remonstrances on this head was more stern than
satisfactory:

"Dost thou think," said Mejnour, "that I would give to the mere
pupil, whose qualities are not yet tried, powers that might
change the face of the social world?  The last secrets are
intrusted only to him of whose virtue the Master is convinced.
Patience!  It is labour itself that is the great purifier of the
mind; and by degrees the secrets will grow upon thyself as thy
mind becomes riper to receive them."

At last Mejnour professed himself satisfied with the progress
made by his pupil.  "The hour now arrives," he said, "when thou
mayst pass the great but airy barrier,--when thou mayst gradually
confront the terrible Dweller of the Threshold.  Continue thy
labours--continue to surpass thine impatience for results until
thou canst fathom the causes.  I leave thee for one month; if at
the end of that period, when I return, the tasks set thee are
completed, and thy mind prepared by contemplation and austere
thought for the ordeal, I promise thee the ordeal shall commence.
One caution alone I give thee:  regard it as a peremptory
command, enter not this chamber!"  (They were then standing in
the room where their experiments had been chiefly made, and in
which Glyndon, on the night he had sought the solitude of the
mystic, had nearly fallen a victim to his intrusion.)

"Enter not this chamber till my return; or, above all, if by any
search for materials necessary to thy toils thou shouldst venture
hither, forbear to light the naphtha in those vessels, and to
open the vases on yonder shelves.  I leave the key of the room in
thy keeping, in order to try thy abstinence and self-control.
Young man, this very temptation is a part of thy trial."

With that, Mejnour placed the key in his hands; and at sunset he
left the castle.

For several days Glyndon continued immersed in employments which
strained to the utmost all the faculties of his intellect.  Even
the most partial success depended so entirely on the abstraction
of the mind, and the minuteness of its calculations, that there
was scarcely room for any other thought than those absorbed in
the occupation.  And doubtless this perpetual strain of the
faculties was the object of Mejnour in works that did not seem
exactly pertinent to the purposes in view.  As the study of the
elementary mathematics, for example, is not so profitable in the
solving of problems, useless in our after-callings, as it is
serviceable in training the intellect to the comprehension and
analysis of general truths.

But in less than half the time which Mejnour had stated for the
duration of his absence, all that the mystic had appointed to his
toils was completed by the pupil; and then his mind, thus
relieved from the drudgery and mechanism of employment, once more
sought occupation in dim conjecture and restless fancies.  His
inquisitive and rash nature grew excited by the prohibition of
Mejnour, and he found himself gazing too often, with perturbed
and daring curiosity, upon the key of the forbidden chamber.  He
began to feel indignant at a trial of constancy which he deemed
frivolous and puerile.  What nursery tales of Bluebeard and his
closet were revived to daunt and terrify him!  How could the mere
walls of a chamber, in which he had so often securely pursued his
labours, start into living danger?  If haunted, it could be but
by those delusions which Mejnour had taught him to despise,--a
shadowy lion,--a chemical phantasm!  Tush! he lost half his awe
of Mejnour, when he thought that by such tricks the sage could
practise upon the very intellect he had awakened and instructed!
 Still he resisted the impulses of his curiosity and his pride,
and, to escape from their dictation, he took long rambles on the
hills, or amidst the valleys that surrounded the castle,--seeking
by bodily fatigue to subdue the unreposing mind.  One day
suddenly emerging from a dark ravine, he came upon one of those
Italian scenes of rural festivity and mirth in which the classic
age appears to revive.  It was a festival, partly agricultural,
partly religious, held yearly by the peasants of that district.
Assembled at the outskirts of a village, animated crowds, just
returned from a procession to a neighbouring chapel, were now
forming themselves into groups:  the old to taste the vintage,
the young to dance,--all to be gay and happy.  This sudden
picture of easy joy and careless ignorance, contrasting so
forcibly with the intense studies and that parching desire for
wisdom which had so long made up his own life, and burned at his
own heart, sensibly affected Glyndon.  As he stood aloof and
gazing on them, the young man felt once more that he was young.
The memory of all he had been content to sacrifice spoke to him
like the sharp voice of remorse.  The flitting forms of the women
in their picturesque attire, their happy laughter ringing through
the cool, still air of the autumn noon, brought back to the
heart, or rather perhaps to the senses, the images of his past
time, the "golden shepherd hours," when to live was but to enjoy.

He approached nearer and nearer to the scene, and suddenly a
noisy group swept round him; and Maestro Paolo, tapping him
familiarly on the shoulder, exclaimed in a hearty voice,
"Welcome, Excellency!--we are rejoiced to see you amongst us."
Glyndon was about to reply to this salutation, when his eyes
rested upon the face of a young girl leaning on Paolo's arm, of a
beauty so attractive that his colour rose and his heart beat as
he encountered her gaze.  Her eyes sparkled with a roguish and
petulant mirth, her parted lips showed teeth like pearls; as if
impatient at the pause of her companion from the revel of the
rest, her little foot beat the ground to a measure that she
half-hummed, half-chanted.  Paolo laughed as he saw the effect
the girl had produced upon the young foreigner.

"Will you not dance, Excellency?  Come, lay aside your greatness,
and be merry, like us poor devils.  See how our pretty Fillide is
longing for a partner.  Take compassion on her."

Fillide pouted at this speech, and, disengaging her arm from
Paolo's, turned away, but threw over her shoulder a glance half
inviting, half defying.  Glyndon, almost involuntarily, advanced
to her, and addressed her.

Oh, yes; he addresses her!  She looks down, and smiles.  Paolo
leaves them to themselves, sauntering off with a devil-me-carish
air.  Fillide speaks now, and looks up at the scholar's face with
arch invitation.  He shakes his head; Fillide laughs, and her
laugh is silvery.  She points to a gay mountaineer, who is
tripping up to her merrily.  Why does Glyndon feel jealous?  Why,
when she speaks again, does he shake his head no more?  He offers
his hand; Fillide blushes, and takes it with a demure coquetry.
What! is it so, indeed!  They whirl into the noisy circle of the
revellers.  Ha! ha! is not this better than distilling herbs, and
breaking thy brains on Pythagorean numbers?  How lightly Fillide
bounds along!  How her lithesome waist supples itself to thy
circling arm!  Tara-ra-tara, ta-tara, rara-ra!  What the devil is
in the measure that it makes the blood course like quicksilver
through the veins?  Was there ever a pair of eyes like Fillide's?
Nothing of the cold stars there!  Yet how they twinkle and laugh
at thee!  And that rosy, pursed-up mouth that will answer so
sparingly to thy flatteries, as if words were a waste of time,
and kisses were their proper language.  Oh, pupil of Mejnour!
Oh, would-be Rosicrucian, Platonist, Magian, I know not what!  I
am ashamed of thee!  What, in the names of Averroes and Burri and
Agrippa and Hermes have become of thy austere contemplations?
Was it for this thou didst resign Viola?  I don't think thou hast
the smallest recollection of the elixir or the Cabala.  Take
care!  What are you about, sir?  Why do you clasp that small hand
locked within your own?  Why do you--Tara-rara tara-ra tara-rara-
ra, rarara, ta-ra, a-ra!  Keep your eyes off those slender ankles
and that crimson bodice!  Tara-rara-ra!  There they go again!
And now they rest under the broad trees.  The revel has whirled
away from them.  They hear--or do they not hear--the laughter at
the distance?  They see--or if they have their eyes about them,
they SHOULD see--couple after couple gliding by, love-talking and
love-looking.  But I will lay a wager, as they sit under that
tree, and the round sun goes down behind the mountains, that they
see or hear very little except themselves.

"Hollo, Signor Excellency! and how does your partner please you?
Come and join our feast, loiterers; one dances more merrily after
wine."

Down goes the round sun; up comes the autumn moon.  Tara, tara,
rarara, rarara, tarara-ra!  Dancing again; is it a dance, or some
movement gayer, noisier, wilder still?  How they glance and gleam
through the night shadows, those flitting forms!  What
confusion!--what order!  Ha, that is the Tarantula dance; Maestro
Paolo foots it bravely!  Diavolo, what fury! the Tarantula has
stung them all.  Dance or die; it is fury,--the Corybantes, the
Maenads, the--Ho, ho! more wine! the Sabbat of the Witches at
Benevento is a joke to this!  From cloud to cloud wanders the
moon,--now shining, now lost.  Dimness while the maiden blushes;
light when the maiden smiles.

"Fillide, thou art an enchantress!"

"Buona notte, Excellency; you will see me again!"

"Ah, young man," said an old, decrepit, hollow-eyed octogenarian,
leaning on his staff, "make the best of your youth.  I, too, once
had a Fillide!  I was handsomer than you then!  Alas! if we could
be always young!"

"Always young!" Glyndon started, as he turned his gaze from the
fresh, fair, rosy face of the girl, and saw the eyes dropping
rheum, the yellow wrinkled skin, the tottering frame of the old
man.

"Ha, ha!" said the decrepit creature, hobbling near to him, and
with a malicious laugh.  "Yet I, too, was young once!  Give me a
baioccho for a glass of aqua vitae!"

Tara, rara, ra-rara, tara, rara-ra!  There dances Youth!  Wrap
thy rags round thee, and totter off, Old Age!


CHAPTER 4.VI.

Whilest Calidore does follow that faire mayd,
Unmindful of his vow and high beheast
Which by the Faerie Queene was on him layd.
Spenser, "Faerie Queene," cant. x. s. 1.

It was that grey, indistinct, struggling interval between the
night and the dawn, when Clarence stood once more in his chamber.
The abstruse calculations lying on his table caught his eye, and
filled him with a sentiment of weariness and distaste.  But--
"Alas, if we could be always young!  Oh, thou horrid spectre of
the old, rheum-eyed man!  What apparition can the mystic chamber
shadow forth more ugly and more hateful than thou?  Oh, yes, if
we could be always young!  But not [thinks the neophyte now]--not
to labour forever at these crabbed figures and these cold
compounds of herbs and drugs.  No; but to enjoy, to love, to
revel!  What should be the companion of youth but pleasure?  And
the gift of eternal youth may be mine this very hour!  What means
this prohibition of Mejnour's?  Is it not of the same complexion
as his ungenerous reserve even in the minutest secrets of
chemistry, or the numbers of his Cabala?--compelling me to
perform all the toils, and yet withholding from me the knowledge
of the crowning result?  No doubt he will still, on his return,
show me that the great mystery CAN be attained; but will still
forbid ME to attain it.  Is it not as if he desired to keep my
youth the slave to his age; to make me dependent solely on
himself; to bind me to a journeyman's service by perpetual
excitement to curiosity, and the sight of the fruits he places
beyond my lips?"  These, and many reflections still more
repining, disturbed and irritated him.  Heated with wine--excited
by the wild revels he had left--he was unable to sleep.  The
image of that revolting Old Age which Time, unless defeated, must
bring upon himself, quickened the eagerness of his desire for the
dazzling and imperishable Youth he ascribed to Zanoni.  The
prohibition only served to create a spirit of defiance.  The
reviving day, laughing jocundly through his lattice, dispelled
all the fears and superstitions that belong to night.  The mystic
chamber presented to his imagination nothing to differ from any
other apartment in the castle.  What foul or malignant apparition
could harm him in the light of that blessed sun!  It was the
peculiar, and on the whole most unhappy, contradiction in
Glyndon's nature, that while his reasonings led him to doubt,--
and doubt rendered him in MORAL conduct irresolute and unsteady;
he was PHYSICALLY brave to rashness.  Nor is this uncommon:
scepticism and presumption are often twins.  When a man of this
character determines upon any action, personal fear never deters
him; and for the moral fear, any sophistry suffices to self-will.
Almost without analysing himself the mental process by which his
nerves hardened themselves and his limbs moved, he traversed the
corridor, gained Mejnour's apartment, and opened the forbidden
door.  All was as he had been accustomed to see it, save that on
a table in the centre of the room lay open a large volume.  He
approached, and gazed on the characters on the page; they were in
a cipher, the study of which had made a part of his labours.
With but slight difficulty he imagined that he interpreted the
meaning of the first sentences, and that they ran thus:--

"To quaff the inner life, is to see the outer life:  to live in
defiance of time, is to live in the whole.  He who discovers the
elixir discovers what lies in space; for the spirit that vivifies
the frame strengthens the senses.  There is attraction in the
elementary principle of light.  In the lamps of Rosicrucius the
fire is the pure elementary principle.  Kindle the lamps while
thou openst the vessel that contains the elixir, and the light
attracts towards thee those beings whose life is that light.
Beware of Fear.  Fear is the deadliest enemy to Knowledge."  Here
the ciphers changed their character, and became incomprehensible.
But had he not read enough?  Did not the last sentence suffice?--
"Beware of Fear!"  It was as if Mejnour had purposely left the
page open,--as if the trial was, in truth, the reverse of the one
pretended; as if the mystic had designed to make experiment of
his COURAGE while affecting but that of his FORBEARANCE.  Not
Boldness, but Fear, was the deadliest enemy to Knowledge.  He
moved to the shelves on which the crystal vases were placed; with
an untrembling hand he took from one of them the stopper, and a
delicious odor suddenly diffused itself through the room.  The
air sparkled as if with a diamond-dust.  A sense of unearthly
delight,--of an existence that seemed all spirit, flashed through
his whole frame; and a faint, low, but exquisite music crept,
thrilling, through the chamber.  At this moment he heard a voice
in the corridor calling on his name; and presently there was a
knock at the door without.  "Are you there, signor?" said the
clear tones of Maestro Paolo.  Glyndon hastily reclosed and
replaced the vial, and bidding Paolo await him in his own
apartment, tarried till he heard the intruder's steps depart; he
then reluctantly quitted the room.  As he locked the door, he
still heard the dying strain of that fairy music; and with a
light step and a joyous heart he repaired to Paolo, inly
resolving to visit again the chamber at an hour when his
experiment would be safe from interruption.

As he crossed his threshold, Paolo started back, and exclaimed,
"Why, Excellency!  I scarcely recognise you!  Amusement, I see,
is a great beautifier to the young.  Yesterday you looked so pale
and haggard; but Fillide's merry eyes have done more for you than
the Philosopher's Stone (saints forgive me for naming it) ever
did for the wizards."  And Glyndon, glancing at the old Venetian
mirror as Paolo spoke, was scarcely less startled than Paolo
himself at the change in his own mien and bearing.  His form,
before bent with thought, seemed to him taller by half the head,
so lithesome and erect rose his slender stature; his eyes glowed,
his cheeks bloomed with health and the innate and pervading
pleasure.  If the mere fragrance of the elixir was thus potent,
well might the alchemists have ascribed life and youth to the
draught!

"You must forgive me, Excellency, for disturbing you," said
Paolo, producing a letter from his pouch; "but our Patron has
just written to me to say that he will be here to-morrow, and
desired me to lose not a moment in giving to yourself this
billet, which he enclosed."

"Who brought the letter?"

"A horseman, who did not wait for any reply."

Glyndon opened the letter, and read as follows:--

"I return a week sooner than I had intended, and you will expect
me to-morrow.  You will then enter on the ordeal you desire, but
remember that, in doing so, you must reduce Being as far as
possible into Mind.  The senses must be mortified and subdued,--
not the whisper of one passion heard.  Thou mayst be master of
the Cabala and the Chemistry; but thou must be master also over
the Flesh and the Blood,--over Love and Vanity, Ambition and
Hate.  I will trust to find thee so.  Fast and meditate till we
meet!"

Glyndon crumpled the letter in his hand with a smile of disdain.
What! more drudgery,--more abstinence!  Youth without love and
pleasure!  Ha, ha! baffled Mejnour, thy pupil shall gain thy
secrets without thine aid!

"And Fillide!  I passed her cottage in my way,--she blushed and
sighed when I jested her about you, Excellency!"

"Well, Paolo!  I thank thee for so charming an introduction.
Thine must be a rare life."

"Ah, Excellency, while we are young, nothing like adventure,--
except love, wine, and laughter!"

"Very true.  Farewell, Maestro Paolo; we will talk more with each
other in a few days."

All that morning Glyndon was almost overpowered with the new
sentiment of happiness that had entered into him.  He roamed into
the woods, and he felt a pleasure that resembled his earlier life
of an artist, but a pleasure yet more subtle and vivid, in the
various colours of the autumn foliage.  Certainly Nature seemed
to be brought closer to him; he comprehended better all that
Mejnour had often preached to him of the mystery of sympathies
and attractions.  He was about to enter into the same law as
those mute children of the forests.  He was to know THE RENEWAL
OF LIFE; the seasons that chilled to winter should yet bring
again the bloom and the mirth of spring.  Man's common existence
is as one year to the vegetable world:  he has his spring, his
summer, his autumn, and winter,--but only ONCE.  But the giant
oaks round him go through a revolving series of verdure and
youth, and the green of the centenarian is as vivid in the beams
of  May as that of the sapling by its side.  "Mine shall be your
spring, but not your winter!" exclaimed the aspirant.

Wrapped in these sanguine and joyous reveries, Glyndon, quitting
the woods, found himself amidst cultivated fields and vineyards
to which his footstep had not before wandered; and there stood,
by the skirts of a green lane that reminded him of verdant
England, a modest house,--half cottage, half farm.  The door was
open, and he saw a girl at work with her distaff.  She looked up,
uttered a slight cry, and, tripping gayly into the lane to his
side, he recognised the dark-eyed Fillide.

"Hist!" she said, archly putting her finger to her lip; "do not
speak loud,--my mother is asleep within; and I knew you would
come to see me.  It is kind!"

Glyndon, with a little embarrassment, accepted the compliment to
his kindness, which he did not exactly deserve.  "You have
thought, then, of me, fair Fillide?"

"Yes," answered the girl, colouring, but with that frank, bold
ingenuousness, which characterises the females of Italy,
especially of the lower class, and in the southern provinces,--
"oh, yes!  I have thought of little else.  Paolo said he knew you
would visit me."

"And what relation is Paolo to you?"

"None; but a good friend to us all.  My brother is one of his
band."

"One of his band!--a robber?"

"We of the mountains do not call a mountaineer 'a robber,'
signor."

"I ask pardon.  Do you not tremble sometimes for your brother's
life?  The law--"

"Law never ventures into these defiles.  Tremble for him!  No.
My father and grandsire were of the same calling.  I often wish I
were a man!"

"By these lips, I am enchanted that your wish cannot be
realised."

"Fie, signor!  And do you really love me?"

"With my whole heart!"

"And I thee!" said the girl, with a candour that seemed innocent,
as she suffered him to clasp her hand.

"But," she added, "thou wilt soon leave us; and I--"  She stopped
short, and the tears stood in her eyes.

There was something dangerous in this, it must be confessed.
Certainly Fillide had not the seraphic loveliness of Viola; but
hers was a beauty that equally at least touched the senses.
Perhaps Glyndon had never really loved Viola; perhaps the
feelings with which she had inspired him were not of that ardent
character which deserves the name of love.  However that be, he
thought, as he gazed on those dark eyes, that he had never loved
before.

"And couldst thou not leave thy mountains?" he whispered, as he
drew yet nearer to her.

"Dost thou ask me?" she said, retreating, and looking him
steadfastly in the face.  "Dost thou know what we daughters of
the mountains are?  You gay, smooth cavaliers of cities seldom
mean what you speak.  With you, love is amusement; with us, it is
life.  Leave these mountains!  Well!  I should not leave my
nature."

"Keep thy nature ever,--it is a sweet one."

"Yes, sweet while thou art true; stern, if thou art faithless.
Shall I tell thee what I--what the girls of this country are?
Daughters of men whom you call robbers, we aspire to be the
companions of our lovers or our husbands.  We love ardently; we
own it boldly.  We stand by your side in danger; we serve you as
slaves in safety:  we never change, and we resent change.  You
may reproach, strike us, trample us as a dog,--we bear all
without a murmur; betray us, and no tiger is more relentless.  Be
true, and our hearts reward you; be false, and our hands revenge!
Dost thou love me now?"

During this speech the Italian's countenance had most eloquently
aided her words,--by turns soft, frank, fierce,--and at the last
question she inclined her head humbly, and stood, as in fear of
his reply, before him.  The stern, brave, wild spirit, in which
what seemed unfeminine was yet, if I may so say, still womanly,
did not recoil, it rather captivated Glyndon.  He answered
readily, briefly, and freely, "Fillide,--yes!"

Oh, "yes!" forsooth, Clarence Glyndon!  Every light nature
answers "yes" lightly to such a question from lips so rosy!  Have
a care,--have a care!  Why the deuce, Mejnour, do you leave your
pupil of four-and-twenty to the mercy of these wild cats-a-
mountain!  Preach fast, and abstinence, and sublime renunciation
of the cheats of the senses!  Very well in you, sir, Heaven knows
how many ages old; but at four-and-twenty, your Hierophant would
have kept you out of Fillide's way, or you would have had small
taste for the Cabala.

And so they stood, and talked, and vowed, and whispered, till the
girl's mother made some noise within the house, and Fillide
bounded back to the distaff, her finger once more on her lip.

"There is more magic in Fillide than in Mejnour," said Glyndon to
himself, walking gayly home; "yet on second thoughts, I know not
if I quite so well like a character so ready for revenge.  But he
who has the real secret can baffle even the vengeance of a woman,
and disarm all danger!"

Sirrah! dost thou even already meditate the possibility of
treason?  Oh, well said Zanoni, "to pour pure water into the
muddy well does but disturb the mud."


CHAPTER 4.VII.

Cernis, custodia qualis
Vestibulo sedeat? facies quae limina servet?
"Aeneid," lib. vi. 574.

(See you what porter sits within the vestibule?--what face
watches at the threshold?)

And it is profound night.  All is at rest within the old castle,
--all is breathless under the melancholy stars.  Now is the time.
Mejnour with his austere wisdom,--Mejnour the enemy to love;
Mejnour, whose eye will read thy heart, and refuse thee the
promised secrets because the sunny face of Fillide disturbs the
lifeless shadow that he calls repose,--Mejnour comes to-morrow!
Seize the night!  Beware of fear!  Never, or this hour!  So,
brave youth,--brave despite all thy errors,--so, with a steady
pulse, thy hand unlocks once more the forbidden door.

He placed his lamp on the table beside the book, which still lay
there opened; he turned over the leaves, but could not decipher
their meaning till he came to the following passage:--

"When, then, the pupil is thus initiated and prepared, let him
open the casement, light the lamps, and bathe his temples with
the elixir.  He must beware how he presume yet to quaff the
volatile and fiery spirit.  To taste till repeated inhalations
have accustomed the frame gradually to the ecstatic liquid, is to
know not life, but death."

He could penetrate no farther into the instructions; the cipher
again changed.  He now looked steadily and earnestly round the
chamber.  The moonlight came quietly through the lattice as his
hand opened it, and seemed, as it rested on the floor, and filled
the walls, like the presence of some ghostly and mournful Power.
He ranged the mystic lamps (nine in number) round the centre of
the room, and lighted them one by one.  A flame of silvery and
azure tints sprung up from each, and lighted the apartment with a
calm and yet most dazzling splendour; but presently this light
grew more soft and dim, as a thin, grey cloud, like a mist,
gradually spread over the room; and an icy thrill shot through
the heart of the Englishman, and quickly gathered over him like
the coldness of death.  Instinctively aware of his danger, he
tottered, though with difficulty, for his limbs seemed rigid and
stone-like, to the shelf that contained the crystal vials;
hastily he inhaled the spirit, and laved his temples with the
sparkling liquid.  The same sensation of vigour and youth, and
joy and airy lightness, that he had felt in the morning,
instantaneously replaced the deadly numbness that just before had
invaded the citadel of life.  He stood, with his arms folded on
his bosom erect and dauntless, to watch what should ensue.

The vapour had now assumed almost the thickness and seeming
consistency of a snow-cloud; the lamps piercing it like stars.
And now he distinctly saw shapes, somewhat resembling in outline
those of the human form, gliding slowly and with regular
evolutions through the cloud.  They appeared bloodless; their
bodies were transparent, and contracted or expanded like the
folds of a serpent.  As they moved in majestic order, he heard a
low sound--the ghost, as it were, of voice--which each caught and
echoed from the other; a low sound, but musical, which seemed the
chant of some unspeakably tranquil joy.  None of these
apparitions heeded him.  His intense longing to accost them, to
be of them, to make one of this movement of aerial happiness,--
for such it seemed to him,--made him stretch forth his arms and
seek to cry aloud, but only an inarticulate whisper passed his
lips; and the movement and the music went on the same as if the
mortal were not there.  Slowly they glided round and aloft, till,
in the same majestic order, one after one, they floated through
the casement and were lost in the moonlight; then, as his eyes
followed them, the casement became darkened with some object
undistinguishable at the first gaze, but which sufficed
mysteriously to change into ineffable horror the delight he had
before experienced.  By degrees this object shaped itself to his
sight.  It was as that of a human head covered with a dark veil
through which glared, with livid and demoniac fire, eyes that
froze the marrow of his bones.  Nothing else of the face was
distinguishable,--nothing but those intolerable eyes; but his
terror, that even at the first seemed beyond nature to endure,
was increased a thousand-fold, when, after a pause, the phantom
glided slowly into the chamber.

The cloud retreated from it as it advanced; the bright lamps grew
wan, and flickered restlessly as at the breath of its presence.
Its form was veiled as the face, but the outline was that of a
female; yet it moved not as move even the ghosts that simulate
the living.  It seemed rather to crawl as some vast misshapen
reptile; and pausing, at length it cowered beside the table which
held the mystic volume, and again fixed its eyes through the
filmy veil on the rash invoker. All fancies, the most grotesque,
of monk or painter in the early North, would have failed to give
to the visage of imp or fiend that aspect of deadly malignity
which spoke to the shuddering nature in those eyes alone.  All
else so dark,--shrouded, veiled and larva-like.  But that burning
glare so intense, so livid, yet so living, had in it something
that was almost HUMAN in its passion of hate and mockery,--
something that served to show that the shadowy Horror was not all
a spirit, but partook of matter enough, at least, to make it more
deadly and fearful an enemy to material forms.  As, clinging with
the grasp of agony to the wall,--his hair erect, his eyeballs
starting, he still gazed back upon that appalling gaze,--the
Image spoke to him:  his soul rather than his ear comprehended
the words it said.

"Thou hast entered the immeasurable region.  I am the Dweller of
the Threshold.  What wouldst thou with me?  Silent?  Dost thou
fear me?  Am I not thy beloved?  Is it not for me that thou hast
rendered up the delights of thy race?  Wouldst thou be wise?
Mine is the wisdom of the countless ages.  Kiss me, my mortal
lover."  And the Horror crawled near and nearer to him; it crept
to his side, its breath breathed upon his cheek!  With a sharp
cry he fell to the earth insensible, and knew no more till, far
in the noon of the next day, he opened his eyes and found himself
in his bed,--the glorious sun streaming through his lattice, and
the bandit Paolo by his side, engaged in polishing his carbine,
and whistling a Calabrian love-air.


CHAPTER 4.VIII.

Thus man pursues his weary calling,
And wrings the hard life from the sky,
While happiness unseen is falling
Down from God's bosom silently.
Schiller.

In one of those islands whose history the imperishable literature
and renown of Athens yet invest with melancholy interest, and on
which Nature, in whom "there is nothing melancholy," still
bestows a glory of scenery and climate equally radiant for the
freeman or the slave,--the Ionian, the Venetian, the Gaul, the
Turk, or the restless Briton,--Zanoni had fixed his bridal home.
There the air carries with it the perfumes of the plains for
miles along the blue, translucent deep.  (See Dr. Holland's
"Travels to the Ionian Isles," etc., page 18.)  Seen from one of
its green sloping heights, the island he had selected seemed one
delicious garden.  The towers and turrets of its capital gleaming
amidst groves of oranges and lemons; vineyards and olive-woods
filling up the valleys, and clambering along the hill-sides; and
villa, farm, and cottage covered with luxuriant trellises of
dark-green leaves and purple fruit.  For there the prodigal
beauty yet seems half to justify those graceful superstitions of
a creed that, too enamoured of earth, rather brought the deities
to man, than raised the man to their less alluring and less
voluptuous Olympus.

And still to the fishermen, weaving yet their antique dances on
the sand; to the maiden, adorning yet, with many a silver fibula,
her glossy tresses under the tree that overshadows her tranquil
cot,--the same Great Mother that watched over the wise of Samos,
the democracy of Corcyra, the graceful and deep-taught loveliness
of Miletus, smiles as graciously as of yore.  For the North,
philosophy and freedom are essentials to human happiness; in the
lands which Aphrodite rose from the waves to govern, as the
Seasons, hand in hand, stood to welcome her on the shores, Nature
is all sufficient.  (Homeric Hymn.)

The isle which Zanoni had selected was one of the loveliest in
that divine sea.  His abode, at some distance from the city, but
near one of the creeks on the shore, belonged to a Venetian, and,
though small, had more of elegance than the natives ordinarily
cared for.  On the seas, and in sight, rode his vessel.  His
Indians, as before, ministered in mute gravity to the service of
the household.  No spot could be more beautiful,--no solitude
less invaded.  To the mysterious knowledge of Zanoni, to the
harmless ignorance of Viola, the babbling and garish world of
civilised man was alike unheeded.  The loving sky and the lovely
earth are companions enough to Wisdom and to Ignorance while they
love.

Although, as I have before said, there was nothing in the visible
occupations of Zanoni that betrayed a cultivator of the occult
sciences, his habits were those of a man who remembers or
reflects.  He loved to roam alone, chiefly at dawn, or at night,
when the moon was clear (especially in each month, at its rise
and full), miles and miles away over the rich inlands of the
island, and to cull herbs and flowers, which he hoarded with
jealous care.  Sometimes, at the dead of night, Viola would wake
by an instinct that told her he was not by her side, and,
stretching out her arms, find that the instinct had not deceived
her.  But she early saw that he was reserved on his peculiar
habits; and if at times a chill, a foreboding, a suspicious awe
crept over her, she forebore to question him.

But his rambles were not always unaccompanied,--he took pleasure
in excursions less solitary.  Often, when the sea lay before them
like a lake, the barren dreariness of the opposite coast of
Cephallenia contrasting the smiling shores on which they dwelt,
Viola and himself would pass days in cruising slowly around the
coast, or  in visits to the neighbouring isles.  Every spot of
the Greek soil, "that fair Fable-Land," seemed to him familiar;
and as he conversed of the past and its exquisite traditions, he
taught Viola to love the race from which have descended the
poetry and the wisdom of the world.  There was much in Zanoni, as
she knew him better, that deepened the fascination in which Viola
was from the first enthralled.  His love for herself was so
tender, so vigilant, and had that best and most enduring
attribute, that it seemed rather grateful for the happiness in
its own cares than vain of the happiness it created.  His
habitual mood with all who approached him was calm and gentle,
almost to apathy.  An angry word never passed his lips,--an angry
gleam never shot from his eyes.  Once they had been exposed to
the danger not uncommon in those then half-savage lands.  Some
pirates who infested the neighbouring coasts had heard of the
arrival of the strangers, and the seamen Zanoni employed had
gossiped of their master's wealth.  One night, after Viola had
retired to rest, she was awakened by a slight noise below.
Zanoni was not by her side; she listened in some alarm.  Was that
a groan that came upon her ear?  She started up, she went to the
door; all was still.  A footstep now slowly approached, and
Zanoni entered calm as usual, and seemed unconscious of her
fears.

The next morning three men were found dead at the threshold of
the principal entrance, the door of which had been forced.  They
were recognised in the neighbourhood as the most sanguinary and
terrible marauders of the coasts,--men stained with a thousand
murders, and who had never hitherto failed in any attempt to
which the lust of rapine had impelled them.  The footsteps of
many others were tracked to the seashore.  It seemed that their
accomplices must have fled on the death of their leaders.  But
when the Venetian Proveditore, or authority, of the island, came
to examine into the matter, the most unaccountable mystery was
the manner in which these ruffians had met their fate.  Zanoni
had not stirred from the apartment in which he ordinarily pursued
his chemical studies.  None of the servants had even been
disturbed from their slumbers.  No marks of human violence were
on the bodies of the dead.  They died, and made no sign.  From
that moment Zanoni's house--nay, the whole vicinity--was sacred.
The neighbouring villages, rejoiced to be delivered from a
scourge, regarded the stranger as one whom the Pagiana (or
Virgin) held under her especial protection.

In truth, the lively Greeks around, facile to all external
impressions, and struck with the singular and majestic beauty of
the man who knew their language as a native, whose voice often
cheered them in their humble sorrows, and whose hand was never
closed to their wants, long after he had left their shore
preserved his memory by grateful traditions, and still point to
the lofty platanus beneath which they had often seen him seated,
alone and thoughtful, in the heats of noon.  But Zanoni had
haunts less open to the gaze than the shade of the platanus.  In
that isle there are the bituminous springs which Herodotus has
commemorated.  Often at night, the moon, at least, beheld him
emerging from the myrtle and cystus that clothe the hillocks
around the marsh that imbeds the pools containing the inflammable
materia, all the medical uses of which, as applied to the nerves
of organic life, modern science has not yet perhaps explored.
Yet more often would he pass his hours in a cavern, by the
loneliest part of the beach, where the stalactites seem almost
arranged by the hand of art, and which the superstition of the
peasants associates, in some ancient legends, with the numerous
and almost incessant earthquakes to which the island is so
singularly subjected.

Whatever the pursuits that instigated these wanderings and
favoured these haunts, either they were linked with, or else
subordinate to, one main and master desire, which every fresh day
passed in the sweet human company of Viola confirmed and
strengthened.

The scene that Glyndon had witnessed in his trance was faithful
to truth.  And some little time after the date of that night,
Viola was dimly aware that an influence, she knew not of what
nature, was struggling to establish itself over her happy life.
Visions indistinct and beautiful, such as those she had known in
her earlier days, but more constant and impressive, began to
haunt her night and day when Zanoni was absent, to fade in his
presence, and seem less fair than THAT.  Zanoni questioned her
eagerly and minutely of these visitations, but seemed
dissatisfied, and at times perplexed, by her answers.

"Tell me not," he said, one day, "of those unconnected images,
those evolutions of starry shapes in a choral dance, or those
delicious melodies that seem to thee of the music and the
language of the distant spheres.  Has no ONE shape been to thee
more distinct and more beautiful than the rest,--no voice
uttering, or seeming to utter, thine own tongue, and whispering
to thee of strange secrets and solemn knowledge?"

"No; all is confused in these dreams, whether of day or night;
and when at the sound of thy footsteps I recover, my memory
retains nothing but a vague impression of happiness.  How
different--how cold--to the rapture of hanging on thy smile, and
listening to thy voice, when it says, 'I love thee!'"

"Yet, how is it that visions less fair than these once seemed to
thee so alluring?  How is it that they then stirred thy fancies
and filled thy heart?  Once thou didst desire a fairy-land, and
now thou seemest so contented with common life."

"Have I not explained it to thee before?  Is it common life,
then, to love, and to live with the one we love?  My true
fairy-land is won!  Speak to me of no other."

And so night surprised them by the lonely beach; and Zanoni,
allured from his sublimer projects, and bending over that tender
face, forgot that, in the Harmonious Infinite which spread
around, there were other worlds than that one human heart.


CHAPTER 4.IX.

There is a principle of the soul, superior to all nature, through
which we are capable of surpassing the order and systems of the
world.  When the soul is elevated to natures better than itself,
THEN it is entirely separated from subordinate natures, exchanges
this for another life, and, deserting the order of things with
which it was connected, links and mingles itself with another.--
Iamblichus.

"Adon-Ai!  Adon-Ai!--appear, appear!"

And in the lonely cave, whence once had gone forth the oracles of
a heathen god, there emerged from the shadows of fantastic rocks
a luminous and gigantic column, glittering and shifting.  It
resembled the shining but misty spray which, seen afar off, a
fountain seems to send up on a starry night.  The radiance lit
the stalactites, the crags, the arches of the cave, and shed a
pale and tremulous splendour on the features of Zanoni.

"Son of Eternal Light," said the invoker, "thou to whose
knowledge, grade after grade, race after race, I attained at
last, on the broad Chaldean plains; thou from whom I have drawn
so largely of the unutterable knowledge that yet eternity alone
can suffice to drain; thou who, congenial with myself, so far as
our various beings will permit, hast been for centuries my
familiar and my friend,--answer me and counsel!"

From the column there emerged a shape of unimaginable glory.  Its
face was that of a man in its first youth, but solemn, as with
the consciousness of eternity and the tranquillity of wisdom;
light, like starbeams, flowed through its transparent veins;
light made its limbs themselves, and undulated, in restless
sparkles, through the waves of its dazzling hair.  With its arms
folded on its breast, it stood distant a few feet from Zanoni,
and its low voice murmured gently, "My counsels were sweet to
thee once; and once, night after night, thy soul could follow my
wings through the untroubled splendours of the Infinite.  Now
thou hast bound thyself back to the earth by its strongest
chains, and the attraction to the clay is more potent than the
sympathies that drew to thy charms the Dweller of the Starbeam
and the Air.  When last thy soul hearkened to me, the senses
already troubled thine intellect and obscured thy vision.  Once
again I come to thee; but thy power even to summon me to thy side
is fading from thy spirit, as sunshine fades from the wave when
the winds drive the cloud between the ocean and the sky."

"Alas, Adon-Ai!" answered the seer, mournfully, "I know too well
the conditions of the being which thy presence was wont to
rejoice.  I know that our wisdom comes but from the indifference
to the things of the world which the wisdom masters.  The mirror
of the soul cannot reflect both earth and heaven; and the one
vanishes from the surface as the other is glassed upon its deeps.
But it is not to restore me to that sublime abstraction in which
the intellect, free and disembodied, rises, region after region,
to the spheres,--that once again, and with the agony and travail
of enfeebled power I have called thee to mine aid.  I love; and
in love I begin to live in the sweet humanities of another.  If
wise, yet in all which makes danger powerless against myself, or
those on whom I can gaze from the calm height of indifferent
science, I am blind as the merest mortal to the destinies of the
creature that makes my heart beat with the passions which obscure
my gaze."

"What matter!" answered Adon-Ai.  "Thy love must be but a mockery
of the name; thou canst not love as they do for whom there are
death and the grave.  A short time,--like a day in thy
incalculable life,--and the form thou dotest on is dust!  Others
of the nether world go hand in hand, each with each, unto the
tomb; hand in hand they ascend from the worm to new cycles of
existence.  For thee, below are ages; for her, but hours.  And
for her and thee--O poor, but mighty one!--will there be even a
joint hereafter!  Through what grades and heavens of
spiritualised being will her soul have passed when thou, the
solitary loiterer, comest from the vapours of the earth to the
gates of light!"

"Son of the Starbeam, thinkest thou that this thought is not with
me forever; and seest thou not that I have invoked thee to
hearken and minister to my design?  Readest thou not my desire
and dream to raise the conditions of her being to my own?  Thou,
Adon-Ai, bathing the celestial joy that makes thy life in the
oceans of eternal splendour,--thou, save by the sympathies of
knowledge, canst conjecture not what I, the offspring of mortals,
feel--debarred yet from the objects of the tremendous and sublime
ambition that first winged my desires above the clay--when I see
myself compelled to stand in this low world alone.  I have sought
amongst my tribe for comrades, and in vain.  At last I have found
a mate.  The wild bird and the wild beast have theirs; and my
mastery over the malignant tribes of terror can banish their
larvae from the path that shall lead her upward, till the air of
eternity fits the frame for the elixir that baffles death."

"And thou hast begun the initiation, and thou art foiled!  I know
it.  Thou hast conjured to her sleep the fairest visions; thou
hast invoked the loveliest children of the air to murmur their
music to her trance, and her soul heeds them not, and, returning
to the earth, escapes from their control.  Blind one, wherefore?
canst thou not perceive?  Because in her soul all is love.  There
is no intermediate passion with which the things thou wouldst
charm to her have association and affinities.  Their attraction
is but to the desires and cravings of the INTELLECT.  What have
they with the PASSION that is of earth, and the HOPE that goes
direct to heaven?"

"But can there be no medium--no link--in which our souls, as our
hearts, can be united, and so mine may have influence over her
own?"

"Ask me not,--thou wilt not comprehend me!"

"I adjure thee!--speak!"

"When two souls are divided, knowest thou not that a third in
which both meet and live is the link between them!"

"I do comprehend thee, Adon-Ai," said Zanoni, with a light of
more human joy upon his face than it had ever before been seen to
wear; "and if my destiny, which here is dark to mine eyes,
vouchsafes to me the happy lot of the humble,--if ever there be a
child that I may clasp to my bosom and call my own--"

"And is it to be man at last, that thou hast aspired to be more
than man?"

"But a child,--a second Viola!" murmured Zanoni, scarcely heeding
the Son of Light; "a young soul fresh from heaven, that I may
rear from the first moment it touches earth,--whose wings I may
train to follow mine through the glories of creation; and through
whom the mother herself may be led upward over the realm of
death!"

"Beware,--reflect!  Knowest thou not that thy darkest enemy
dwells in the Real?  Thy wishes bring thee near and nearer to
humanity."

"Ah, humanity is sweet!" answered Zanoni.

And as the seer spoke, on the glorious face of Adon-Ai there
broke a smile.


CHAPTER 4.X.

Aeterna aeternus tribuit, mortalia confert
Mortalis; divina Deus, peritura caducus.
"Aurel. Prud. contra Symmachum," lib. ii.

(The Eternal gives eternal things, the Mortal gathers mortal
things:  God, that which is divine, and the perishable that which
is perishable.)

EXTRACTS FROM THE LETTERS OF ZANONI TO MEJNOUR.

Letter 1.

Thou hast not informed me of the progress of thy pupil; and I
fear that so differently does circumstance shape the minds of the
generations to which we are descended, from the intense and
earnest children of the earlier world, that even thy most careful
and elaborate guidance would fail, with loftier and purer natures
than that of the neophyte thou hast admitted within thy gates.
Even that third state of being, which the Indian sage (The
Brahmins, speaking of Brahm, say, "To the Omniscient the three
modes of being--sleep, waking, and trance--are not;" distinctly
recognising trance as a third and coequal condition of being.)
rightly recognises as being between the sleep and the waking, and
describes imperfectly by the name of TRANCE, is unknown to the
children of the Northern world; and few but would recoil to
indulge it, regarding its peopled calm as maya and delusion of
the mind.  Instead of ripening and culturing that airy soil, from
which Nature, duly known, can evoke fruits so rich and flowers so
fair, they strive but to exclude it from their gaze; they esteem
that struggle of the intellect from men's narrow world to the
spirit's infinite home, as a disease which the leech must
extirpate with pharmacy and drugs, and know not even that it is
from this condition of their being, in its most imperfect and
infant form, that poetry, music, art--all that belong to an Idea
of Beauty to which neither SLEEPING nor WAKING can furnish
archetype and actual semblance--take their immortal birth.  When
we, O Mejnour in the far time, were ourselves the neophytes and
aspirants, we were of a class to which the actual world was shut
and barred.  Our forefathers had no object in life but knowledge.
From the cradle we were predestined and reared to wisdom as to a
priesthood.  We commenced research where modern Conjecture closes
its faithless wings.  And with us, those were common elements of
science which the sages of to-day disdain as wild chimeras, or
despair of as unfathomable mysteries.  Even the fundamental
principles, the large yet simple theories of electricity and
magnetism, rest obscure and dim in the disputes of their blinded
schools; yet, even in our youth, how few ever attained to the
first circle of the brotherhood, and, after wearily enjoying the
sublime privileges they sought, they voluntarily abandoned the
light of the sun, and sunk, without effort, to the grave, like
pilgrims in a trackless desert, overawed by the stillness of
their solitude, and appalled by the absence of a goal.  Thou, in
whom nothing seems to live BUT THE DESIRE TO KNOW; thou, who,
indifferent whether it leads to weal or to woe, lendest thyself
to all who would tread the path of mysterious science, a human
book, insensate to the precepts it enounces,--thou hast ever
sought, and often made additions to our number.  But to these
have only been vouchsafed partial secrets; vanity and passion
unfitted them for the rest; and now, without other interest than
that of an experiment in science, without love, and without pity,
thou exposest this new soul to the hazards of the tremendous
ordeal!  Thou thinkest that a zeal so inquisitive, a courage so
absolute and dauntless, may suffice to conquer, where austerer
intellect and purer virtue have so often failed.  Thou thinkest,
too, that the germ of art that lies in the painter's mind, as it
comprehends in itself the entire embryo of power and beauty, may
be expanded into the stately flower of the Golden Science.  It is
a new experiment to thee.  Be gentle with thy neophyte, and if
his nature disappoint thee in the first stages of the process,
dismiss him back to the Real while it is yet time to enjoy the
brief and outward life which dwells in the senses, and closes
with the tomb.  And as I thus admonish thee, O Mejnour, wilt thou
smile at my inconsistent hopes?  I, who have so invariably
refused to initiate others into our mysteries,--I begin at last
to comprehend why the great law, which binds man to his kind,
even when seeking most to set himself aloof from their condition,
has made thy cold and bloodless science the link between thyself
and thy race; why, THOU has sought converts and pupils; why, in
seeing life after life voluntarily dropping from our starry
order, thou still aspirest to renew the vanished, and repair the
lost; why, amidst thy calculations, restless and unceasing as the
wheels of Nature herself, thou recoilest from the THOUGHT TO BE
ALONE!  So with myself; at last I, too, seek a convert, an
equal,--I, too, shudder to be alone!  What thou hast warned me of
has come to pass.  Love reduces all things to itself.  Either
must I be drawn down to the nature of the beloved, or hers must
be lifted to my own.  As whatever belongs to true Art has always
necessarily had attraction for US, whose very being is in the
ideal whence Art descends, so in this fair creature I have
learned, at last, the secret that bound me to her at the first
glance.  The daughter of music,--music, passing into her being,
became poetry.  It was not the stage that attracted her, with its
hollow falsehoods; it was the land in her own fancy which the
stage seemed to centre and represent.  There the poetry found a
voice,--there it struggled into imperfect shape; and then (that
land insufficient for it) it fell back upon itself.  It coloured
her thoughts, it suffused her soul; it asked not words, it
created not things; it gave birth but to emotions, and lavished
itself on dreams.  At last came love; and there, as a river into
the sea, it poured its restless waves, to become mute and deep
and still,--the everlasting mirror of the heavens.

And is it not through this poetry which lies within her that she
may be led into the large poetry of the universe!  Often I listen
to her careless talk, and find oracles in its unconscious beauty,
as we find strange virtues in some lonely flower.  I see her mind
ripening under my eyes; and in its fair fertility what ever-
teeming novelties of thought!  O Mejnour! how many of our tribe
have unravelled the laws of the universe,--have solved the
riddles of the exterior nature, and deduced the light from
darkness!  And is not the POET, who studies nothing but the human
heart, a greater philosopher than all?  Knowledge and atheism are
incompatible.  To know Nature is to know that there must be a
God.  But does it require this to examine the method and
architecture of creation?  Methinks, when I look upon a pure
mind, however ignorant and childlike, that I see the August and
Immaterial One more clearly than in all the orbs of matter which
career at His bidding through space.

Rightly is it the fundamental decree of our order, that we must
impart our secrets only to the pure.  The most terrible part of
the ordeal is in the temptations that our power affords to the
criminal.  If it were possible that a malevolent being could
attain to our faculties, what disorder it might introduce into
the globe!  Happy that it is NOT possible; the malevolence would
disarm the power.  It is in the purity of Viola that I rely, as
thou more vainly hast relied on the courage or the genius of thy
pupils.  Bear me witness, Mejnour!  Never since the distant day
in which I pierced the Arcana of our knowledge, have I ever
sought to make its mysteries subservient to unworthy objects;
though, alas! the extension of our existence robs us of a country
and a home; though the law that places all science, as all art,
in the abstraction from the noisy passions and turbulent ambition
of actual life, forbids us to influence the destinies of nations,
for which Heaven selects ruder and blinder agencies; yet,
wherever have been my wanderings, I have sought to soften
distress, and to convert from sin.  My power has been hostile
only to the guilty; and yet with all our lore, how in each step
we are reduced to be but the permitted instruments of the Power
that vouchsafes our own, but only to direct it.  How all our
wisdom shrinks into nought, compared with that which gives the
meanest herb its virtues, and peoples the smallest globule with
its appropriate world.  And while we are allowed at times to
influence the happiness of others, how mysteriously the shadows
thicken round our own future doom!  We cannot be prophets to
ourselves!  With what trembling hope I nurse the thought that I
may preserve to my solitude the light of a living smile!

...

Extracts from Letter II.

Deeming myself not pure enough to initiate so pure a heart, I
invoke to her trance those fairest and most tender inhabitants of
space that have furnished to poetry, which is the instinctive
guess into creation, the ideas of the Glendoveer and Sylph.  And
these were less pure than her own thoughts, and less tender than
her own love!  They could not raise her above her human heart,
for THAT has a heaven of its own.

...

I have just looked on her in sleep,--I have heard her breathe my
name.  Alas! that which is so sweet to others has its bitterness
to me; for I think how soon the time may come when that sleep
will be without a dream,--when the heart that dictates the name
will be cold, and the lips that utter it be dumb.  What a twofold
shape there is in love!  If we examine it coarsely,--if we look
but on its fleshy ties, its enjoyments of a moment, its turbulent
fever and its dull reaction,--how strange it seems that this
passion should be the supreme mover of the world; that it is this
which has dictated the greatest sacrifices, and influenced all
societies and all times; that to this the loftiest and loveliest
genius has ever consecrated its devotion; that, but for love,
there were no civilisation, no music, no poetry, no beauty, no
life beyond the brute's.

But examine it in its heavenlier shape,--in its utter abnegation
of self; in its intimate connection with all that is most
delicate and subtle in the spirit,--its power above all that is
sordid in existence; its mastery over the idols of the baser
worship; its ability to create a palace of the cottage, an oasis
in the desert, a summer in the Iceland,--where it breathes, and
fertilises, and glows; and the wonder rather becomes how so few
regard it in its holiest nature.  What the sensual call its
enjoyments, are the least of its joys.  True love is less a
passion than a symbol.  Mejnour, shall the time come when I can
speak to thee of Viola as a thing that was?

...

Extract from Letter III.

Knowest thou that of late I have sometimes asked myself, "Is
there no guilt in the knowledge that has so divided us from our
race?"  It is true that the higher we ascend the more hateful
seem to us the vices of the short-lived creepers of the earth,--
the more the sense of the goodness of the All-good penetrates and
suffuses us, and the more immediately does our happiness seem to
emanate from him.  But, on the other hand, how many virtues must
lie dead in those who live in the world of death, and refuse to
die!  Is not this sublime egotism, this state of abstraction and
reverie,--this self-wrapped and self-dependent majesty of
existence, a resignation of that nobility which incorporates our
own welfare, our joys, our hopes, our fears with others?  To live
on in no dread of foes, undegraded by infirmity, secure through
the cares, and free from the disease of flesh, is a spectacle
that captivates our pride.  And yet dost thou not more admire him
who dies for another?  Since I have loved her, Mejnour, it seems
almost cowardice to elude the grave which devours the hearts that
wrap us in their folds.  I feel it,--the earth grows upon my
spirit.  Thou wert right; eternal age, serene and passionless, is
a happier boon than eternal youth, with its yearnings and
desires.  Until we can be all spirit, the tranquillity of
solitude must be indifference.

...

Extracts from Letter IV.

I have received thy communication.  What! is it so?  Has thy
pupil disappointed thee?  Alas, poor pupil!  But--

...

(Here follow comments on those passages in Glyndon's life already
known to the reader, or about to be made so, with earnest
adjurations to Mejnour to watch yet over the fate of his
scholar.)

...

But I cherish the same desire, with a warmer heart.  My pupil!
how the terrors that shall encompass thine ordeal warn me from
the task!  Once more I will seek the Son of Light.

...

Yes; Adon-Ai, long deaf to my call, at last has descended to my
vision, and left behind him the glory of his presence in the
shape of Hope.  Oh, not impossible, Viola,--not impossible, that
we yet may be united, soul with soul!

Extract from Letter V.--(Many months after the last.)

Mejnour, awake from thine apathy,--rejoice!  A new soul will be
born to the world,--a new soul that shall call me father.  Ah, if
they for whom exist all the occupations and resources of human
life,--if they can thrill with exquisite emotion at the thought
of hailing again their own childhood in the faces of their
children; if in that birth they are born once more into the holy
Innocence which is the first state of existence; if they can feel
that on man devolves almost an angel's duty, when he has a life
to guide from the cradle, and a soul to nurture for the heaven,--
what to me must be the rapture to welcome an inheritor of all the
gifts which double themselves in being shared!  How sweet the
power to watch, and to guard,--to instil the knowledge, to avert
the evil, and to guide back the river of life in a richer and
broader and deeper stream to the paradise from which it flows!
And beside that river our souls shall meet, sweet mother.  Our
child shall supply the sympathy that fails as yet; and what shape
shall haunt thee, what terror shall dismay, when thy initiation
is beside the cradle of thy child!


CHAPTER 4.XI.

They thus beguile the way
Untill the blustring storme is overblowne,
When weening to returne whence they did stray,
They cannot finde that path which first was showne,
But wander to and fro in waies unknowne.
Spenser's "Faerie Queene," book i. canto i. st. x.

Yes, Viola, thou art another being than when, by the threshold of
thy Italian home, thou didst follow thy dim fancies through the
Land of Shadow; or when thou didst vainly seek to give voice to
an ideal beauty, on the boards where illusion counterfeits earth
and heaven for an hour, till the weary sense, awaking, sees but
the tinsel and the scene-shifter.  Thy spirit reposes in its own
happiness.  Its wanderings have found a goal.  In a moment there
often dwells the sense of eternity; for when profoundly happy, we
know that it is impossible to die.  Whenever the soul FEELS
ITSELF, it feels everlasting life.

The initiation is deferred,--thy days and nights are left to no
other visions than those with which a contented heart enchants a
guileless fancy.  Glendoveers and Sylphs, pardon me if I question
whether those visions are not lovelier than yourselves.

They stand by the beach, and see the sun sinking into the sea.
How long now have they dwelt on that island?  What matters!--it
may be months, or years--what matters!  Why should I, or they,
keep account of that happy time?  As in the dream of a moment
ages may seem to pass, so shall we measure transport or woe,--by
the length of the dream, or the number of emotions that the dream
involves?

The sun sinks slowly down; the air is arid and oppressive; on the
sea, the stately vessel lies motionless; on the shore, no leaf
trembles on the trees.

Viola drew nearer to Zanoni.  A presentiment she could not define
made her heart beat more quickly; and, looking into his face, she
was struck with its expression:  it was anxious, abstracted,
perturbed.  "This stillness awes me," she whispered.

Zanoni did not seem to hear her.  He muttered to himself, and his
eyes gazed round restlessly.  She knew not why, but that gaze,
which seemed to pierce into space,--that muttered voice in some
foreign language--revived dimly her earlier superstitions.  She
was more fearful since the hour when she knew that she was to be
a mother.  Strange crisis in the life of woman, and in her love!
 Something yet unborn begins already to divide her heart with
that which had been before its only monarch.

"Look on me, Zanoni," she said, pressing his hand.

He turned:  "Thou art pale, Viola; thy hand trembles!"

"It is true.  I feel as if some enemy were creeping near us."

"And the instinct deceives thee not.  An enemy is indeed at hand.
I see it through the heavy air; I hear it through the silence:
the Ghostly One,--the Destroyer, the PESTILENCE!  Ah, seest thou
how the leaves swarm with insects, only by an effort visible to
the eye.  They follow the breath of the plague!"  As he spoke, a
bird fell from the boughs at Viola's feet; it fluttered, it
writhed an instant, and was dead.

"Oh, Viola!" cried Zanoni, passionately, "that is death.  Dost
thou not fear to die?"

"To leave thee?  Ah, yes!"

"And if I could teach thee how Death may be defied; if I could
arrest for thy youth the course of time; if I could--"

He paused abruptly, for Viola's eyes spoke only terror; her cheek
and lips were pale.

"Speak not thus,--look not thus," she said, recoiling from him.
"You dismay me.  Ah, speak not thus, or I should tremble,--no,
not for myself, but for thy child."

"Thy child!  But wouldst thou reject for thy child the same
glorious boon?"

"Zanoni!"

"Well!"

"The sun has sunk from our eyes, but to rise on those of others.
To disappear from this world is to live in the world afar.  Oh,
lover,--oh, husband!" she continued, with sudden energy, "tell me
that thou didst but jest,--that thou didst but trifle with my
folly!  There is less terror in the pestilence than in thy
words."

Zanoni's brow darkened; he looked at her in silence for some
moments, and then said, almost severely ,--

"What hast thou known of me to distrust?"

"Oh, pardon, pardon!--nothing!" cried Viola, throwing herself on
his breast, and bursting into tears.  "I will not believe even
thine own words, if they seem to wrong thee!"  He kissed the
tears from her eyes, but made no answer.

"And ah!" she resumed, with an enchanting and child-like smile,
"if thou wouldst give me a charm against the pestilence! see, I
will take it from thee."  And she laid her hand on a small,
antique amulet that he wore on his breast.

"Thou knowest how often this has made me jealous of the past;
surely some love-gift, Zanoni?  But no, thou didst not love the
giver as thou dost me.  Shall I steal thine amulet?"

"Infant!" said Zanoni, tenderly; "she who placed this round my
neck deemed it indeed a charm, for she had superstitions like
thyself; but to me it is more than the wizard's spell,--it is the
relic of a sweet vanished time when none who loved me could
distrust."

He said these words in a tone of such melancholy reproach that it
went to the heart of Viola; but the tone changed into a solemnity
which chilled back the gush of her feelings as he resumed:  "And
this, Viola, one day, perhaps, I will transfer from my breast to
thine; yes, whenever thou shalt comprehend me better,--WHENEVER
THE LAWS OF OUR BEING SHALL BE THE SAME!"

He moved on gently.  They returned slowly home; but fear still
was in the heart of Viola, though she strove to shake it off.
Italian and Catholic she was, with all the superstitions of land
and sect.  She stole to her chamber and prayed before a little
relic of San Gennaro, which the priest of her house had given to
her in childhood, and which had accompanied her in all her
wanderings.  She had never deemed it possible to part with it
before.  Now, if there was a charm against the pestilence, did
she fear the pestilence for herself?  The next morning, when he
awoke, Zanoni found the relic of the saint suspended with his
mystic amulet round his neck.

"Ah! thou wilt have nothing to fear from the pestilence now,"
said Viola, between tears and smiles; "and when thou wouldst talk
to me again as thou didst last night, the saint shall rebuke
thee."

Well, Zanoni, can there ever indeed be commune of thought and
spirit, except with equals?

Yes, the plague broke out,--the island home must be abandoned.
Mighty Seer, THOU HAST NO POWER TO SAVE THOSE WHOM THOU LOVEST!
Farewell, thou bridal roof!--sweet resting-place from care,
farewell!  Climates as soft may greet ye, O lovers,--skies as
serene, and waters as blue and calm; but THAT TIME,--can it ever
more return?  Who shall say that the heart does not change with
the scene,--the place where we first dwelt with the beloved one?
Every spot THERE has so many memories which the place only can
recall.  The past that haunts it seems to command such constancy
in the future.  If a thought less kind, less trustful, enter
within us, the sight of a tree under which a vow has been
exchanged, a tear has been kissed away, restores us again to the
hours of the first divine illusion.  But in a home where nothing
speaks of the first nuptials, where there is no eloquence of
association, no holy burial-places of emotions, whose ghosts are
angels!--yes, who that has gone through the sad history of
affection will tell us that the heart changes not with the scene!
Blow fair, ye favouring winds; cheerily swell, ye sails; away
from the land where death has come to snatch the sceptre of Love!
The shores glide by; new coasts succeed to the green hills and
orange-groves of the Bridal Isle.  From afar now gleam in the
moonlight the columns, yet extant, of a temple which the Athenian
dedicated to wisdom; and, standing on the bark that bounded on in
the freshening gale, the votary who had survived the goddess
murmured to himself,--

"Has the wisdom of ages brought me no happier hours than those
common to the shepherd and the herdsman, with no world beyond
their village, no aspiration beyond the kiss and the smile of
home?"

And the moon, resting alike over the ruins of the temple of the
departed creed, over the hut of the living peasant, over the
immemorial mountain-top, and the perishable herbage that clothed
its sides, seemed to smile back its answer of calm disdain to the
being who, perchance, might have seen the temple built, and who,
in his inscrutable existence, might behold the mountain shattered
from its base.


BOOK V.

THE EFFECTS OF THE ELIXIR.


CHAPTER 5.I.

Frommet's den Schleier aufzuheben,
Wo das nahe Schreckness droht?
Nur das Irrthum ist das Leben
Und das Wissen ist der Tod,

--Schiller, Kassandro.

Delusion is the life we live
And knowledge death; oh wherefore, then,
To sight the coming evils give
And lift the veil of Fate to Man?

Zwei Seelen wohnen, ach! in meiner Brust.

(Two souls dwell, alas! in my breast.)

...

Was stehst du so, und blickst erstaunt hinaus?

(Why standest thou so, and lookest out astonished?)

"Faust."

It will be remembered that we left Master Paolo by the bedside of
Glyndon; and as, waking from that profound slumber, the
recollections of the past night came horribly back to his mind,
the Englishman uttered a cry, and covered his face with his
hands.

"Good morrow, Excellency!" said Paolo, gayly.  "Corpo di Bacco,
you have slept soundly!"

The sound of this man's voice, so lusty, ringing, and healthful,
served to scatter before it the phantasma that yet haunted
Glyndon's memory.

He rose erect in his bed.  "And where did you find me?  Why are
you here?"

"Where did I find you!" repeated Paolo, in surprise,--"in your
bed, to be sure.  Why am I here!--because the Padrone bade me
await your waking, and attend your commands."

"The Padrone, Mejnour!--is he arrived?"

"Arrived and departed, signor.  He has left this letter for you."

"Give it me, and wait without till I am dressed."

"At your service.  I have bespoke an excellent breakfast:  you
must be hungry.  I am a very tolerable cook; a monk's son ought
to be!  You will be startled at my genius in the dressing of
fish.  My singing, I trust, will not disturb you.  I always sing
while I prepare a salad; it harmonises the ingredients."  And
slinging his carbine over his shoulder, Paolo sauntered from the
room, and closed the door.

Glyndon was already deep in the contents of the following
letter:--

"When I first received thee as my pupil, I promised Zanoni, if
convinced by thy first trials that thou couldst but swell, not
the number of our order, but the list of the victims who have
aspired to it in vain, I would not rear thee to thine own
wretchedness and doom,--I would dismiss thee back to the world.
I fulfil my promise.  Thine ordeal has been the easiest that
neophyte ever knew.  I asked for nothing but abstinence from the
sensual, and a brief experiment of thy patience and thy faith.
Go back to thine own world; thou hast no nature to aspire to
ours!

"It was I who prepared Paolo to receive thee at the revel.  It
was I who instigated the old beggar to ask thee for alms.  It was
I who left open the book that thou couldst not read without
violating my command.  Well, thou hast seen what awaits thee at
the threshold of knowledge.  Thou hast confronted the first foe
that menaces him whom the senses yet grasp and inthrall.  Dost
thou wonder that I close upon thee the gates forever?  Dost thou
not comprehend, at last, that it needs a soul tempered and
purified and raised, not by external spells, but by its own
sublimity and valour, to pass the threshold and disdain the foe?
Wretch! all my silence avails nothing for the rash, for the
sensual,--for him who desires our secrets but to pollute them to
gross enjoyments and selfish vice.  How have the imposters and
sorcerers of the earlier times perished by their very attempt to
penetrate the mysteries that should purify, and not deprave!
They have boasted of the Philosopher's Stone, and died in rags;
of the immortal elixir, and sunk to their grave, grey before
their time.  Legends tell you that the fiend rent them into
fragments.  Yes; the fiend of their own unholy desires and
criminal designs!  What they coveted, thou covetest; and if thou
hadst the wings of a seraph thou couldst soar not from the slough
of thy mortality.  Thy desire for knowledge, but petulant
presumption; thy thirst for happiness, but the diseased longing
for the unclean and muddied waters of corporeal pleasure; thy
very love, which usually elevates even the mean, a passion that
calculates treason amidst the first glow of lust.  THOU one of
us; thou a brother of the August Order; thou an Aspirant to the
Stars that shine in the Shemaia of the Chaldean lore!  The eagle
can raise but the eaglet to the sun.  I abandon thee to thy
twilight!

"But, alas for thee, disobedient and profane! thou hast inhaled
the elixir; thou hast attracted to thy presence a ghastly and
remorseless foe.  Thou thyself must exorcise the phantom thou
hast raised.  Thou must return to the world; but not without
punishment and strong effort canst thou regain the calm and the
joy of the life thou hast left behind.  This, for thy comfort,
will I tell thee:  he who has drawn into his frame even so little
of the volatile and vital energy of the aerial juices as thyself,
has awakened faculties that cannot sleep,--faculties that may
yet, with patient humility, with sound faith, and the courage
that is not of the body like thine, but of the resolute and
virtuous mind, attain, if not to the knowledge that reigns above,
to high achievement in the career of men.  Thou wilt find the
restless influence in all that thou wouldst undertake.  Thy
heart, amidst vulgar joys will aspire to something holier; thy
ambition, amidst coarse excitement, to something beyond thy
reach.  But deem not that this of itself will suffice for glory.
Equally may the craving lead thee to shame and guilt.  It is but
an imperfect and new-born energy which will not suffer thee to
repose.  As thou directest it, must thou believe it to be the
emanation of thine evil genius or thy good.

"But woe to thee! insect meshed in the web in which thou hast
entangled limbs and wings!  Thou hast not only inhaled the
elixir, thou hast conjured the spectre; of all the tribes of the
space, no foe is so malignant to man,--and thou hast lifted the
veil from thy gaze.  I cannot restore to thee the happy dimness
of thy vision.  Know, at least, that all of us--the highest and
the wisest--who have, in sober truth, passed beyond the
threshold, have had, as our first fearful task, to master and
subdue its grisly and appalling guardian.  Know that thou CANST
deliver thyself from those livid eyes,--know that, while they
haunt, they cannot harm, if thou resistest the thoughts to which
they tempt, and the horror they engender.  DREAD THEM MOST WHEN
THOU BEHOLDEST THEM NOT.  And thus, son of the worm, we part!
All that I can tell thee to encourage, yet to warn and to guide,
I have told thee in these lines.  Not from me, from thyself has
come the gloomy trial from which I yet trust thou wilt emerge
into peace.  Type of the knowledge that I serve, I withhold no
lesson from the pure aspirant; I am a dark enigma to the general
seeker.  As man's only indestructible possession is his memory,
so it is not in mine art to crumble into matter the immaterial
thoughts that have sprung up within thy breast.  The tyro might
shatter this castle to the dust, and topple down the mountain to
the plain.  The master has no power to say, 'Exist no more,' to
one THOUGHT that his knowledge has inspired.  Thou mayst change
the thoughts into new forms; thou mayst rarefy and sublimate it
into a finer spirit,--but thou canst not annihilate that which
has no home but in the memory, no substance but the idea.  EVERY
THOUGHT IS A SOUL!  Vainly, therefore, would I or thou undo the
past, or restore to thee the gay blindness of thy youth.  Thou
must endure the influence of the elixir thou hast inhaled; thou
must wrestle with the spectre thou hast invoked!"

The letter fell from Glyndon's hand.  A sort of stupor succeeded
to the various emotions which had chased each other in the
perusal,--a stupor resembling that which follows the sudden
destruction of any ardent and long-nursed hope in the human
heart, whether it be of love, of avarice, of ambition.  The
loftier world for which he had so thirsted, sacrificed, and
toiled, was closed upon him "forever," and by his own faults of
rashness and presumption.  But Glyndon's was not of that nature
which submits long to condemn itself.  His indignation began to
kindle against Mejnour, who owned he had tempted, and who now
abandoned him,--abandoned him to the presence of a spectre.  The
mystic's reproaches stung rather than humbled him.  What crime
had he committed to deserve language so harsh and disdainful?
Was it so deep a debasement to feel pleasure in the smile and the
eyes of Fillide?  Had not Zanoni himself confessed love for
Viola; had he not fled with her as his companion?  Glyndon never
paused to consider if there are no distinctions between one kind
of love and another.  Where, too, was the great offence of
yielding to a temptation which only existed for the brave?  Had
not the mystic volume which Mejnour had purposely left open, bid
him but "Beware of fear"?  Was not, then, every wilful
provocative held out to the strongest influences of the human
mind, in the prohibition to enter the chamber, in the possession
of the key which excited his curiosity, in the volume which
seemed to dictate the mode by which the curiosity was to be
gratified?  As rapidly these thoughts passed over him, he began
to consider the whole conduct of Mejnour either as a perfidious
design to entrap him to his own misery, or as the trick of an
imposter, who knew that he could not realise the great
professions he had made.  On glancing again over the more
mysterious threats and warnings in Mejnour's letter, they seemed
to assume the language of mere parable and allegory,--the jargon
of the Platonists and Pythagoreans.  By little and little, he
began to consider that the very spectra he had seen--even that
one phantom so horrid in its aspect--were but the delusions which
Mejnour's science had enable him to raise.  The healthful
sunlight, filling up every cranny in his chamber, seemed to laugh
away the terrors of the past night.  His pride and his resentment
nerved his habitual courage; and when, having hastily dressed
himself, he rejoined Paolo, it was with a flushed cheek and a
haughty step.

"So, Paolo," said he, "the Padrone, as you call him, told you to
expect and welcome me at your village feast?"

"He did so by a message from a wretched old cripple.  This
surprised me at the time, for I thought he was far distant; but
these great philosophers make a joke of two or three hundred
leagues."

"Why did you not tell me you had heard from Mejnour?"

"Because the old cripple forbade me."

"Did you not see the man afterwards during the dance?"

"No, Excellency."

"Humph!"

"Allow me to serve you," said Paolo, piling Glyndon's plate, and
then filling his glass.  "I wish, signor, now the Padrone is
gone,--not," added Paolo, as he cast rather a frightened and
suspicious glance round the room, "that I mean to say anything
disrespectful of him,--I wish, I say, now that he is gone, that
you would take pity on yourself, and ask your own heart what your
youth was meant for?  Not to bury yourself alive in these old
ruins, and endanger body and soul by studies which I am sure no
saint could approve of."

"Are the saints so partial, then, to your own occupations, Master
Paolo?"

"Why," answered the bandit, a little confused, "a gentleman with
plenty of pistoles in his purse need not, of necessity, make it
his profession to take away the pistoles of other people!  It is
a different thing for us poor rogues.  After all, too, I always
devote a tithe of my gains to the Virgin; and I share the rest
charitably with the poor.  But eat, drink, enjoy yourself; be
absolved by your confessor for any little peccadilloes and don't
run too long scores at a time,--that's my advice.  Your health,
Excellency!  Pshaw, signor, fasting, except on the days
prescribed to a good Catholic, only engenders phantoms."

"Phantoms!"

"Yes; the devil always tempts the empty stomach.  To covet, to
hate, to thieve, to rob, and to murder,--these are the natural
desires of a man who is famishing.  With a full belly, signor, we
are at peace with all the world.  That's right; you like the
partridge!  Cospetto! when I myself have passed two or three days
in the mountains, with nothing from sunset to sunrise but a black
crust and an onion, I grow as fierce as a wolf.  That's not the
worst, too.  In these times I see little imps dancing before me.
Oh, yes; fasting is as full of spectres as a field of battle."

Glyndon thought there was some sound philosophy in the reasoning
of his companion; and certainly the more he ate and drank, the
more the recollection of the past night and of Mejnour's
desertion faded from his mind.  The casement was open, the breeze
blew, the sun shone,--all Nature was merry; and merry as Nature
herself grew Maestro Paolo.  He talked of adventures, of travel,
of women, with a hearty gusto that had its infection.  But
Glyndon listened yet more complacently when Paolo turned with an
arch smile to praises of the eye, the teeth, the ankles, and the
shape of the handsome Fillide.

This man, indeed, seemed the very personation of animal sensual
life.  He would have been to Faust a more dangerous tempter than
Mephistopheles.  There was no sneer on HIS lip at the pleasures
which animated his voice.  To one awaking to a sense of the
vanities in knowledge, this reckless ignorant joyousness of
temper was a worse corrupter than all the icy mockeries of a
learned Fiend.  But when Paolo took his leave, with a promise to
return the next day, the mind of the Englishman again settled
back to a graver and more thoughtful mood.  The elixir seemed, in
truth, to have left the refining effects Mejnour had ascribed to
it.  As Glyndon paced to and fro the solitary corridor, or,
pausing, gazed upon the extended and glorious scenery that
stretched below, high thoughts of enterprise and ambition--bright
visions of glory--passed in rapid succession through his soul.

"Mejnour denies me his science.  Well," said the painter,
proudly, "he has not robbed me of my art."

What!  Clarence Glyndon, dost thou return to that from which thy
career commenced?  Was Zanoni right after all?

He found himself in the chamber of the mystic; not a vessel,--not
an herb! the solemn volume is vanished,--the elixir shall sparkle
for him no more!  But still in the room itself seems to linger
the atmosphere of a charm.  Faster and fiercer it burns within
thee, the desire to achieve, to create!  Thou longest for a life
beyond the sensual!--but the life that is permitted to all
genius,--that which breathes through the immortal work, and
endures in the imperishable name.

Where are the implements for thine art?  Tush!--when did the true
workman ever fail to find his tools?  Thou art again in thine own
chamber,--the white wall thy canvas, a fragment of charcoal for
thy pencil.  They suffice, at least, to give outline to the
conception that may otherwise vanish with the morrow.

The idea that thus excited the imagination of the artist was
unquestionably noble and august.  It was derived from that
Egyptian ceremonial which Diodorus has recorded,--the Judgment of
the Dead by the Living (Diod., lib. i.):  when the corpse, duly
embalmed, is placed by the margin of the Acherusian Lake; and
before it may be consigned to the bark which is to bear it across
the waters to its final resting-place, it is permitted to the
appointed judges to hear all accusations of the past life of the
deceased, and, if proved, to deprive the corpse of the rites of
sepulture.

Unconsciously to himself, it was Mejnour's description of this
custom, which he had illustrated by several anecdotes not to be
found in books, that now suggested the design to the artist, and
gave it reality and force.  He supposed a powerful and guilty
king whom in life scarce a whisper had dared to arraign, but
against whom, now the breath was gone, came the slave from his
fetters, the mutilated victim from his dungeon, livid and squalid
as if dead themselves, invoking with parched lips the justice
that outlives the grave.

Strange fervour this, O artist! breaking suddenly forth from the
mists and darkness which the occult science had spread so long
over thy fancies,--strange that the reaction of the night's
terror and the day's disappointment should be back to thine holy
art!  Oh, how freely goes the bold hand over the large outline!
How, despite those rude materials, speaks forth no more the
pupil, but the master!  Fresh yet from the glorious elixir, how
thou givest to thy creatures the finer life denied to thyself!--
some power not thine own writes the grand symbols on the wall.
Behind rises the mighty sepulchre, on the building of which
repose to the dead the lives of thousands had been consumed.
There sit in a semicircle the solemn judges.  Black and sluggish
flows the lake.  There lies the mummied and royal dead.  Dost
thou quail at the frown on his lifelike brow?  Ha!--bravely done,
O artist!--up rise the haggard forms!--pale speak the ghastly
faces!  Shall not Humanity after death avenge itself on Power?
Thy conception, Clarence Glyndon, is a sublime truth; thy design
promises renown to genius.  Better this magic than the charms of
the volume and the vessel.  Hour after hour has gone; thou hast
lighted the lamp; night sees thee yet at thy labour.  Merciful
Heaven! what chills the atmosphere; why does the lamp grow wan;
why does thy hair bristle?  There!--there!--there! at the
casement!  It gazes on thee, the dark, mantled, loathsome thing!
There, with their devilish mockery and hateful craft, glare on
thee those horrid eyes!

He stood and gazed,--it was no delusion.  It spoke not, moved
not, till, unable to bear longer that steady and burning look, he
covered his face with his hands.  With a start, with a thrill, he
removed them; he felt the nearer presence of the nameless.  There
it cowered on the floor beside his design; and lo! the figures
seemed to start from the wall!  Those pale accusing figures, the
shapes he himself had raised, frowned at him, and gibbered.  With
a violent effort that convulsed his whole being, and bathed his
body in the sweat of agony, the young man mastered his horror.
He strode towards the phantom; he endured its eyes; he accosted
it with a steady voice; he demanded its purpose and defied its
power.

And then, as a wind from a charnel, was heard its voice.  What it
said, what revealed, it is forbidden the lips to repeat, the hand
to record.  Nothing save the subtle life that yet animated the
frame to which the inhalations of the elixir had given vigour and
energy beyond the strength of the strongest, could have survived
that awful hour.  Better to wake in the catacombs and see the
buried rise from their cerements, and hear the ghouls, in their
horrid orgies, amongst the festering ghastliness of corruption,
than to front those features when the veil was lifted, and listen
to that whispered voice!

...

The next day Glyndon fled from the ruined castle.  With what
hopes of starry light had he crossed the threshold; with what
memories to shudder evermore at the darkness did he look back at
the frown of its time-worn towers!


CHAPTER 5.II.

Faust:  Wohin soll es nun gehm?
Mephist:  Wohin es Dir gefallt.
Wir sehn die kleine, dann die grosse Welt.
"Faust."

(Faust:  Whither go now!
Mephist:  Whither it pleases thee.
We see the small world, then the great.)

Draw your chair to the fireside, brush clean the hearth, and trim
the lights.  Oh, home of sleekness, order, substance, comfort!
Oh, excellent thing art thou, Matter of Fact!

It is some time after the date of the last chapter.  Here we are,
not in moonlit islands or mouldering castles, but in a room
twenty-six feet by twenty-two,--well carpeted, well cushioned,
solid arm-chairs and eight such bad pictures, in such fine
frames, upon the walls!  Thomas Mervale, Esq., merchant, of
London, you are an enviable dog!

It was the easiest thing in the world for Mervale, on returning
from his Continental episode of life, to settle down to his
desk,--his heart had been always there.  The death of his father
gave him, as a birthright, a high position in a respectable
though second-rate firm.  To make this establishment first-rate
was an honourable ambition,--it was his!  He had lately married,
not entirely for money,--no! he was worldly rather than
mercenary.  He had no romantic ideas of love; but he was too
sensible a man not to know that a wife should be a companion,--
not merely a speculation.  He did not care for beauty and genius,
but he liked health and good temper, and a certain proportion of
useful understanding.  He chose a wife from his reason, not his
heart, and a very good choice he made.  Mrs. Mervale was an
excellent young woman,--bustling, managing, economical, but
affectionate and good.  She had a will of her own, but was no
shrew.  She had a great notion of the rights of a wife, and a
strong perception of the qualities that insure comfort.  She
would never have forgiven her husband, had she found him guilty
of the most passing fancy for another; but, in return, she had
the most admirable sense of propriety herself.  She held in
abhorrence all levity, all flirtation, all coquetry,--small vices
which often ruin domestic happiness, but which a giddy nature
incurs without consideration.  But she did not think it right to
love a husband over much.  She left a surplus of affection, for
all her relations, all her friends, some of her acquaintances,
and the possibility of a second marriage, should any accident
happen to Mr. M.  She kept a good table, for it suited their
station; and her temper was considered even, though firm; but she
could say a sharp thing or two, if Mr. Mervale was not punctual
to a moment.  She was very particular that he should change his
shoes on coming home,--the carpets were new and expensive.  She
was not sulky, nor passionate,--Heaven bless her for that!--but
when displeased she showed it, administered a dignified rebuke,
alluded to her own virtues, to her uncle who was an admiral, and
to the thirty thousand pounds which she had brought to the object
of her choice.  But as Mr. Mervale was a good-humoured man, owned
his faults, and subscribed to her excellence, the displeasure was
soon over.

Every household has its little disagreements, none fewer than
that of Mr. and Mrs. Mervale.  Mrs. Mervale, without being
improperly fond of dress, paid due attention to it.  She was
never seen out of her chamber with papers in her hair, nor in
that worst of dis-illusions,--a morning wrapper.  At half-past
eight every morning Mrs. Mervale was dressed for the day,--that
is, till she re-dressed for dinner,--her stays well laced, her
cap prim, her gowns, winter and summer, of a thick, handsome
silk.  Ladies at that time wore very short waists; so did Mrs.
Mervale.  Her morning ornaments were a thick, gold chain, to
which was suspended a gold watch,--none of those fragile dwarfs
of mechanism that look so pretty and go so ill, but a handsome
repeater which chronicled Father Time to a moment; also a mosaic
brooch; also a miniature of her uncle, the admiral, set in a
bracelet.  For the evening she had two handsome sets,--necklace,
earrings, and bracelets complete,--one of amethysts, the other
topazes.  With these, her costume for the most part was a gold-
coloured satin and a turban, in which last her picture had been
taken.  Mrs. Mervale had an aquiline nose, good teeth, fair hair,
and light eyelashes, rather a high complexion, what is generally
called a fine bust; full cheeks; large useful feet made for
walking; large, white hands with filbert nails, on which not a
speck of dust had, even in childhood, ever been known to a light.
She looked a little older than she really was; but that might
arise from a certain air of dignity and the aforesaid aquiline
nose.  She generally wore short mittens.  She never read any
poetry but Goldsmith's and Cowper's.  She was not amused by
novels, though she had no prejudice against them.  She liked a
play and a pantomime, with a slight supper afterwards.  She did
not like concerts nor operas.  At the beginning of the winter she
selected some book to read, and some piece of work to commence.
The two lasted her till the spring, when, though she continued to
work, she left off reading.  Her favourite study was history,
which she read through the medium of Dr. Goldsmith.  Her
favourite author in the belles lettres was, of course, Dr.
Johnson.  A worthier woman, or one more respected, was not to be
found, except in an epitaph!

It was an autumn night.  Mr. and Mrs. Mervale, lately returned
from an excursion to Weymouth, are in the drawing-room,--"the
dame sat on this side, the man sat on that."

"Yes, I assure you, my dear, that Glyndon, with all his
eccentricities, was a very engaging, amiable fellow.  You would
certainly have liked him,--all the women did."

"My dear Thomas, you will forgive the remark,--but that
expression of yours, 'all the WOMEN'--"

"I beg your pardon,--you are right.  I meant to say that he was a
general favourite with your charming sex."

"I understand,--rather a frivolous character."

"Frivolous! no, not exactly; a little unsteady,--very odd, but
certainly not frivolous; presumptuous and headstrong in
character, but modest and shy in his manners, rather too much
so,--just what you like.  However, to return; I am seriously
uneasy at the accounts I have heard of him to-day.  He has been
living, it seems, a very strange and irregular life, travelling
from place to place, and must have spent already a great deal of
money."

"Apropos of money," said Mrs. Mervale; "I fear we must change our
butcher; he is certainly in league with the cook."

"That is a pity; his beef is remarkably fine.  These London
servants are as bad as the Carbonari.  But, as I was saying, poor
Glyndon--"

Here a knock was heard at the door.  "Bless me," said Mrs.
Mervale, "it is past ten!  Who can that possibly be?"

"Perhaps your uncle, the admiral," said the husband, with a
slight peevishness in his accent.  "He generally favours us about
this hour."

"I hope, my love, that none of my relations are unwelcome
visitors at your house.  The admiral is a most entertaining man,
and his fortune is entirely at his own disposal."

"No one I respect more," said Mr. Mervale, with emphasis.

The servant threw open the door, and announced Mr. Glyndon.

"Mr. Glyndon!--what an extraordinary--" exclaimed Mrs. Mervale;
but before she could conclude the sentence, Glyndon was in the
room.

The two friends greeted each other with all the warmth of early
recollection and long absence.  An appropriate and proud
presentation to Mrs. Mervale ensued; and Mrs. Mervale, with a
dignified smile, and a furtive glance at his boots, bade her
husband's friend welcome to England.

Glyndon was greatly altered since Mervale had seen him last.
Though less than two years had elapsed since then, his fair
complexion was more bronzed and manly.  Deep lines of care, or
thought, or dissipation, had replaced the smooth contour of happy
youth.  To a manner once gentle and polished had succeeded a
certain recklessness of mien, tone, and bearing, which bespoke
the habits of a society that cared little for the calm decorums
of conventional ease.  Still a kind of wild nobleness, not before
apparent in him, characterised his aspect, and gave something of
dignity to the freedom of his language and gestures.

"So, then, you are settled, Mervale,--I need not ask you if you
are happy.  Worth, sense, wealth, character, and so fair a
companion deserve happiness, and command it."

"Would you like some tea, Mr. Glyndon?" asked Mrs. Mervale,
kindly.

"Thank you,--no.  I propose a more convivial stimulus to my old
friend.  Wine, Mervale,--wine, eh!--or a bowl of old English
punch.  Your wife will excuse us,--we will make a night of it!"

Mrs. Mervale drew back her chair, and tried not to look aghast.
Glyndon did not give his friend time to reply.

"So at last I am in England," he said, looking round the room,
with a slight sneer on his lips; "surely this sober air must have
its influence; surely here I shall be like the rest."

"Have you been ill, Glyndon?"

"Ill, yes.  Humph! you have a fine house.  Does it contain a
spare room for a solitary wanderer?"

Mr. Mervale glanced at his wife, and his wife looked steadily on
the carpet.  "Modest and shy in his manners--rather too much so!"
Mrs. Mervale was in the seventh heaven of indignation and amaze!

"My dear?" said Mr. Mervale at last, meekly and interogatingly.

"My dear!" returned Mrs. Mervale, innocently and sourly.

"We can make up a room for my old friend, Sarah?"

The old friend had sunk back on his chair, and, gazing intently
on the fire, with his feet at ease upon the fender, seemed to
have forgotten his question.

Mrs. Mervale bit her lips, looked thoughtful, and at last coldly
replied, "Certainly, Mr. Mervale; your friends do right to make
themselves at home."

With that she lighted a candle, and moved majestically from the
room.  When she returned, the two friends had vanished into Mr.
Mervale's study.

Twelve o'clock struck,--one o'clock, two!  Thrice had Mrs.
Mervale sent into the room to know,--first, if they wanted
anything; secondly, if Mr. Glyndon slept on a mattress or
feather-bed; thirdly, to inquire if Mr. Glyndon's trunk, which he
had brought with him, should be unpacked.  And to the answer to
all these questions was added, in a loud voice from the visitor,
--a voice that pierced from the kitchen to the attic,--"Another
bowl! stronger, if you please, and be quick with it!"

At last Mr. Mervale appeared in the conjugal chamber, not
penitent, nor apologetic,--no, not a bit of it.  His eyes
twinkled, his cheek flushed, his feet reeled; he sang,--Mr.
Thomas Mervale positively sang!

"Mr. Mervale! is it possible, sir--"

"'Old King Cole was a merry old soul--'"

"Mr. Mervale! sir!--leave me alone, sir!"

"'And a merry old soul was he--'"

"What an example to the servants!"

"'And he called for his pipe, and he called for his bowl--'"

"If you don't behave yourself, sir, I shall call--"

"'Call for his fiddlers three!'"


CHAPTER 5.III.

In der Welt weit
Aus der Einsamkeit
Wollen sie Dich locken.
"Faust."

(In the wide world, out of the solitude, will these allure thee.)

The next morning, at breakfast, Mrs. Mervale looked as if all the
wrongs of injured woman sat upon her brow.  Mr. Mervale seemed
the picture of remorseful guilt and avenging bile.  He said
little, except to complain of headache, and to request the eggs
to be removed from the table.  Clarence Glyndon--impervious,
unconscious, unailing, impenitent--was in noisy spirits, and
talked for three.

"Poor Mervale! he has lost the habit of good-fellowship, madam.
Another night or two, and he will be himself again!"

"Sir," said Mrs. Mervale, launching a premeditated sentence with
more than Johnsonian dignity, "permit me to remind you that Mr.
Mervale is now a married man, the destined father of a family,
and the present master of a household."

"Precisely the reasons why I envy him so much.  I myself have a
great mind to marry.  Happiness is contagious."

"Do you still take to painting?" asked Mervale, languidly,
endeavouring to turn the tables on his guest.

"Oh, no; I have adopted your advice.  No art, no ideal,-- nothing
loftier than Commonplace for me now.  If I were to paint again, I
positively think YOU would purchase my pictures.  Make haste and
finish your breakfast, man; I wish to consult you.  I have come
to England to see after my affairs.  My ambition is to make
money; your counsels and experience cannot fail to assist me
here."

"Ah, you were soon disenchanted of your Philosopher's Stone!  You
must know, Sarah, that when I last left Glyndon, he was bent upon
turning alchemist and magician."

"You are witty to-day, Mr. Mervale."

"Upon my honour it is true, I told you so before."

Glyndon rose abruptly.

"Why revive those recollections of folly and presumption?  Have I
not said that I have returned to my native land to pursue the
healthful avocations of my kind!  Oh, yes! what so healthful, so
noble, so fitted to our nature, as what you call the Practical
Life?  If we have faculties, what is their use, but to sell them
to advantage!  Buy knowledge as we do our goods; buy it at the
cheapest market, sell it at the dearest.  Have you not
breakfasted yet?"

The friends walked into the streets, and Mervale shrank from the
irony with which Glyndon complimented him on his respectability,
his station, his pursuits, his happy marriage, and his eight
pictures in their handsome frames.  Formerly the sober Mervale
had commanded an influence over his friend:  HIS had been the
sarcasm; Glyndon's the irresolute shame at his own peculiarities.
Now this position was reversed.  There was a fierce earnestness
in Glyndon's altered temper which awed and silenced the quiet
commonplace of his friend's character.  He seemed to take a
malignant delight in persuading himself that the sober life of
the world was contemptible and base.

"Ah!" he exclaimed, "how right you were to tell me to marry
respectably; to have a solid position; to live in decorous fear
of the world and one's wife; and to command the envy of the poor,
the good opinion of the rich.  You have practised what you
preach.  Delicious existence!  The merchant's desk and the
curtain lecture!  Ha! ha!  Shall we have another night of it?"

Mervale, embarrassed and irritated, turned the conversation upon
Glyndon's affairs.  He was surprised at the knowledge of the
world which the artist seemed to have suddenly acquired,
surprised still more at the acuteness and energy with which he
spoke of the speculations most in vogue at the market.  Yes;
Glyndon was certainly in earnest:  he desired to be rich and
respectable,--and to make at least ten per cent for his money!

After spending some days with the merchant, during which time he
contrived to disorganise all the mechanism of the house, to turn
night into day, harmony into discord, to drive poor Mrs. Mervale
half-distracted, and to convince her husband that he was horribly
hen-pecked, the ill-omened visitor left them as suddenly as he
had arrived.  He took a house of his own; he sought the society
of persons of substance; he devoted himself to the money-market;
he seemed to have become a man of business; his schemes were bold
and colossal; his calculations rapid and profound.  He startled
Mervale by his energy, and dazzled him by his success.  Mervale
began to envy him,--to be discontented with his own regular and
slow gains.  When Glyndon bought or sold in the funds, wealth
rolled upon him like the tide of a sea; what years of toil could
not have done for him in art, a few months, by a succession of
lucky chances, did for him in speculation.  Suddenly, however, he
relaxed his exertions; new objects of ambition seemed to attract
him.  If he heard a drum in the streets, what glory like the
soldier's?  If a new poem were published, what renown like the
poet's?  He began works in literature, which promised great
excellence, to throw them aside in disgust.  All at once he
abandoned the decorous and formal society he had courted; he
joined himself, with young and riotous associates; he plunged
into the wildest excesses of the great city, where Gold reigns
alike over Toil and Pleasure.  Through all he carried with him a
certain power and heat of soul.  In all society he aspired to
command,--in all pursuits to excel.  Yet whatever the passion of
the moment, the reaction was terrible in its gloom.  He sank, at
times, into the most profound and the darkest reveries.  His
fever was that of a mind that would escape memory,--his repose,
that of a mind which the memory seizes again, and devours as a
prey.  Mervale now saw little of him; they shunned each other.
Glyndon had no confidant, and no friend.


CHAPTER 5.IV.

Ich fuhle Dich mir nahe;
Die Einsamkeit belebt;
Wie uber seinen Welten
Der Unsichtbare schwebt.
Uhland.

(I feel thee near to me,
The loneliness takes life,--
As over its world
The Invisible hovers.)

From this state of restlessness and agitation rather than
continuous action, Glyndon was aroused by a visitor who seemed to
exercise the most salutary influence over him.  His sister, an
orphan with himself, had resided in the country with her aunt.
In the early years of hope and home he had loved this girl, much
younger than himself, with all a brother's tenderness.  On his
return to England, he had seemed to forget her existence.  She
recalled herself to him on her aunt's death by a touching and
melancholy letter:  she had now no home but his,--no dependence
save on his affection; he wept when he read it, and was impatient
till Adela arrived.

This girl, then about eighteen, concerned beneath a gentle and
calm exterior much of the romance or enthusiasm that had, at her
own age, characterised her brother.  But her enthusiasm was of a
far purer order, and was restrained within proper bounds, partly
by the sweetness of a very feminine nature, and partly by a
strict and methodical education.  She differed from him
especially in a timidity of character which exceeded that usual
at her age, but which the habit of self-command concealed no less
carefully than that timidity itself concealed the romance I have
ascribed to her.

Adela was not handsome:  she had the complexion and the form of
delicate health; and too fine an organisation of the nerves
rendered her susceptible to every impression that could influence
the health of the frame through the sympathy of the mind.  But as
she never complained, and as the singular serenity of her manners
seemed to betoken an equanimity of temperament which, with the
vulgar, might have passed for indifference, her sufferings had so
long been borne unnoticed that it ceased to be an effort to
disguise them.  Though, as I have said, not handsome, her
countenance was interesting and pleasing; and there was that
caressing kindness, that winning charm about her smile, her
manners, her anxiety to please, to comfort, and to soothe which
went at once to the heart, and made her lovely,--because so
loving.

Such was the sister whom Glyndon had so long neglected, and whom
he now so cordially welcomed.  Adela had passed many years a
victim to the caprices, and a nurse to the maladies, of a selfish
and exacting relation.  The delicate and generous and respectful
affection of her brother was no less new to her than delightful.
He took pleasure in the happiness he created; he gradually weaned
himself from other society; he felt the charm of home.  It is not
surprising, then, that this young creature, free and virgin from
every more ardent attachment, concentrated all her grateful love
on this cherished and protecting relative.  Her study by day, her
dream by night, was to repay him for his affection.  She was
proud of his talents, devoted to his welfare; the smallest trifle
that could interest him swelled in her eyes to the gravest
affairs of life.  In short, all the long-hoarded enthusiasm,
which was her perilous and only heritage, she invested in this
one object of her holy tenderness, her pure ambition.

But in proportion as Glyndon shunned those excitements by which
he had so long sought to occupy his time or distract his
thoughts, the gloom of his calmer hours became deeper and more
continuous.  He ever and especially dreaded to be alone; he could
not bear his new companion to be absent from his eyes:  he rode
with her, walked with her, and it was with visible reluctance,
which almost partook of horror, that he retired to rest at an
hour when even revel grows fatigued.  This gloom was not that
which could be called by the soft name of melancholy,--it was far
more intense; it seemed rather like despair.  Often after a
silence as of death--so heavy, abstracted, motionless, did it
appear--he would start abruptly, and cast hurried glances around
him,--his limbs trembling, his lips livid, his brows bathed in
dew.  Convinced that some secret sorrow preyed upon his mind, and
would consume his health, it was the dearest as the most natural
desire of Adela to become his confidant and consoler.  She
observed, with the quick tact of the delicate, that he disliked
her to seem affected by, or even sensible of, his darker moods.
She schooled herself to suppress her fears and her feelings.  She
would not ask his confidence,--she sought to steal into it.  By
little and little she felt that she was succeeding.  Too wrapped
in his own strange existence to be acutely observant of the
character of others, Glyndon mistook the self-content of a
generous and humble affection for constitutional fortitude; and
this quality pleased and soothed him.  It is fortitude that the
diseased mind requires in the confidant whom it selects as its
physician.  And how irresistible is that desire to communicate!
How often the lonely man thought to himself, "My heart would be
lightened of its misery, if once confessed!"  He felt, too, that
in the very youth, the inexperience, the poetical temperament of
Adela, he could find one who would comprehend and bear with him
better than any sterner and more practical nature.  Mervale would
have looked on his revelations as the ravings of madness, and
most men, at best, as the sicklied chimeras, the optical
delusions, of disease.  Thus gradually preparing himself for that
relief for which he yearned, the moment for his disclosure
arrived thus:--

One evening, as they sat alone together, Adela, who inherited
some portion of her brother's talent in art, was employed in
drawing, and Glyndon, rousing himself from meditations less
gloomy than usual, rose, and affectionately passing his arm round
her waist, looked over her as she sat.  An exclamation of dismay
broke from his lips,--he snatched the drawing from her hand:
"What are you about?--what portrait is this?"

"Dear Clarence, do you not remember the original?--it is a copy
from that portrait of our wise ancestor which our poor mother
used to say so strongly resembled you.  I thought it would please
you if I copied it from memory."

"Accursed was the likeness!" said Glyndon, gloomily.  "Guess you
not the reason why I have shunned to return to the home of my
fathers!--because I dreaded to meet that portrait!--because--
because--but pardon me; I alarm you!"

"Ah, no,--no, Clarence, you never alarm me when you speak:  only
when you are silent!  Oh, if you thought me worthy of your trust;
oh, if you had given me the right to reason with you in the
sorrows that I yearn to share!"

Glyndon made no answer, but paced the room for some moments with
disordered strides.  He stopped at last, and gazed at her
earnestly.  "Yes, you, too, are his descendant; you know that
such men have lived and suffered; you will not mock me,-- you
will not disbelieve!  Listen! hark!--what sound is that?"

"But the wind on the house-top, Clarence,--but the wind."

"Give me your hand; let me feel its living clasp; and when I have
told you, never revert to the tale again.  Conceal it from all:
swear that it shall die with us,--the last of our predestined
race!"

"Never will I betray your trust; I swear it,--never!" said Adela,
firmly; and she drew closer to his side.  Then Glyndon commenced
his story.  That which, perhaps, in writing, and to minds
prepared to question and disbelieve, may seem cold and
terrorless, became far different when told by those blanched
lips, with all that truth of suffering which convinces and
appalls.  Much, indeed, he concealed, much he involuntarily
softened; but he revealed enough to make his tale intelligible
and distinct to his pale and trembling listener.  "At daybreak,"
he said, "I left that unhallowed and abhorred abode.  I had one
hope still,--I would seek Mejnour through the world.  I would
force him to lay at rest the fiend that haunted my soul.  With
this intent I journeyed from city to city.  I instituted the most
vigilant researches through the police of Italy.  I even employed
the services of the Inquisition at Rome, which had lately
asserted its ancient powers in the trial of the less dangerous
Cagliostro.  All was in vain; not a trace of him could be
discovered.  I was not alone, Adela."  Here Glyndon paused a
moment, as if embarrassed; for in his recital, I need scarcely
say that he had only indistinctly alluded to Fillide, whom the
reader may surmise to be his companion.  "I was not alone, but
the associate of my wanderings was not one in whom my soul could
confide,--faithful and affectionate, but without education,
without faculties to comprehend me, with natural instincts rather
than cultivated reason; one in whom the heart might lean in its
careless hours, but with whom the mind could have no commune, in
whom the bewildered spirit could seek no guide.  Yet in the
society of this person the demon troubled me not.  Let me explain
yet more fully the dread conditions of its presence.  In coarse
excitement, in commonplace life, in the wild riot, in the fierce
excess, in the torpid lethargy of that animal existence which we
share with the brutes, its eyes were invisible, its whisper was
unheard.  But whenever the soul would aspire, whenever the
imagination kindled to the loftier ends, whenever the
consciousness of our proper destiny struggled against the
unworthy life I pursued, then, Adela--then, it cowered by my side
in the light of noon, or sat by my bed,--a Darkness visible
through the Dark.  If, in the galleries of Divine Art, the dreams
of my youth woke the early emulation,--if I turned to the
thoughts of sages; if the example of the great, if the converse
of the wise, aroused the silenced intellect, the demon was with
me as by a spell.  At last, one evening, at Genoa, to which city
I had travelled in pursuit of the mystic, suddenly, and when
least expected, he appeared before me.  It was the time of the
Carnival.  It was in one of those half-frantic scenes of noise
and revel, call it not gayety, which establish a heathen
saturnalia in the midst of a Christian festival.  Wearied with
the dance, I had entered a room in which several revellers were
seated, drinking, singing, shouting; and in their fantastic
dresses and hideous masks, their orgy seemed scarcely human.  I
placed myself amongst them, and in that fearful excitement of the
spirits which the happy never know, I was soon the most riotous
of all.  The conversation fell on the Revolution of France, which
had always possessed for me an absorbing fascination.  The masks
spoke of the millennium it was to bring on earth, not as
philosophers rejoicing in the advent of light, but as ruffians
exulting in the annihilation of law.  I know not why it was, but
their licentious language infected myself; and, always desirous
to be foremost in every circle, I soon exceeded even these
rioters in declamations on the nature of the liberty which was
about to embrace all the families of the globe,--a liberty that
should pervade not only public legislation, but domestic life; an
emancipation from every fetter that men had forged for
themselves.  In the midst of this tirade one of the masks
whispered me,--

"'Take care.  One listens to you who seems to be a spy!'

"My eyes followed those of the mask, and I observed a man who
took no part in the conversation, but whose gaze was bent upon
me.  He was disguised like the rest, yet I found by a general
whisper that none had observed him enter.  His silence, his
attention, had alarmed the fears of the other revellers,--they
only excited me the more.  Rapt in my subject, I pursued it,
insensible to the signs of those about me; and, addressing myself
only to the silent mask who sat alone, apart from the group, I
did not even observe that, one by one, the revellers slunk off,
and that I and the silent listener were left alone, until,
pausing from my heated and impetuous declamations, I said,--

"'And you, signor,--what is your view of this mighty era?
Opinion without persecution; brotherhood without jealousy; love
without bondage--'

"'And life without God,' added the mask as I hesitated for new
images.

"The sound of that well-known voice changed the current of my
thought.  I sprang forward, and cried,--

"'Imposter or Fiend, we meet at last!'

"The figure rose as I advanced, and, unmasking, showed the
features of Mejnour.  His fixed eye, his majestic aspect, awed
and repelled me.  I stood rooted to the ground.

"'Yes,' he said solemnly, 'we meet, and it is this meeting that I
have sought.  How hast thou followed my admonitions!  Are these
the scenes in which the Aspirant for the Serene Science thinks to
escape the Ghastly Enemy?  Do the thoughts thou hast uttered--
thoughts that would strike all order from the universe--express
the hopes of the sage who would rise to the Harmony of the
Eternal Spheres?'

"'It is thy fault,--it is thine!' I exclaimed.  'Exorcise the
phantom!  Take the haunting terror from my soul!'

Mejnour looked at me a moment with a cold and cynical disdain
which provoked at once my fear and rage, and replied,--

"'No; fool of thine own senses!  No; thou must have full and
entire experience of the illusions to which the Knowledge that is
without Faith climbs its Titan way.  Thou pantest for this
Millennium,--thou shalt behold it!  Thou shalt be one of the
agents of the era of Light and Reason.  I see, while I speak, the
Phantom thou fliest, by thy side; it marshals thy path; it has
power over thee as yet,--a power that defies my own.  In the last
days of that Revolution which thou hailest, amidst the wrecks of
the Order thou cursest as Oppression, seek the fulfilment of thy
destiny, and await thy cure.'

"At that instant a troop of masks, clamorous, intoxicated,
reeling, and rushing, as they reeled, poured into the room, and
separated me from the mystic.  I broke through them, and sought
him everywhere, but in vain.  All my researches the next day were
equally fruitless.  Weeks were consumed in the same pursuit,--not
a trace of Mejnour could be discovered.  Wearied with false
pleasures, roused by reproaches I had deserved, recoiling from
Mejnour's prophecy of the scene in which I was to seek
deliverance, it occurred to me, at last, that in the sober air of
my native country, and amidst its orderly and vigorous pursuits,
I might work out my own emancipation from the spectre.  I left
all whom I had before courted and clung to,--I came hither.
Amidst mercenary schemes and selfish speculations, I found the
same relief as in debauch and excess.  The Phantom was invisible;
but these pursuits soon became to me distasteful as the rest.
Ever and ever I felt that I was born for something nobler than
the greed of gain,--that life may be made equally worthless, and
the soul equally degraded by the icy lust of avarice, as by the
noisier passions.  A higher ambition never ceased to torment me.
But, but," continued Glyndon, with a whitening lip and a visible
shudder, "at every attempt to rise into loftier existence, came
that hideous form.  It gloomed beside me at the easel.  Before
the volumes of poet and sage it stood with its burning eyes in
the stillness of night, and I thought I heard its horrible
whispers uttering temptations never to be divulged."  He paused,
and the drops stood upon his brow.

"But I," said Adela, mastering her fears and throwing her arms
around him,--"but I henceforth will have no life but in thine.
And in this love so pure, so holy, thy terror shall fade away."

"No, no!" exclaimed Glyndon, starting from her.  "The worst
revelation is to come.  Since thou hast been here, since I have
sternly and resolutely refrained from every haunt, every scene in
which this preternatural enemy troubled me not, I--I--have--  Oh,
Heaven!  Mercy--mercy!  There it stands,--there, by thy side,--
there, there!"  And he fell to the ground insensible.


CHAPTER 5.V.

Doch wunderbar ergriff mich's diese Nacht;
Die Glieder schienen schon in Todes Macht.
Uhland.

(This night it fearfully seized on me; my limbs appeared already
in the power of death.)

A fever, attended with delirium, for several days deprived
Glyndon of consciousness; and when, by Adela's care more than the
skill of the physicians, he was restored to life and reason, he
was unutterably shocked by the change in his sister's appearance;
at first, he fondly imagined that her health, affected by her
vigils, would recover with his own.  But he soon saw, with an
anguish which partook of remorse, that the malady was deep-
seated,--deep, deep, beyond the reach of Aesculapius and his
drugs.  Her imagination, little less lively than his own, was
awfully impressed by the strange confessions she had heard,--by
the ravings of his delirium.  Again and again had he shrieked
forth, "It is there,--there, by thy side, my sister!"  He had
transferred to her fancy the spectre, and the horror that cursed
himself.  He perceived this, not by her words, but her silence;
by the eyes that strained into space; by the shiver that came
over her frame; by the start of terror; by the look that did not
dare to turn behind.  Bitterly he repented his confession;
bitterly he felt that between his sufferings and human sympathy
there could be no gentle and holy commune; vainly he sought to
retract,--to undo what he had done, to declare all was but the
chimera of an overheated brain!

And brave and generous was this denial of himself; for, often and
often, as he thus spoke, he saw the Thing of Dread gliding to her
side, and glaring at him as he disowned its being.  But what
chilled him, if possible, yet more than her wasting form and
trembling nerves, was the change in her love for him; a natural
terror had replaced it.  She turned paler if he approached,--she
shuddered if he took her hand.  Divided from the rest of earth,
the gulf of the foul remembrance yawned now between his sister
and himself.  He could endure no more the presence of the one
whose life HIS life had embittered.  He made some excuses for
departure, and writhed to see that they were greeted eagerly.
The first gleam of joy he had detected since that fatal night, on
Adela's face, he beheld when he murmured "Farewell."  He
travelled for some weeks through the wildest parts of Scotland;
scenery which MAKES the artist, was loveless to his haggard eyes.
A letter recalled him to London on the wings of new agony and
fear; he arrived to find his sister in a condition both of mind
and health which exceeded his worst apprehensions.

Her vacant look, her lifeless posture, appalled him; it was as
one who gazed on the Medusa's head, and felt, without a struggle,
the human being gradually harden to the statue.  It was not
frenzy, it was not idiocy,--it was an abstraction, an apathy, a
sleep in waking.  Only as the night advanced towards the eleventh
hour--the hour in which Glyndon had concluded his tale--she grew
visibly uneasy, anxious, and perturbed.  Then her lips muttered;
her hands writhed; she looked round with a look of unspeakable
appeal for succour, for protection, and suddenly, as the clock
struck, fell with a shriek to the ground, cold and lifeless.
With difficulty, and not until after the most earnest prayers,
did she answer the agonised questions of Glyndon; at last she
owned that at that hour, and that hour alone, wherever she was
placed, however occupied, she distinctly beheld the apparition of
an old hag, who, after thrice knocking at the door, entered the
room, and hobbling up to her with a countenance distorted by
hideous rage and menace, laid its icy fingers on her forehead:
from that moment she declared that sense forsook her; and when
she woke again, it was only to wait, in suspense that froze up
her blood, the repetition of the ghastly visitation.

The physician who had been summoned before Glyndon's return, and
whose letter had recalled him to London, was a commonplace
practitioner, ignorant of the case, and honestly anxious that one
more experienced should be employed.  Clarence called in one of
the most eminent of the faculty, and to him he recited the
optical delusion of his sister.  The physician listened
attentively, and seemed sanguine in his hopes of cure.  He came
to the house two hours before the one so dreaded by the patient.
He had quietly arranged that the clocks should be put forward
half an hour, unknown to Adela, and even to her brother.  He was
a man of the most extraordinary powers of conversation, of
surpassing wit, of all the faculties that interest and amuse.  He
first administered to the patient a harmless potion, which he
pledged himself would dispel the delusion.  His confident tone
woke her own hopes,-- he continued to excite her attention, to
rouse her lethargy; he jested, he laughed away the time.  The
hour struck.  "Joy, my brother!" she exclaimed, throwing herself
in his arms; "the time is past!"  And then, like one released
from a spell, she suddenly assumed more than her ancient
cheerfulness.  "Ah, Clarence!" she whispered, "forgive me for my
former desertion,--forgive me that I feared YOU.  I shall live!--
I shall live! in my turn to banish the spectre that haunts my
brother!"  And Clarence smiled and wiped the tears from his
burning eyes.  The physician renewed his stories, his jests.  In
the midst of a stream of rich humour that seemed to carry away
both brother and sister, Glyndon suddenly saw over Adela's face
the same fearful change, the same anxious look, the same
restless, straining eye, he had beheld the night before.  He
rose,--he approached her.  Adela started up.  "look--look--look!"
she exclaimed.  "She comes!  Save me,--save me!" and she fell at
his feet in strong convulsions as the clock, falsely and in vain
put forward, struck the half-hour.

The physician lifted her in his arms.  "My worst fears are
confirmed," he said gravely; "the disease is epilepsy."  (The
most celebrated practitioner in Dublin related to the editor a
story of optical delusion precisely similar in its circumstances
and its physical cause to the one here narrated.)

The next night, at the same hour, Adela Glyndon died.


CHAPTER 5.VI.

La loi, dont le regne vous epouvante, a son glaive leve sur vous:
elle vous frappera tous:  le genre humain a besoin de cet
exemple.--Couthon.

(The law, whose reign terrifies you, has its sword raised against
you; it will strike you all:  humanity has need of this example.)

"Oh, joy, joy!--thou art come again!  This is thy hand--these thy
lips.  Say that thou didst not desert me from the love of
another; say it again,--say it ever!--and I will pardon thee all
the rest!"

"So thou hast mourned for me?"

"Mourned!--and thou wert cruel enough to leave me gold; there it
is,--there, untouched!"

"Poor child of Nature! how, then, in this strange town of
Marseilles, hast thou found bread and shelter?"

"Honestly, soul of my soul! honestly, but yet by the face thou
didst once think so fair; thinkest thou THAT now?"

"Yes, Fillide, more fair than ever.  But what meanest thou?"

"There is a painter here--a great man, one of their great men at
Paris, I know not what they call them; but he rules over all
here,--life and death; and he has paid me largely but to sit for
my portrait.  It is for a picture to be given to the Nation, for
he paints only for glory.  Think of thy Fillide's renown!"  And
the girl's wild eyes sparkled; her vanity was roused.  "And he
would have married me if I would!--divorced his wife to marry me!
But I waited for thee, ungrateful!"

A knock at the door was heard,--a man entered.

"Nicot!"

"Ah, Glyndon!--hum!--welcome!  What! thou art twice my rival!
But Jean Nicot bears no malice.  Virtue is my dream,--my country,
my mistress.  Serve my country, citizen; and I forgive thee the
preference of beauty.  Ca ira! ca ira!"

But as the painter spoke, it hymned, it rolled through the
streets,--the fiery song of the Marseillaise!  There was a crowd,
a multitude, a people up, abroad, with colours and arms,
enthusiasm and song,--with song, with enthusiasm, with colours
and arms!  And who could guess that that martial movement was
one, not of war, but massacre,--Frenchmen against Frenchmen?  For
there are two parties in Marseilles,--and ample work for Jourdan
Coupe-tete!  But this, the Englishman, just arrived, a stranger
to all factions, did not as yet comprehend.  He comprehended
nothing but the song, the enthusiasm, the arms, and the colours
that lifted to the sun the glorious lie, "Le peuple Francais,
debout contre les tyrans!"  (Up, Frenchmen, against tyrants!)

The dark brow of the wretched wanderer grew animated; he gazed
from the window on the throng that marched below, beneath their
waving Oriflamme.  They shouted as they beheld the patriot Nicot,
the friend of Liberty and relentless Hebert, by the stranger's
side, at the casement.

"Ay, shout again!" cried the painter,--"shout for the brave
Englishman who abjures his Pitts and his Coburgs to be a citizen
of Liberty and France!"

A thousand voices rent the air, and the hymn of the Marseillaise
rose in majesty again.

"Well, and if it be among these high hopes and this brave people
that the phantom is to vanish, and the cure to come!" muttered
Glyndon; and he thought he felt again the elixir sparkling
through his veins.

"Thou shalt be one of the Convention with Paine and Clootz,--I
will manage it all for thee!" cried Nicot, slapping him on the
shoulder: "and Paris--"

"Ah, if I could but see Paris!" cried Fillide, in her joyous
voice.  Joyous! the whole time, the town, the air--save where,
unheard, rose the cry of agony and the yell of murder--were joy!
Sleep unhaunting in thy grave, cold Adela.  Joy, joy!  In the
Jubilee of Humanity all private griefs should cease!  Behold,
wild mariner, the vast whirlpool draws thee to its stormy bosom!
There the individual is not.  All things are of the whole!  Open
thy gates, fair Paris, for the stranger-citizen!  Receive in your
ranks, O meek Republicans, the new champion of liberty, of
reason, of mankind!  "Mejnour is right; it was in virtue, in
valour, in glorious struggle for the human race, that the spectre
was to shrink to her kindred darkness."

And Nicot's shrill voice praised him; and lean Robespierre--
"Flambeau, colonne, pierre angulaire de l'edifice de la
Republique!"  ("The light, column, and keystone of the
Republic."--"Lettre du Citoyen P--; Papiers inedits trouves chez
Robespierre," tom 11, page 127.)--smiled ominously on him from
his bloodshot eyes; and Fillide clasped him with passionate arms
to her tender breast.  And at his up-rising and down-sitting, at
board and in bed, though he saw it not, the Nameless One guided
him with the demon eyes to the sea whose waves were gore.


BOOK VI.

SUPERSTITION DESERTING FAITH.

Why do I yield to that suggestion, Whose horrid image doth unfix
my hair.--Shakespeare

CHAPTER 6.I.

Therefore the Genii were painted with a platter full of garlands
and flowers in one hand, and a whip in the other.--Alexander
Ross, "Mystag. Poet."

According to the order of the events related in this narrative,
the departure of Zanoni and Viola from the Greek isle, in which
two happy years appear to have been passed, must have been
somewhat later in date than the arrival of Glyndon at Marseilles.
It must have been in the course of the year 1791 when Viola fled
from Naples with her mysterious lover, and when Glyndon sought
Mejnour in the fatal castle.  It is now towards the close of
1793, when our story again returns to Zanoni.  The stars of
winter shone down on the lagunes of Venice.  The hum of the
Rialto was hushed,--the last loiterers had deserted the Place of
St. Mark's, and only at distant intervals might be heard the oars
of the rapid gondolas, bearing reveller or lover to his home.
But lights still flitted to and fro across the windows of one of
the Palladian palaces, whose shadow slept in the great canal; and
within the palace watched the twin Eumenides that never sleep for
Man,--Fear and Pain.

"I will make thee the richest man in all Venice, if thou savest
her."

"Signor," said the leech; "your gold cannot control death, and
the will of Heaven, signor, unless within the next hour there is
some blessed change, prepare your courage."

Ho--ho, Zanoni! man of mystery and might, who hast walked amidst
the passions of the world, with no changes on thy brow, art thou
tossed at last upon the billows of tempestuous fear?  Does thy
spirit reel to and fro?--knowest thou at last the strength and
the majesty of Death?

He fled, trembling, from the pale-faced man of art,--fled through
stately hall and long-drawn corridor, and gained a remote chamber
in the palace, which other step than his was not permitted to
profane.  Out with thy herbs and vessels.  Break from the
enchanted elements, O silvery-azure flame!  Why comes he not,--
the Son of the Starbeam!  Why is Adon-Ai deaf to thy solemn call?
It comes not,--the luminous and delightsome Presence!  Cabalist!
are thy charms in vain?  Has thy throne vanished from the realms
of space?  Thou standest pale and trembling.  Pale trembler! not
thus didst thou look when the things of glory gathered at thy
spell.  Never to the pale trembler bow the things of glory:  the
soul, and not the herbs, nor the silvery-azure flame, nor the
spells of the Cabala, commands the children of the air; and THY
soul, by Love and Death, is made sceptreless and discrowned!

At length the flame quivers,--the air grows cold as the wind in
charnels.  A thing not of earth is present,--a mistlike, formless
thing.  It cowers in the distance,--a silent Horror! it rises; it
creeps; it nears thee--dark in its mantle of dusky haze; and
under its veil it looks on thee with its livid, malignant eyes,--
the thing of malignant eyes!

"Ha, young Chaldean! young in thy countless ages,--young as when,
cold to pleasure and to beauty, thou stoodest on the old Fire-
tower, and heardest the starry silence whisper to thee the last
mystery that baffles Death,--fearest thou Death at length?  Is
thy knowledge but a circle that brings thee back whence thy
wanderings began!  Generations on generations have withered since
we two met!  Lo! thou beholdest me now!"

"But I behold thee without fear!  Though beneath thine eyes
thousands have perished; though, where they burn, spring up the
foul poisons of the human heart, and to those whom thou canst
subject to thy will, thy presence glares in the dreams of the
raving maniac, or blackens the dungeon of despairing crime, thou
art not my vanquisher, but my slave!"

"And as a slave will I serve thee!  Command thy slave, O
beautiful Chaldean!  Hark, the wail of women!--hark, the sharp
shriek of thy beloved one!  Death is in thy palace!  Adon-Ai
comes not to thy call.  Only where no cloud of the passion and
the flesh veils the eye of the Serene Intelligence can the Sons
of the Starbeam glide to man.  But _I_ can aid thee!--hark!"  And
Zanoni heard distinctly in his heart, even at that distance from
the chamber, the voice of Viola calling in delirium on her
beloved one.

"Oh, Viola, I can save thee not!" exclaimed the seer,
passionately; "my love for thee has made me powerless!"

"Not powerless; I can gift thee with the art to save her,--I can
place healing in thy hand!"

"For both?--child and mother,--for both?"

"Both!"

A convulsion shook the limbs of the seer,--a mighty struggle
shook him as a child:  the Humanity and the Hour conquered the
repugnant spirit.

"I yield!  Mother and child--save both!"

...

In the dark chamber lay Viola, in the sharpest agonies of
travail; life seemed rending itself away in the groans and cries
that spoke of pain in the midst of frenzy; and still, in groan
and cry, she called on Zanoni, her beloved.  The physician looked
to the clock; on it beat:  the Heart of Time,--regularly and
slowly,--Heart that never sympathised with Life, and never
flagged for Death!  "The cries are fainter," said the leech; "in
ten minutes more all will be past."

Fool! the minutes laugh at thee; Nature, even now, like a blue
sky through a shattered temple, is smiling through the tortured
frame.  The breathing grows more calm and hushed; the voice of
delirium is dumb,--a sweet dream has come to Viola.  Is it a
dream, or is it the soul that sees?  She thinks suddenly that she
is with Zanoni, that her burning head is pillowed on his bosom;
she thinks, as he gazes on her, that his eyes dispel the tortures
that prey upon her,--the touch of his hand cools the fever on her
brow; she hears his voice in murmurs,--it is a music from which
the fiends fly.  Where is the mountain that seemed to press upon
her temples?  Like a vapour, it rolls away.  In the frosts of the
winter night, she sees the sun laughing in luxurious heaven,--she
hears the whisper of green leaves; the beautiful world, valley
and stream and woodland, lie before, and with a common voice
speak to her, "We are not yet past for thee!" Fool of drugs and
formula, look to thy dial-plate!--the hand has moved on; the
minutes are with Eternity; the soul thy sentence would have
dismissed, still dwells on the shores of Time.  She sleeps: the
fever abates; the convulsions are gone; the living rose blooms
upon her cheek; the crisis is past!  Husband, thy wife lives;
lover, thy universe is no solitude!  Heart of Time, beat on!  A
while, a little while,--joy! joy! joy!--father, embrace thy
child!


CHAPTER 6.II.

Tristis Erinnys
Praetulit infaustas sanguinolenta faces.
Ovid.

(Erinnys, doleful and bloody, extends the unblessed torches.)

And they placed the child in the father's arms!  As silently he
bent over it, tears--tears, how human!--fell from his eyes like
rain!  And the little one smiled through the tears that bathed
its cheeks!  Ah, with what happy tears we welcome the stranger
into our sorrowing world!  With what agonising tears we dismiss
the stranger back to the angels!  Unselfish joy; but how selfish
is the sorrow!

And now through the silent chamber a faint sweet voice is heard,
--the young mother's voice.

"I am here:  I am by thy side!" murmured Zanoni.

The mother smiled, and clasped his hand, and asked no more; she
was contented.

...

Viola recovered with a rapidity that startled the physician; and
the young stranger thrived as if it already loved the world to
which it had descended.  From that hour Zanoni seemed to live in
the infant's life, and in that life the souls of mother and
father met as in a new bond.  Nothing more beautiful than this
infant had eye ever dwelt upon.  It was strange to the nurses
that it came not wailing to the light, but smiled to the light as
a thing familiar to it before.  It never uttered one cry of
childish pain.  In its very repose it seemed to be listening to
some happy voice within its heart: it seemed itself so happy.  In
its eyes you would have thought intellect already kindled, though
it had not yet found a language.  Already it seemed to recognise
its parents; already it stretched forth its arms when Zanoni bent
over the bed, in which it breathed and bloomed,--the budding
flower!  And from that bed he was rarely absent:  gazing upon it
with his serene, delighted eyes, his soul seemed to feed its own.
At night and in utter darkness he was still there; and Viola
often heard him murmuring over it as she lay in a half-sleep.
But the murmur was in a language strange to her; and sometimes
when she heard she feared, and vague, undefined superstitions
came back to her,--the superstitions of earlier youth.  A mother
fears everything, even the gods, for her new-born.  The mortals
shrieked aloud when of old they saw the great Demeter seeking to
make their child immortal.

But Zanoni, wrapped in the sublime designs that animated the
human love to which he was now awakened, forgot all, even all he
had forfeited or incurred, in the love that blinded him.

But the dark, formless thing, though he nor invoked nor saw it,
crept, often, round and round him, and often sat by the infant's
couch, with its hateful eyes.


CHAPTER 6.III.

Fuscis tellurem amplectitur alis.
Virgil.

(Embraces the Earth with gloomy wings.)

Letter from Zanoni to Mejnour.

Mejnour, Humanity, with all its sorrows and its joys, is mine
once more.  Day by day, I am forging my own fetters.  I live in
other lives than my own, and in them I have lost more than half
my empire.  Not lifting them aloft, they drag me by the strong
bands of the affections to their own earth.  Exiled from the
beings only visible to the most abstract sense, the grim Enemy
that guards the Threshold has entangled me in its web.  Canst
thou credit me, when I tell thee that I have accepted its gifts,
and endure the forfeit?  Ages must pass ere the brighter beings
can again obey the spirit that has bowed to the ghastly one!
And--

...

In this hope, then, Mejnour, I triumph still; I yet have supreme
power over this young life.  Insensibly and inaudibly my soul
speaks to its own, and prepares it even now.  Thou knowest that
for the pure and unsullied infant spirit, the ordeal has no
terror and no peril.  Thus unceasingly I nourish it with no
unholy light; and ere it yet be conscious of the gift, it will
gain the privileges it has been mine to attain:  the child, by
slow and scarce-seen degrees, will communicate its own attributes
to the mother; and content to see Youth forever radiant on the
brows of the two that now suffice to fill up my whole infinity of
thought, shall I regret the airier kingdom that vanishes hourly
from my grasp?  But thou, whose vision is still clear and serene,
look into the far deeps shut from my gaze, and counsel me, or
forewarn!  I know that the gifts of the Being whose race is so
hostile to our own are, to the ccommon seeker, fatal and
perfidious as itself.  And hence, when, at the outskirts of
knowledge, which in earlier ages men called Magic, they
encountered the things of the hostile tribes, they believed the
apparitions to be fiends, and, by fancied compacts, imagined they
had signed away their souls; as if man could give for an eternity
that over which he has control but while he lives!  Dark, and
shrouded forever from human sight, dwell the demon rebels, in
their impenetrable realm; in them is no breath of the Divine One.
In every human creature the Divine One breathes; and He alone can
judge His own hereafter, and allot its new career and home.
Could man sell himself to the fiend, man could prejudge himself,
and arrogate the disposal of eternity!  But these creatures,
modifications as they are of matter, and some with more than the
malignanty of man, may well seem, to fear and unreasoning
superstition, the representatives of fiends.  And from the
darkest and mightiest of them I have accepted a boon,--the secret
that startled Death from those so dear to me.  Can I not trust
that enough of power yet remains to me to baffle or to daunt the
Phantom, if it seek to pervert the gift?  Answer me, Mejnour, for
in the darkness that veils me, I see only the pure eyes of the
new-born; I hear only the low beating of my heart.  Answer me,
thou whose wisdom is without love!

Mejnour to Zanoni.

Rome.

Fallen One!--I see before thee Evil and Death and Woe!  Thou to
have relinquished Adon-Ai for the nameless Terror,--the heavenly
stars for those fearful eyes!  Thou, at the last to be the victim
of the Larva of the dreary Threshold, that, in thy first
novitiate, fled, withered and shrivelled, from thy kingly brow!
When, at the primary grades of initiation, the pupil I took from
thee on the shores of the changed Parthenope, fell senseless and
cowering before that Phantom-Darkness, I knew that his spirit was
not formed to front the worlds beyond; for FEAR is the attraction
of man to earthiest earth, and while he fears, he cannot soar.
But THOU, seest thou not that to love is but to fear; seest thou
not that the power of which thou boastest over the malignant one
is already gone?  It awes, it masters thee; it will mock thee and
betray.  Lose not a moment; come to me.  If there can yet be
sufficient sympathy between us, through MY eyes shalt thou see,
and perhaps guard against the perils that, shapeless yet, and
looming through the shadow, marshal themselves around thee and
those whom thy very love has doomed.  Come from all the ties of
thy fond humanity; they will but obscure thy vision!  Come forth
from thy fears and hopes, thy desires and passions.  Come, as
alone Mind can be the monarch and the seer, shining through the
home it tenants,--a pure, impressionless, sublime intelligence!


Chapter 6.IV.

Plus que vous ne pensez ce moment est terrible.
La Harpe, "Le Comte de Warwick," Act 3, sc. 5.

(The moment is more terrible than you think.)

For the first time since their union, Zanoni and Viola were
separated,--Zanoni went to Rome on important business.  "It was,"
he said, "but for a few days;" and he went so suddenly that there
was little time either for surprise or sorrow.  But first parting
is always more melancholy than it need be:  it seems an
interruption to the existence which Love shares with Love; it
makes the heart feel what a void life will be when the last
parting shall succeed, as succeed it must, the first.  But Viola
had a new companion; she was enjoying that most delicious novelty
which ever renews the youth and dazzles the eyes of woman.  As
the mistress--the wife--she leans on another; from another are
reflected her happiness, her being,--as an orb that takes light
from its sun.  But now, in turn, as the mother, she is raised
from dependence into power; it is another that leans on her,--a
star has sprung into space, to which she herself has become the
sun!

A few days,--but they will be sweet through the sorrow!  A few
days,--every hour of which seems an era to the infant, over whom
bend watchful the eyes and the heart.  From its waking to its
sleep, from its sleep to its waking, is a revolution in Time.
Every gesture to be noted,--every smile to seem a new progress
into the world it has come to bless!  Zanoni has gone,--the last
dash of the oar is lost, the last speck of the gondola has
vanished from the ocean-streets of Venice!  Her infant is
sleeping in the cradle at the mother's feet; and she thinks
through her tears what tales of the fairy-land, that spreads far
and wide, with a thousand wonders, in that narrow bed, she shall
have to tell the father!  Smile on, weep on, young mother!
Already the fairest leaf in the wild volume is closed for thee,
and the invisible finger turns the page!

...

By the bridge of the Rialto stood two Venetians--ardent
Republicans and Democrats--looking to the Revolution of France as
the earthquake which must shatter their own expiring and vicious
constitution, and give equality of ranks and rights to Venice.

"Yes, Cottalto," said one; "my correspondent of Paris has
promised to elude all obstacles, and baffle all danger.  He will
arrange with us the hour of revolt, when the legions of France
shall be within hearing of our guns.  One day in this week, at
this hour, he is to meet me here.  This is but the fourth day."

He had scarce said these words before a man, wrapped in his
roquelaire, emerging from one of the narrow streets to the left,
halted opposite the pair, and eying them for a few moments with
an earnest scrutiny, whispered, "Salut!"

"Et fraternite," answered the speaker.

"You, then, are the brave Dandolo with whom the Comite deputed me
to correspond?  And this citizen--"

"Is Cottalto, whom my letters have so often mentioned."  (I know
not if the author of the original MSS. designs, under these
names, to introduce the real Cottalto and the true Dandolo, who,
in 1797, distinguished themselves by their sympathy with the
French, and their democratic ardor.--Ed.)

"Health and brotherhood to him!  I have much to impart to you
both.  I will meet you at night, Dandolo.  But in the streets we
may be observed."

"And I dare not appoint my own house; tyranny makes spies of our
very walls.  But the place herein designated is secure;" and he
slipped an address into the hand of his correspondent.

"To-night, then, at nine!  Meanwhile I have other business."  The
man paused, his colour changed, and it was with an eager and
passionate voice that he resumed,--

"Your last letter mentioned this wealthy and mysterious visitor,
--this Zanoni.  He is still at Venice?"

"I heard that he had left this morning; but his wife is still
here."

"His wife!--that is well!"

"What know you of him?  Think you that he would join us?  His
wealth would be--"

"His house, his address,--quick!" interrupted the man.

"The Palazzo di --, on the Grand Canal."

"I thank you,--at nine we meet."

The man hurried on through the street from which he had emerged;
and, passing by the house in which he had taken up his lodging
(he had arrived at Venice the night before), a woman who stood by
the door caught his arm.

"Monsieur," she said in French, "I have been watching for your
return.  Do you understand me?  I will brave all, risk all, to go
back with you to France,--to stand, through life or in death, by
my husband's side!"

"Citoyenne, I promised your husband that, if such your choice, I
would hazard my own safety to aid it.  But think again!  Your
husband is one of the faction which Robespierre's eyes have
already marked; he cannot fly.  All France is become a prison to
the 'suspect.'  You do not endanger yourself by return.  Frankly,
citoyenne, the fate you would share may be the guillotine.  I
speak (as you know by his letter) as your husband bade me."

"Monsieur, I will return with you," said the woman, with a smile
upon her pale face.

"And yet you deserted your husband in the fair sunshine of the
Revolution, to return to him amidst its storms and thunder," said
the man, in a tone half of wonder, half rebuke.

"Because my father's days were doomed; because he had no safety
but in flight to a foreign land; because he was old and
penniless, and had none but me to work for him; because my
husband was not then in danger, and my father was! HE is dead--
dead!  My husband is in danger now.  The daughter's duties are no
more,--the wife's return!"

"Be it so, citoyenne; on the third night I depart.  Before then
you may retract your choice."

"Never!"

A dark smile passed over the man's face.

"O guillotine!" he said, "how many virtues hast thou brought to
light!  Well may they call thee 'A Holy Mother!'  O gory
guillotine!"

He passed on muttering to himself, hailed a gondola, and was soon
amidst the crowded waters of the Grand Canal.


CHAPTER 6.V.

Ce que j'ignore
Est plus triste peut-etre et plus affreux encore.
La Harpe, "Le Comte de Warwick," Act 5, sc. 1.

(That which I know not is, perhaps, more sad and fearful still.)

The casement stood open, and Viola was seated by it.  Beneath
sparkled the broad waters in the cold but cloudless sunlight; and
to that fair form, that half-averted face, turned the eyes of
many a gallant cavalier, as their gondolas glided by.

But at last, in the centre of the canal, one of these dark
vessels halted motionless, as a man fixed his gaze from its
lattice upon that stately palace.  He gave the word to the
rowers,--the vessel approached the marge.  The stranger quitted
the gondola; he passed up the broad stairs; he entered the
palace.  Weep on, smile no more, young mother!--the last page is
turned!

An attendant entered the room, and gave to Viola a card, with
these words in English, "Viola, I must see you!  Clarence
Glyndon."

Oh, yes, how gladly Viola would see him; how gladly speak to him
of her happiness, of Zanoni!--how gladly show to him her child!
Poor Clarence! she had forgotten him till now, as she had all the
fever of her earlier life,--its dreams, its vanities, its poor
excitement, the lamps of the gaudy theatre, the applause of the
noisy crowd.

He entered.  She started to behold him, so changed were his
gloomy brow, his resolute, careworn features, from the graceful
form and careless countenance of the artist-lover.  His dress,
though not mean, was rude, neglected, and disordered.  A wild,
desperate, half-savage air had supplanted that ingenuous mien,
diffident in its grace, earnest in its diffidence, which had once
characterised the young worshipper of Art, the dreaming aspirant
after some starrier lore.

"Is it you?" she said at last.  "Poor Clarence, how changed!"

"Changed!" he said abruptly, as he placed himself by her side.
"And whom am I to thank, but the fiends--the sorcerers--who have
seized upon thy existence, as upon mine?  Viola, hear me.  A few
weeks since the news reached me that you were in Venice.  Under
other pretences, and through innumerable dangers, I have come
hither, risking liberty, perhaps life, if my name and career are
known in Venice, to warn and save you.  Changed, you call me!--
changed without; but what is that to the ravages within?  Be
warned, be warned in time!"

The voice of Glyndon, sounding hollow and sepulchral, alarmed
Viola even more than his words.  Pale, haggard, emaciated, he
seemed almost as one risen from the dead, to appall and awe her.
"What," she said, at last, in a faltering voice,--"what wild
words do you utter!  Can you--"

"Listen!" interrupted Glyndon, laying his hand upon her arm, and
its touch was as cold as death,--"listen!  You have heard of the
old stories of men who have leagued themselves with devils for
the attainment of preternatural powers.  Those stories are not
fables.  Such men live.  Their delight is to increase the
unhallowed circle of wretches like themselves.  If their
proselytes fail in the ordeal, the demon seizes them, even in
this life, as it hath seized me!--if they succeed, woe, yea, a
more lasting woe!  There is another life, where no spells can
charm the evil one, or allay the torture.  I have come from a
scene where blood flows in rivers,--where Death stands by the
side of the bravest and the highest, and the one monarch is the
Guillotine; but all the mortal perils with which men can be
beset, are nothing to the dreariness of the chamber where the
Horror that passes death moves and stirs!"

It was then that Glyndon, with a cold and distinct precision,
detailed, as he had done to Adela, the initiation through which
he had gone.  He described, in words that froze the blood of his
listener, the appearance of that formless phantom, with the eyes
that seared the brain and congealed the marrow of those who
beheld.  Once seen, it never was to be exorcised.  It came at its
own will, prompting black thoughts,--whispering strange
temptations.  Only in scenes of turbulent excitement was it
absent!  Solitude, serenity, the struggling desires after peace
and virtue,--THESE were the elements it loved to haunt!
Bewildered, terror-stricken, the wild account confirmed by the
dim impressions that never, in the depth and confidence of
affection, had been closely examined, but rather banished as soon
as felt,--that the life and attributes of Zanoni were not like
those of mortals,--impressions which her own love had made her
hitherto censure as suspicions that wronged, and which, thus
mitigated, had perhaps only served to rivet the fascinated chains
in which he bound her heart and senses, but which now, as
Glyndon's awful narrative filled her with contagious dread, half
unbound the very spells they had woven before,--Viola started up
in fear, not for HERSELF, and clasped her child in her arms!

"Unhappiest one!" cried Glyndon, shuddering, "hast thou indeed
given birth to a victim thou canst not save?  Refuse it
sustenance,--let it look to thee in vain for food!  In the grave,
at least, there are repose and peace!"

Then there came back to Viola's mind the remembrance of Zanoni's
night-long watches by that cradle, and the fear which even then
had crept over her as she heard his murmured half-chanted words.
And as the child looked at her with its clear, steadfast eye, in
the strange intelligence of that look there was something that
only confirmed her awe.  So there both Mother and Forewarner
stood in silence,--the sun smiling upon them through the
casement, and dark by the cradle, though they saw it not, sat the
motionless, veiled Thing!

But by degrees better and juster and more grateful memories of
the past returned to the young mother.  The features of the
infant, as she gazed, took the aspect of the absent father.  A
voice seemed to break from those rosy lips, and say, mournfully,
"I speak to thee in thy child.  In return for all my love for
thee and thine, dost thou distrust me, at the first sentence of a
maniac who accuses?"

Her breast heaved, her stature rose, her eyes shone with a serene
and holy light.

"Go, poor victim of thine own delusions," she said to Glyndon; "I
would not believe mine own senses, if they accused ITS father!
And what knowest thou of Zanoni?  What relation have Mejnour and
the grisly spectres he invoked, with the radiant image with which
thou wouldst connect them?"

"Thou wilt learn too soon," replied Glyndon, gloomily.  "And the
very phantom that haunts me, whispers, with its bloodless lips,
that its horrors await both thine and thee!  I take not thy
decision yet; before I leave Venice we shall meet again."

He said, and departed.


CHAPTER 6.VI.

Quel est l'egarement ou ton ame se livre?
La Harpe, "Le Comte de Warwick," Act 4, sc. 4.

(To what delusion does thy soul abandon itself?)

Alas, Zanoni! the aspirer, the dark, bright one!--didst thou
think that the bond between the survivor of ages and the daughter
of a day could endure?  Didst thou not foresee that, until the
ordeal was past, there could be no equality between thy wisdom
and her love?  Art thou absent now seeking amidst thy solemn
secrets the solemn safeguards for child and mother, and
forgettest thou that the phantom that served thee hath power over
its own gifts,--over the lives it taught thee to rescue from the
grave?  Dost thou not know that Fear and Distrust, once sown in
the heart of Love, spring up from the seed into a forest that
excludes the stars?  Dark, bright one! the hateful eyes glare
beside the mother and the child!

All that day Viola was distracted by a thousand thoughts and
terrors, which fled as she examined them to settle back the
darklier.  She remembered that, as she had once said to Glyndon,
her very childhood had been haunted with strange forebodings,
that she was ordained for some preternatural doom.  She
remembered that, as she had told him this, sitting by the seas
that slumbered in the arms of the Bay of Naples, he, too, had
acknowledged the same forebodings, and a mysterious sympathy had
appeared to unite their fates.  She remembered, above all, that,
comparing their entangled thoughts, both had then said, that with
the first sight of Zanoni the foreboding, the instinct, had
spoken to their hearts more audibly than before, whispering that
"with HIM was connected the secret of the unconjectured life."

And now, when Glyndon and Viola met again, the haunting fears of
childhood, thus referred to, woke from their enchanted sleep.
With Glyndon's terror she felt a sympathy, against which her
reason and her love struggled in vain.  And still, when she
turned her looks upon her child, it watched her with that steady,
earnest eye, and its lips moved as if it sought to speak to her,
--but no sound came.  The infant refused to sleep.  Whenever she
gazed upon its face, still those wakeful, watchful eyes!--and in
their earnestness, there spoke something of pain, of upbraiding,
of accusation.  They chilled her as she looked.  Unable to
endure, of herself, this sudden and complete revulsion of all the
feelings which had hitherto made up her life, she formed the
resolution natural to her land and creed; she sent for the priest
who had habitually attended her at Venice, and to him she
confessed, with passionate sobs and intense terror, the doubts
that had broken upon her.  The good father, a worthy and pious
man, but with little education and less sense, one who held (as
many of the lower Italians do to this day) even a poet to be a
sort of sorcerer, seemed to shut the gates of hope upon her
heart.  His remonstrances were urgent, for his horror was
unfeigned.  He joined with Glyndon in imploring her to fly, if
she felt the smallest doubt that her husband's pursuits were of
the nature which the Roman Church had benevolently burned so many
scholars for adopting.  And even the little that Viola could
communicate seemed, to the ignorant ascetic, irrefragable proof
of sorcery and witchcraft; he had, indeed, previously heard some
of the strange rumours which followed the path of Zanoni, and was
therefore prepared to believe the worst; the worthy Bartolomeo
would have made no bones of sending Watt to the stake, had he
heard him speak of the steam-engine.  But Viola, as untutored as
himself, was terrified by his rough and vehement eloquence,--
terrified, for by that penetration which Catholic priests,
however dull, generally acquire, in their vast experience of the
human heart hourly exposed to their probe, Bartolomeo spoke less
of danger to herself than to her child.  "Sorcerers," said he,
"have ever sought the most to decoy and seduce the souls of the
young,--nay, the infant;" and therewith he entered into a long
catalogue of legendary fables, which he quoted as historical
facts.  All at which an English woman would have smiled, appalled
the tender but superstitious Neapolitan; and when the priest left
her, with solemn rebukes and grave accusations of a dereliction
of her duties to her child, if she hesitated to fly with it from
an abode polluted by the darker powers and unhallowed arts,
Viola, still clinging to the image of Zanoni, sank into a passive
lethargy which held her very reason in suspense.

The hours passed:  night came on; the house was hushed; and
Viola, slowly awakened from the numbness and torpor which had
usurped her faculties, tossed to and fro on her couch, restless
and perturbed.  The stillness became intolerable; yet more
intolerable the sound that alone broke it, the voice of the
clock, knelling moment after moment to its grave.  The moments,
at last, seemed themselves to find voice,--to gain shape.  She
thought she beheld them springing, wan and fairy-like, from the
womb of darkness; and ere they fell again, extinguished, into
that womb, their grave, their low small voices murmured, "Woman,
we report to eternity all that is done in time!  What shall we
report of thee, O guardian of a new-born soul?"  She became
sensible that her fancies had brought a sort of partial delirium,
that she was in a state between sleep and waking, when suddenly
one thought became more predominant than the rest.  The chamber
which, in that and every house they had inhabited, even that in
the Greek isles, Zanoni had set apart to a solitude on which none
might intrude, the threshold of which even Viola's step was
forbid to cross, and never, hitherto, in that sweet repose of
confidence which belongs to contented love, had she even felt the
curious desire to disobey,--now, that chamber drew her towards
it.  Perhaps THERE might be found a somewhat to solve the riddle,
to dispel or confirm the doubt:  that thought grew and deepened
in its intenseness; it fastened on her as with a palpable and
irresistible grasp; it seemed to raise her limbs without her
will.

And now, through the chamber, along the galleries thou glidest, O
lovely shape! sleep-walking, yet awake.  The moon shines on thee
as thou glidest by, casement after casement, white-robed and
wandering spirit!--thine arms crossed upon thy bosom, thine eyes
fixed and open, with a calm unfearing awe.  Mother, it is thy
child that leads thee on!  The fairy moments go before thee; thou
hearest still the clock-knell tolling them to their graves
behind.  On, gliding on, thou hast gained the door; no lock bars
thee, no magic spell drives thee back.  Daughter of the dust,
thou standest alone with night in the chamber where, pale and
numberless, the hosts of space have gathered round the seer!


CHAPTER 6.VII.

Des Erdenlebens
Schweres Traumbild sinkt, und sinkt, und sinkt.
"Das Ideal und das Lebens."

(The Dream Shape of the heavy earthly life sinks, and sinks, and
sinks.)

She stood within the chamber, and gazed around her; no signs by
which an inquisitor of old could have detected the scholar of the
Black Art were visible.  No crucibles and caldrons, no brass-
bound volumes and ciphered girdles, no skulls and cross-bones.
Quietly streamed the broad moonlight through the desolate chamber
with its bare, white walls.  A few bunches of withered herbs, a
few antique vessels of bronze, placed carelessly on a wooden
form, were all which that curious gaze could identify with the
pursuits of the absent owner.  The magic, if it existed, dwelt in
the artificer, and the materials, to other hands, were but herbs
and bronze.  So is it ever with thy works and wonders, O Genius,
--Seeker of the Stars!  Words themselves are the common property
of all men; yet, from words themselves, Thou Architect of
Immortalities, pilest up temples that shall outlive the Pyramids,
and the very leaf of the Papyrus becomes a Shinar, stately with
towers, round which the Deluge of Ages, shall roar in vain!

But in that solitude has the Presence that there had invoked its
wonders left no enchantment of its own?  It seemed so; for as
Viola stood in the chamber, she became sensible that some
mysterious change was at work within herself.  Her blood coursed
rapidly, and with a sensation of delight, through her veins,--she
felt as if chains were falling from her limbs, as if cloud after
cloud was rolling from her gaze.  All the confused thoughts which
had moved through her trance settled and centred themselves in
one intense desire to see the Absent One,--to be with him.  The
monads that make up space and air seemed charged with a spiritual
attraction,--to become a medium through which her spirit could
pass from its clay, and confer with the spirit to which the
unutterable desire compelled it.  A faintness seized her; she
tottered to the seat on which the vessels and herbs were placed,
and, as she bent down, she saw in one of the vessels a small vase
of crystal.  By a mechanical and involuntary impulse, her hand
seized the vase; she opened it, and the volatile essence it
contained sparkled up, and spread through the room a powerful and
delicious fragrance.  She inhaled the odour, she laved her
temples with the liquid, and suddenly her life seemed to spring
up from the previous faintness,--to spring, to soar, to float, to
dilate upon the wings of a bird.  The room vanished from her
eyes.  Away, away, over lands and seas and space on the rushing
desire flies the disprisoned mind!

Upon a stratum, not of this world, stood the world-born shapes of
the sons of Science, upon an embryo world, upon a crude, wan,
attenuated mass of matter, one of the Nebulae, which the suns of
the myriad systems throw off as they roll round the Creator's
throne*, to become themselves new worlds of symmetry and glory,--
planets and suns that forever and forever shall in their turn
multiply their shining race, and be the fathers of suns and
planets yet to come.

(*"Astronomy instructs us that, in the original condition of the
solar system, the sun was the nucleus of a nebulosity or luminous
mass which revolved on its axis, and extended far beyond the
orbits of all the planets,--the planets as yet having no
existence.  Its temperature gradually diminished, and, becoming
contracted by cooling, the rotation increased in rapidity, and
zones of nebulosity were successively thrown off, in consequence
of the centrifugal force overpowering the central attraction.
The condensation of these separate masses constituted the planets
and satellites.  But this view of the conversion of gaseous
matter into planetary bodies is not limited to our own system; it
extends to the formation of the innumerable suns and worlds which
are distributed throughout the universe.  The sublime discoveries
of modern astronomers have shown that every part of the realms of
space abounds in large expansions of attenuated matter termed
nebulae, which are irregularly reflective of light, of various
figures, and in different states of condensation, from that of a
diffused, luminous mass to suns and planets like our own."--From
Mantell's eloquent and delightful work, entitled "The Wonders of
Geology," volume i. page 22.)

There, in that enormous solitude of an infant world, which
thousands and thousands of years can alone ripen into form, the
spirit of Viola beheld the shape of Zanoni, or rather the
likeness, the simulacrun, the LEMUR of his shape, not its human
and corporeal substance,--as if, like hers, the Intelligence was
parted from the Clay,--and as the sun, while it revolves and
glows, had cast off into remotest space that nebular image of
itself, so the thing of earth, in the action of its more luminous
and enduring being, had thrown its likeness into that new-born
stranger of the heavens.  There stood the phantom,--a phantom
Mejnour, by its side.  In the gigantic chaos around raved and
struggled the kindling elements; water and fire, darkness and
light, at war,--vapour and cloud hardening into mountains, and
the Breath of Life moving like a steadfast splendour over all.

As the dreamer looked, and shivered, she beheld that even there
the two phantoms of humanity were not alone.  Dim monster-forms
that that disordered chaos alone could engender, the first
reptile Colossal race that wreathe and crawl through the earliest
stratum of a world labouring into life, coiled in the oozing
matter or hovered through the meteorous vapours.  But these the
two seekers seemed not to heed; their gaze was fixed intent upon
an object in the farthest space.  With the eyes of the spirit,
Viola followed theirs; with a terror far greater than the chaos
and its hideous inhabitants produced, she beheld a shadowy
likeness of the very room in which her form yet dwelt, its white
walls, the moonshine sleeping on its floor, its open casement,
with the quiet roofs and domes of Venice looming over the sea
that sighed below,--and in that room the ghost-like image of
herself!  This double phantom--here herself a phantom, gazing
there upon a phantom-self--had in it a horror which no words can
tell, no length of life forego.

But presently she saw this image of herself rise slowly, leave
the room with its noiseless feet:  it passes the corridor, it
kneels by a cradle!  Heaven of Heaven!  She beholds her child!--
still with its wondrous, child-like beauty and its silent,
wakeful eyes.  But beside that cradle there sits cowering a
mantled, shadowy form,--the more fearful and ghastly from its
indistinct and unsubstantial gloom.  The walls of that chamber
seem to open as the scene of a theatre.  A grim dungeon; streets
through which pour shadowy crowds; wrath and hatred, and the
aspect of demons in their ghastly visages; a place of death; a
murderous instrument; a shamble-house of human flesh; herself;
her child;--all, all, rapid phantasmagoria, chased each other.
Suddenly the phantom-Zanoni turned, it seemed to perceive
herself,--her second self.  It sprang towards her; her spirit
could bear no more.  She shrieked, she woke.  She found that in
truth she had left that dismal chamber; the cradle was before
her, the child! all--all as that trance had seen it; and,
vanishing into air, even that dark, formless Thing!

"My child! my child! thy mother shall save thee yet!"


CHAPTER 6.VIII.

Qui?  Toi m'abandonner!  Ou vas-tu?  Non! demeure,
Demeure!
La Harpe, "Le Comte de Warwick," Act 3, sc. 5.

(Who?  THOU abandon me!--where goest thou?  No! stay, stay!)

Letter from Viola to Zanoni.

"It has come to this!--I am the first to part!  I, the unfaithful
one, bid thee farewell forever.  When thine eyes fall upon this
writing thou wilt know me as one of the dead.  For thou that
wert, and still art my life,--I am lost to thee!  O lover!  O
husband!  O still worshipped and adored! if thou hast ever loved
me, if thou canst still pity, seek not to discover the steps that
fly thee.  If thy charms can detect and tract me, spare me, spare
our child!  Zanoni, I will rear it to love thee, to call thee
father!  Zanoni, its young lips shall pray for thee!  Ah, spare
thy child, for infants are the saints of earth, and their
mediation may be heard on high!  Shall I tell thee why I part?
No; thou, the wisely-terrible, canst divine what the hand
trembles to record; and while I shudder at thy power,--while it
is thy power I fly (our child upon my bosom),--it comforts me
still to think that thy power can read the heart!  Thou knowest
that it is the faithful mother that writes to thee, it is not the
faithless wife!  Is there sin in thy knowledge, Zanoni?  Sin must
have sorrow:  and it were sweet--oh, how sweet--to be thy
comforter.  But the child, the infant, the soul that looks to
mine for its shield!--magician, I wrest from thee that soul!
Pardon, pardon, if my words wrong thee.  See, I fall on my knees
to write the rest!

"Why did I never recoil before from thy mysterious lore; why did
the very strangeness of thine unearthly life only fascinate me
with a delightful fear?  Because, if thou wert sorcerer or angel-
demon, there was no peril to other but myself:  and none to me,
for my love was my heavenliest part; and my ignorance in all
things, except the art to love thee, repelled every thought that
was not bright and glorious as thine image to my eyes.  But NOW
there is another!  Look! why does it watch me thus,--why that
never-sleeping, earnest, rebuking gaze?  Have thy spells
encompassed it already?  Hast thou marked it, cruel one, for the
terrors of thy unutterable art?  Do not madden me,--do not madden
me!--unbind the spell!

"Hark! the oars without!  They come,--they come, to bear me from
thee!  I look round, and methinks that I see thee everywhere.
Thou speakest to me from every shadow, from every star.  There,
by the casement, thy lips last pressed mine; there, there by that
threshold didst thou turn again, and thy smile seemed so
trustingly to confide in me!  Zanoni--husband!--I will stay!  I
cannot part from thee!  No, no!  I will go to the room where thy
dear voice, with its gentle music, assuaged the pangs of
travail!--where, heard through the thrilling darkness, it first
whispered to my ear, 'Viola, thou art a mother!'  A mother!--yes,
I rise from my knees,--I AM a mother!  They come!  I am firm;
farewell!"

Yes; thus suddenly, thus cruelly, whether in the delirium of
blind and unreasoning superstition, or in the resolve of that
conviction which springs from duty, the being for whom he had
resigned so much of empire and of glory forsook Zanoni.  This
desertion, never foreseen, never anticipated, was yet but the
constant fate that attends those who would place Mind BEYOND the
earth, and yet treasure the Heart WITHIN it.  Ignorance
everlastingly shall recoil from knowledge.  But never yet, from
nobler and purer motives of self-sacrifice, did human love link
itself to another, than did the forsaking wife now abandon the
absent.  For rightly had she said that it was not the faithless
wife, it WAS the faithful mother that fled from all in which her
earthly happiness was centred.

As long as the passion and fervour that impelled the act animated
her with false fever, she clasped her infant to her breast, and
was consoled,--resigned.  But what bitter doubt of her own
conduct, what icy pang of remorse shot through her heart, when,
as they rested for a few hours on the road to Leghorn, she heard
the woman who accompanied herself and Glyndon pray for safety to
reach her husband's side, and strength to share the perils that
would meet her there!  Terrible contrast to her own desertion!
She shrunk into the darkness of her own heart,--and then no voice
from within consoled her.


CHAPTER 6.IX.

Zukunft hast du mir gegeben,
Doch du nehmst den Augenblick.
"Kassandra."

(Futurity hast thou given to me,--yet takest from me the Moment.)

"Mejnour, behold thy work!  Out, out upon our little vanities of
wisdom!--out upon our ages of lore and life!  To save her from
Peril I left her presence, and the Peril has seized her in its
grasp!"

"Chide not thy wisdom but thy passions!  Abandon thine idle hope
of the love of woman.  See, for those who would unite the lofty
with the lowly, the inevitable curse; thy very nature
uncomprehended,--thy sacrifices unguessed.  The lowly one views
but in the lofty a necromancer or a fiend.  Titan, canst thou
weep?"

"I know it now, I see it all!  It WAS her spirit that stood
beside our own, and escaped my airy clasp!  O strong desire of
motherhood and nature! unveiling all our secrets, piercing space
and traversing worlds!--Mejnour, what awful learning lies hid in
the ignorance of the heart that loves!"

"The heart," answered the mystic, coldly; "ay, for five thousand
years I have ransacked the mysteries of creation, but I have not
yet discovered all the wonders in the heart of the simplest
boor!"

"Yet our solemn rites deceived us not; the prophet-shadows, dark
with terror and red with blood, still foretold that, even in the
dungeon, and before the deathsman, I,--I had the power to save
them both!"

"But at some unconjectured and most fatal sacrifice to thyself."

"To myself!  Icy sage, there is no self in love!  I go.  Nay,
alone:  I want thee not.  I want now no other guide but the human
instincts of affection.  No cave so dark, no solitude so vast, as
to conceal her.  Though mine art fail me; though the stars heed
me not; though space, with its shining myriads, is again to me
but the azure void,--I return but to love and youth and hope!
When have they ever failed to triumph and to save!"



BOOK VII.

THE REIGN OF TERROR.

Orrida maesta nei fero aspetto
Terrore accresce, e piu superbo il rende;
Rosseggian gli occhi, e di veneno infetto
Come infausta cometa, il guardo splende,
Gil involve il mento, e sull 'irsuto petto
Ispida efoita la gran barbe scende;
E IN GUISA DE VORAGINE PROFONDA
SAPRE LA BOCCA A'ATRO SANGUE IMMONDA.
(Ger. Lib., Cant. iv. 7.)

A horrible majesty in the fierce aspect increases it terror, and
renders it more  superb.  Red glow the eyes, and the aspect
infected, like a baleful comet, with  envenomed influences,
glares around.  A vast beard covers the chin--and, rough  and
thick, descends over the shaggy breast.--And like a profound gulf
expand the jaws, foul with black gore.



CHAPTER 7.I.

Qui suis-je, moi qu'on accuse?  Un esclave de la Liberte, un
martyr vivant de la Republique.
"Discours de Robespierre, 8 Thermidor."

(Who am I,--_I_ whom they accuse?  A slave of Liberty,--a living
martyr for the Republic.)

It roars,--The River of Hell, whose first outbreak was chanted as
the gush of a channel to Elysium.  How burst into blossoming
hopes fair hearts that had nourished themselves on the diamond
dews of the rosy dawn, when Liberty came from the dark ocean, and
the arms of decrepit Thraldom--Aurora from the bed of Tithon!
Hopes! ye have ripened into fruit, and the fruit is gore and
ashes!  Beautiful Roland, eloquent Vergniaud, visionary
Condorcet, high-hearted Malesherbes!--wits, philosophers,
statesmen, patriots, dreamers! behold the millennium for which ye
dared and laboured!

I invoke the ghosts!  Saturn hath devoured his children ("La
Revolution est comme Saturne, elle devorera tous ses enfans."--
Vergniaud.), and lives alone,--I his true name of Moloch!

It is the Reign of Terror, with Robespierre the king.  The
struggles between the boa and the lion are past:  the boa has
consumed the lion, and is heavy with the gorge,--Danton has
fallen, and Camille Desmoulins.  Danton had said before his
death, "The poltroon Robespierre,--I alone could have saved him."
From that hour, indeed, the blood of the dead giant clouded the
craft of "Maximilien the Incorruptible," as at last, amidst the
din of the roused Convention, it choked his voice.  (Le sang de
Danton t'etouffe!" (the blood of Danton chokes thee!) said
Garnier de l'Aube, when on the fatal 9th of Thermidor,
Robespierre gasped feebly forth, "Pour la derniere fois,
President des Assassins, je te demande la parole."  (For the last
time, President of Assassins, I demand to speak.))  If, after
that last sacrifice, essential, perhaps, to his safety,
Robespierre had proclaimed the close of the Reign of Terror, and
acted upon the mercy which Danton had begun to preach, he might
have lived and died a monarch.  But the prisons continued to
reek,--the glaive to fall; and Robespierre perceived not that his
mobs were glutted to satiety with death, and the strongest
excitement a chief could give would be a return from devils into
men.

We are transported to a room in the house of Citizen Dupleix, the
menuisier, in the month of July, 1794; or, in the calendar of the
Revolutionists, it was the Thermidor of the Second Year of the
Republic, One and Indivisible!  Though the room was small, it was
furnished and decorated with a minute and careful effort at
elegance and refinement.  It seemed, indeed, the desire of the
owner to avoid at once what was mean and rude, and what was
luxurious and voluptuous.  It was a trim, orderly, precise grace
that shaped the classic chairs, arranged the ample draperies,
sank the frameless mirrors into the wall, placed bust and bronze
on their pedestals, and filled up the niches here and there with
well-bound books, filed regularly in their appointed ranks.  An
observer would have said, "This man wishes to imply to you,--I am
not rich; I am not ostentatious; I am not luxurious; I am no
indolent Sybarite, with couches of down, and pictures that
provoke the sense; I am no haughty noble, with spacious halls,
and galleries that awe the echo.  But so much the greater is my
merit if I disdain these excesses of the ease or the pride, since
I love the elegant, and have a taste!  Others may be simple and
honest, from the very coarseness of their habits; if I, with so
much refinement and delicacy, am simple and honest,--reflect, and
admire me!"

On the walls of this chamber hung many portraits, most of them
represented but one face; on the formal pedestals were grouped
many busts, most of them sculptured but one head.  In that small
chamber Egotism sat supreme, and made the Arts its looking-
glasses.  Erect in a chair, before a large table spread with
letters, sat the original of bust and canvas, the owner of the
apartment.  He was alone, yet he sat erect, formal, stiff,
precise, as if in his very home he was not at ease.  His dress
was in harmony with his posture and his chamber; it affected a
neatness of its own,--foreign both to the sumptuous fashions of
the deposed nobles, and the filthy ruggedness of the sans-
culottes.  Frizzled and coiffe, not a hair was out of order, not
a speck lodged on the sleek surface of the blue coat, not a
wrinkle crumpled the snowy vest, with its under-relief of
delicate pink.  At the first glance, you might have seen in that
face nothing but the ill-favoured features of a sickly
countenance; at a second glance, you would have perceived that it
had a power, a character of its own.  The forehead, though low
and compressed, was not without that appearance of thought and
intelligence which, it may be observed, that breadth between the
eyebrows almost invariably gives; the lips were firm and tightly
drawn together, yet ever and anon they trembled, and writhed
restlessly.  The eyes, sullen and gloomy, were yet piercing, and
full of a concentrated vigour that did not seem supported by the
thin, feeble frame, or the green lividness of the hues, which
told of anxiety and disease.

Such was Maximilien Robespierre; such the chamber over the
menuisier's shop, whence issued the edicts that launched armies
on their career of glory, and ordained an artificial conduit to
carry off the blood that deluged the metropolis of the most
martial people in the globe!  Such was the man who had resigned a
judicial appointment (the early object of his ambition) rather
than violate his philanthropical principles by subscribing to the
death of a single fellow-creature; such was the virgin enemy to
capital punishments; and such, Butcher-Dictator now, was the man
whose pure and rigid manners, whose incorruptible honesty, whose
hatred of the excesses that tempt to love and wine, would, had he
died five years earlier, have left him the model for prudent
fathers and careful citizens to place before their sons.  Such
was the man who seemed to have no vice, till circumstance, that
hotbed, brought forth the two which, in ordinary times, lie ever
the deepest and most latent in a man's heart,--Cowardice and
Envy.  To one of these sources is to be traced every murder that
master-fiend committed.  His cowardice was of a peculiar and
strange sort; for it was accompanied with the most unscrupulous
and determined WILL,--a will that Napoleon reverenced; a will of
iron, and yet nerves of aspen.  Mentally, he was a hero,--
physically, a dastard.  When the veriest shadow of danger
threatened his person, the frame cowered, but the will swept the
danger to the slaughter-house.  So there he sat, bolt upright,--
his small, lean fingers clenched convulsively; his sullen eyes
straining into space, their whites yellowed with streaks of
corrupt blood; his ears literally moving to and fro, like the
ignobler animals', to catch every sound,--a Dionysius in his
cave; but his posture decorous and collected, and every formal
hair in its frizzled place.

"Yes, yes," he said in a muttered tone, "I hear them; my good
Jacobins are at their post on the stairs.  Pity they swear so!  I
have a law against oaths,--the manners of the poor and virtuous
people must be reformed.  When all is safe, an example or two
amongst those good Jacobins would make effect.  Faithful fellows,
how they love me!  Hum!--what an oath was that!--they need not
swear so loud,--upon the very staircase, too!  It detracts from
my reputation.  Ha! steps!"

The soliloquist glanced at the opposite mirror, and took up a
volume; he seemed absorbed in its contents, as a tall fellow, a
bludgeon in his hand, a girdle adorned with pistols round his
waist, opened the door, and announced two visitors.  The one was
a young man, said to resemble Robespierre in person, but of a far
more decided and resolute expression of countenance.  He entered
first, and, looking over the volume in Robespierre's hand, for
the latter seemed still intent on his lecture, exclaimed,--

"What!  Rousseau's Heloise?  A love-tale!"

"Dear Payan, it is not the love,--it is the philosophy that
charms me.  What noble sentiments!--what ardour of virtue!  If
Jean Jacques had but lived to see this day!"

While the Dictator thus commented on his favourite author, whom
in his orations he laboured hard to imitate, the second visitor
was wheeled into the room in a chair.  This man was also in what,
to most, is the prime of life,--namely, about thirty-eight; but
he was literally dead in the lower limbs:  crippled, paralytic,
distorted, he was yet, as the time soon came to tell him,--a
Hercules in Crime!  But the sweetest of human smiles dwelt upon
his lips; a beauty almost angelic characterised his features
("Figure d'ange," says one of his contemporaries, in describing
Couthon.  The address, drawn up most probably by Payan (Thermidor
9), after the arrest of Robespierre, thus mentions his crippled
colleague:  "Couthon, ce citoyen vertueux, QUI N'A QUE LE COEUR
ET LA TETE DE VIVANS, mais qui les a brulants de patriotisme"
(Couthon, that virtuous citizen, who has but the head and the
heart of the living, yet possesses these all on flame with
patriotism.)); an inexpressible aspect of kindness, and the
resignation of suffering but cheerful benignity, stole into the
hearts of those who for the first time beheld him.  With the most
caressing, silver, flute-like voice, Citizen Couthon saluted the
admirer of Jean Jacques.

"Nay,--do not say that it is not the LOVE that attracts thee; it
IS the love! but not the gross, sensual attachment of man for
woman.  No! the sublime affection for the whole human race, and
indeed, for all that lives!"

And Citizen Couthon, bending down, fondled the little spaniel
that he invariably carried in his bosom, even to the Convention,
as a vent for the exuberant sensibilities which overflowed his
affectionate heart.  (This tenderness for some pet animal was by
no means peculiar to Couthon; it seems rather a common fashion
with the gentle butchers of the Revolution.  M. George Duval
informs us ("Souvenirs de la Terreur," volume iii page 183) that
Chaumette had an aviary, to which he devoted his harmless
leisure; the murderous Fournier carried on his shoulders a pretty
little squirrel, attached by a silver chain; Panis bestowed the
superfluity of his affections upon two gold pheasants; and Marat,
who would not abate one of the three hundred thousand heads he
demanded, REARED DOVES!  Apropos of the spaniel of Couthon, Duval
gives us an amusing anecdote of Sergent, not one of the least
relentless agents of the massacre of September.  A lady came to
implore his protection for one of her relations confined in the
Abbaye.  He scarcely deigned to speak to her.  As she retired in
despair, she trod by accident on the paw of his favourite
spaniel.  Sergent, turning round, enraged and furious, exclaimed,
"MADAM, HAVE YOU NO HUMANITY?")

"Yes, for all that lives," repeated Robespierre, tenderly.  "Good
Couthon,--poor Couthon!  Ah, the malice of men!--how we are
misrepresented!  To be calumniated as the executioners of our
colleagues!  Ah, it is THAT which pierces the heart!  To be an
object of terror to the enemies of our country,--THAT is noble;
but to be an object of terror to the good, the patriotic, to
those one loves and reveres,--THAT is the most terrible of human
tortures at least, to a susceptible and honest heart!"  (Not to
fatigue the reader with annotations, I may here observe that
nearly every sentiment ascribed in the text to Robespierre is to
be found expressed in his various discourses.)

"How I love to hear him!" ejaculated Couthon.

"Hem!" said Payan, with some impatience.  "But now to business!"

"Ah, to business!" said Robespierre, with a sinister glance from
his bloodshot eyes.

"The time has come," said Payan, "when the safety of the Republic
demands a complete concentration of its power.  These brawlers of
the Comite du Salut Public can only destroy; they cannot
construct.  They hated you, Maximilien, from the moment you
attempted to replace anarcy by institutions.  How they mock at
the festival which proclaimed the acknowledgment of a Supreme
Being:  they would have no ruler, even in heaven!  Your clear and
vigorous intellect saw that, having wrecked an old world, it
became necessary to shape a new one.  The first step towards
construction must be to destroy the destroyers.  While we
deliberate, your enemies act.  Better this very night to attack
the handful of gensdarmes that guard them, than to confront the
battalions they may raise to-morrow."

"No," said Robespierre, who recoiled before the determined spirit
of Payan; "I have a better and safer plan.  This is the 6th of
Thermidor; on the 10th--on the 10th, the Convention go in a body
to the Fete Decadaire.  A mob shall form; the canonniers, the
troops of Henriot, the young pupils de l'Ecole de Mars, shall mix
in the crowd.  Easy, then, to strike the conspirators whom we
shall designate to our agents.  On the same day, too, Fouquier
and Dumas shall not rest; and a sufficient number of 'the
suspect' to maintain salutary awe, and keep up the revolutionary
excitement, shall perish by the glaive of the law.  The 10th
shall be the great day of action.  Payan, of these last culprits,
have you prepared a list?"

"It is here," returned Payan, laconically, presenting a paper.

Robespierre glanced over it rapidly.  "Collot d'Herbois!--good!
Barrere!--ay, it was Barrere who said, 'Let us strike:  the dead
alone never return.'  ("Frappons! il n'y a que les morts qui ne
revient pas."--Barrere.)  Vadier, the savage jester!--good--good!
Vadier of the Mountain.  He has called me 'Mahomet!'  Scelerat!
blasphemer!"

"Mahomet is coming to the Mountain," said Couthon, with his
silvery accent, as he caressed his spaniel.

"But how is this?  I do not see the name of Tallien?  Tallien,--I
hate that man; that is," said Robespierre, correcting himself
with the hypocrisy or self-deceit which those who formed the
council of this phrase-monger exhibited habitually, even among
themselves,--"that is, Virtue and our Country hate him!  There is
no man in the whole Convention who inspires me with the same
horror as Tallien.  Couthon, I see a thousand Dantons where
Tallien sits!"

"Tallien has the only head that belongs to this deformed body,"
said Payan, whose ferocity and crime, like those of St. Just,
were not unaccompanied by talents of no common order.  "Were it
not better to draw away the head, to win, to buy him, for the
time, and dispose of him better when left alone?  He may hate
YOU, but he loves MONEY!"

"No," said Robespierre, writing down the name of Jean Lambert
Tallien, with a slow hand that shaped each letter with stern
distinctness; "that one head IS MY NECESSITY!"

"I have a SMALL list here," said Couthon, sweetly,--"a VERY small
list.  You are dealing with the Mountain; it is necessary to make
a few examples in the Plain.  These moderates are as straws which
follow the wind.  They turned against us yesterday in the
Convention.  A little terror will correct the weathercocks.  Poor
creatures!  I owe them no ill-will; I could weep for them.  But
before all, la chere patrie!"

The terrible glance of Robespierre devoured the list which the
man of sensibility submitted to him.  "Ah, these are well chosen;
men not of mark enough to be regretted, which is the best policy
with the relics of that party; some foreigners too,--yes, THEY
have no parents in Paris.  These wives and parents are beginning
to plead against us.  Their complaints demoralise the
guillotine!"

"Couthon is right," said Payan; "MY list contains those whom it
will be safer to despatch en masse in the crowd assembled at the
Fete.  HIS list selects those whom we may prudently consign to
the law.  Shall it not be signed at once?"

"It IS signed," said Robespierre, formally replacing his pen upon
the inkstand.  "Now to more important matters.  These deaths will
create no excitement; but Collot d'Herbois, Bourdon De l'Oise,
Tallien," the last name Robespierre gasped as he pronounced,
"THEY are the heads of parties.  This is life or death to us as
well as them."

"Their heads are the footstools to your curule chair," said
Payan, in a half whisper.  "There is no danger if we are bold.
Judges, juries, all have been your selection.  You seize with one
hand the army, with the other, the law.  Your voice yet commands
the people--"

"The poor and virtuous people," murmured Robespierre.

"And even," continued Payan, "if our design at the Fete fail us,
we must not shrink from the resources still at our command.
Reflect!  Henriot, the general of the Parisian army, furnishes
you with troops to arrest; the Jacobin Club with a public to
approve; inexorable Dumas with judges who never acquit.  We must
be bold!"

"And we ARE bold," exclaimed Robespierre, with sudden passion,
and striking his hand on the table as he rose, with his crest
erect, as a serpent in the act to strike.  "In seeing the
multitude of vices that the revolutionary torrent mingles with
civic virtues, I tremble to be sullied in the eyes of posterity
by the impure neighbourhood of these perverse men who thrust
themselves among the sincere defenders of humanity.  What!--they
think to divide the country like a booty!  I thank them for their
hatred to all that is virtuous and worthy!  These men,"--and he
grasped the list of Payan in his hand,--"these!--not WE--have
drawn the line of demarcation between themselves and the lovers
of France!"

"True, we must reign alone!" muttered Payan; "in other words, the
state needs unity of will;" working, with his strong practical
mind, the corollary from the logic of his word-compelling
colleague.

"I will go to the Convention," continued Robespierre.  "I have
absented myself too long,--lest I might seem to overawe the
Republic that I have created.  Away with such scruples!  I will
prepare the people!  I will blast the traitors with a look!"

He spoke with the terrible firmness of the orator that had never
failed,--of the moral will that marched like a warrior on the
cannon.  At that instant he was interrupted; a letter was brought
to him:  he opened it,--his face fell, he shook from limb to
limb; it was one of the anonymous warnings by which the hate and
revenge of those yet left alive to threaten tortured the death-
giver.

"Thou art smeared," ran the lines, "with the best blood of
France.  Read thy sentence!  I await the hour when the people
shall knell thee to the doomsman.  If my hope deceive me, if
deferred too long,--hearken, read!  This hand, which thine eyes
shall search in vain to discover, shall pierce thy heart.  I see
thee every day,--I am with thee every day.  At each hour my arm
rises against thy breast.  Wretch! live yet awhile, though but
for few and miserable days--live to think of me; sleep to dream
of me!  Thy terror and thy thought of me are the heralds of thy
doom.  Adieu! this day itself I go forth to riot on thy fears!"
(See "Papiers inedits trouves chez Robespierre," etc., volume ii.
page 155.  (No. lx.))

"Your lists are not full enough!" said the tyrant, with a hollow
voice, as the paper dropped from his trembling hand.  "Give them
to me!--give them to me!  Think again, think again!  Barrere is
right--right! 'Frappons! il n'y a que les morts qui ne revient
pas!'"


CHAPTER 7.II.

La haine, dans ces lieux, n'a qu'un glaive assassin.
Elle marche dans l'ombre.
La Harpe, "Jeanne de Naples," Act iv. sc. 1.

(Hate, in these regions, has but the sword of the assassin.  She
moves in the shade.)

While such the designs and fears of Maximilien Robespierre,
common danger, common hatred, whatever was yet left of mercy or
of virtue in the agents of the Revolution, served to unite
strange opposites in hostility to the universal death-dealer.
There was, indeed, an actual conspiracy at work against him among
men little less bespattered than himself with innocent blood.
But that conspiracy would have been idle of itself, despite the
abilities of Tallien and Barras (the only men whom it comprised,
worthy, by foresight and energy, the names of "leaders").  The
sure and destroying elements that gathered round the tyrant were
Time and Nature; the one, which he no longer suited; the other,
which he had outraged and stirred up in the human breast.  The
most atrocious party of the Revolution, the followers of Hebert,
gone to his last account, the butcher-atheists, who, in
desecrating heaven and earth, still arrogated inviolable sanctity
to themselves, were equally enraged at the execution of their
filthy chief, and the proclamation of a Supreme Being.  The
populace, brutal as it had been, started as from a dream of
blood, when their huge idol, Danton, no longer filled the stage
of terror, rendering crime popular by that combination of
careless frankness and eloquent energy which endears their heroes
to the herd.  The glaive of the guillotine had turned against
THEMSELVES.  They had yelled and shouted, and sung and danced,
when the venerable age, or the gallant youth, of aristocracy or
letters, passed by their streets in the dismal tumbrils; but they
shut up their shops, and murmured to each other, when their own
order was invaded, and tailors and cobblers, and journeymen and
labourers, were huddled off to the embraces of the "Holy Mother
Guillotine," with as little ceremony as if they had been the
Montmorencies or the La Tremouilles, the Malesherbes or the
Lavoisiers.  "At this time," said Couthon, justly, "Les ombres de
Danton, d'Hebert, de Chaumette, se promenent parmi nous!" (The
shades of Danton, Hebert, and Chaumette walk amongst us.)

Among those who had shared the doctrines, and who now dreaded the
fate of the atheist Hebert, was the painter, Jean Nicot.
Mortified and enraged to find that, by the death of his patron,
his career was closed; and that, in the zenith of the Revolution
for which he had laboured, he was lurking in caves and cellars,
more poor, more obscure, more despicable than he had been at the
commencement,--not daring to exercise even his art, and fearful
every hour that his name would swell the lists of the condemned,
--he was naturally one of the bitterest enemies of Robespierre
and his government.  He held secret meetings with Collot
d'Herbois, who was animated by the same spirit; and with the
creeping and furtive craft that characterised his abilities, he
contrived, undetected, to disseminate tracts and invectives
against the Dictator, and to prepare, amidst "the poor and
virtuous people," the train for the grand explosion.  But still
so firm to the eyes, even of profounder politicians than Jean
Nicot, appeared the sullen power of the incorruptible Maximilien;
so timorous was the movement against him,--that Nicot, in common
with many others, placed his hopes rather in the dagger of the
assassin than the revolt of the multitude.  But Nicot, though not
actually a coward, shrunk himself from braving the fate of the
martyr; he had sense enough to see that, though all parties might
rejoice in the assassination, all parties would probably concur
in beheading the assassin.  He had not the virtue to become a
Brutus.  His object was to inspire a proxy-Brutus; and in the
centre of that inflammable population this was no improbable
hope.

Amongst those loudest and sternest against the reign of blood;
amongst those most disenchanted of the Revolution; amongst those
most appalled by its excesses,--was, as might be expected, the
Englishman, Clarence Glyndon.  The wit and accomplishments, the
uncertain virtues that had lighted with fitful gleams the mind of
Camille Desmoulins, had fascinated Glyndon more than the
qualities of any other agent in the Revolution.  And when (for
Camille Desmoulins had a heart, which seemed dead or dormant in
most of his contemporaries) that vivid child of genius and of
error, shocked at the massacre of the Girondins, and repentant of
his own efforts against them, began to rouse the serpent malice
of Robespierre by new doctrines of mercy and toleration, Glyndon
espoused his views with his whole strength and soul.  Camille
Desmoulins perished, and Glyndon, hopeless at once of his own
life and the cause of humanity, from that time sought only the
occasion of flight from the devouring Golgotha.  He had two lives
to heed besides his own; for them he trembled, and for them he
schemed and plotted the means of escape.  Though Glyndon hated
the principles, the party (None were more opposed to the
Hebertists than Camille Desmoulins and his friends.  It is
curious and amusing to see these leaders of the mob, calling the
mob "the people" one day, and the "canaille" the next, according
as it suits them.  "I know," says Camille, "that they (the
Hebertists) have all the canaille with them."--(Ils ont toute la
canaille pour eux.)), and the vices of Nicot, he yet extended to
the painter's penury the means of subsistence; and Jean Nicot, in
return, designed to exalt Glyndon to that very immortality of a
Brutus from which he modestly recoiled himself.  He founded his
designs on the physical courage, on the wild and unsettled
fancies of the English artist, and on the vehement hate and
indignant loathing with which he openly regarded the government
of Maximilien.

At the same hour, on the same day in July, in which Robespierre
conferred (as we have seen) with his allies, two persons were
seated in a small room in one of the streets leading out of the
Rue St. Honore; the one, a man, appeared listening impatiently,
and with a sullen brow, to his companion, a woman of singular
beauty, but with a bold and reckless expression, and her face as
she spoke was animated by the passions of a half-savage and
vehement nature.

"Englishman," said the woman, "beware!--you know that, whether in
flight or at the place of death, I would brave all to be by your
side,--you know THAT!  Speak!"

"Well, Fillide; did I ever doubt your fidelity?"

"Doubt it you cannot,-- betray it you may.  You tell me that in
flight you must have a companion besides myself, and that
companion is a female.  It shall not be!"

"Shall not!"

"It shall not!" repeated Fillide, firmly, and folding her arms
across her breast.  Before Glyndon could reply, a slight knock at
the door was heard, and Nicot opened the latch and entered.

Fillide sank into her chair, and, leaning her face on her hands,
appeared unheeding of the intruder and the conversation that
ensued.

"I cannot bid thee good-day, Glyndon," said Nicot, as in his
sans-culotte fashion he strode towards the artist, his ragged hat
on his head, his hands in his pockets, and the beard of a week's
growth upon his chin,--"I cannot bid thee good-day; for while the
tyrant lives, evil is every sun that sheds its beams on France."

"It is true; what then?  We have sown the wind, we must reap the
whirlwind."

"And yet," said Nicot, apparently not heeding the reply, and as
if musingly to himself, "it is strange to think that the butcher
is as mortal as the butchered; that his life hangs on as slight a
thread; that between the cuticle and the heart there is as short
a passage,--that, in short, one blow can free France and redeem
mankind!"

Glyndon surveyed the speaker with a careless and haughty scorn,
and made no answer.

"And," proceeded Nicot, "I have sometimes looked round for the
man born for this destiny, and whenever I have done so, my steps
have led me hither!"

"Should they not rather have led thee to the side of Maximilien
Robespierre?" said Glyndon, with a sneer.

"No," returned Nicot, coldly,--"no; for I am a 'suspect:'  I
could not mix with his train; I could not approach within a
hundred yards of his person, but I should be seized; YOU, as yet,
are safe.  Hear me!"--and his voice became earnest and
expressive,--"hear me!  There seems danger in this action; there
is none.  I have been with Collot d'Herbois and Bilaud-Varennes;
they will hold him harmless who strikes the blow; the populace
would run to thy support; the Convention would hail thee as their
deliverer, the--"

"Hold, man!  How darest thou couple my name with the act of an
assassin?  Let the tocsin sound from yonder tower, to a war
between Humanity and the Tyrant, and I will not be the last in
the field; but liberty never yet acknowledged a defender in a
felon."

There was something so brave and noble in Glyndon's voice, mien,
and manner, as he thus spoke, that Nicot at once was silenced; at
once he saw that he had misjudged the man.

"No," said Fillide, lifting her face from her hands,--"no! your
friend has a wiser scheme in preparation; he would leave you
wolves to mangle each other.  He is right; but--"

"Flight!" exclaimed Nicot; "is it possible?  Flight; how?--when?
--by what means?  All France begirt with spies and guards!
Flight! would to Heaven it were in our power!"

"Dost thou, too, desire to escape the blessed Revolution?"

"Desire!  Oh!" cried Nicot, suddenly, and, falling down, he
clasped Glyndon's knees,--"oh, save me with thyself!  My life is
a torture; every moment the guillotine frowns before me.  I know
that my hours are numbered; I know that the tyrant waits but his
time to write my name in his inexorable list; I know that Rene
Dumas, the judge who never pardons, has, from the first, resolved
upon my death.  Oh, Glyndon, by our old friendship, by our common
art, by thy loyal English faith and good English heart, let me
share thy flight!"

"If thou wilt, so be it."

"Thanks!--my whole life shall thank thee.  But how hast thou
prepared the means, the passports, the disguise, the--"

"I will tell thee.  Thou knowest C--, of the Convention,--he has
power, and he is covetous.  'Qu'on me meprise, pourvu que je
dine' (Let them despise me, provided that I dine.), said he, when
reproached for his avarice."

"Well?"

"By the help of this sturdy republican, who has friends enough in
the Comite, I have obtained the means necessary for flight; I
have purchased them.  For a consideration I can procure thy
passport also."

"Thy riches, then, are not in assignats?"

"No; I have gold enough for us all."

And here Glyndon, beckoning Nicot into the next room, first
briefly and rapidly detailed to him the plan proposed, and the
disguises to be assumed conformably to the passports, and then
added, "In return for the service I render thee, grant me one
favour, which I think is in thy power.  Thou rememberest Viola
Pisani?"

"Ah,--remember, yes!--and the lover with whom she fled."

"And FROM whom she is a fugitive now."

"Indeed--what!--I understand.  Sacre bleu! but you are a lucky
fellow, cher confrere."

"Silence, man! with thy eternal prate of brotherhood and virtue,
thou seemest never to believe in one kindly action, or one
virtuous thought!"

Nicot bit his lip, and replied sullenly, "Experience is a great
undeceiver.  Humph!  What service can I do thee with regard to
the Italian?"

"I have been accessory to her arrival in this city of snares and
pitfalls.  I cannot leave her alone amidst dangers from which
neither innocence nor obscurity is a safeguard.  In your blessed
Republic, a good and unsuspected citizen, who casts a desire on
any woman, maid or wife, has but to say, 'Be mine, or I denounce
you!'  In a word, Viola must share our flight."

"What so easy?  I see your passports provide for her."

"What so easy?  What so difficult?  This Fillide--would that I
had never seen her!--would that I had never enslaved my soul to
my senses!  The love of an uneducated, violent, unprincipled
woman, opens with a heaven, to merge in a hell!  She is jealous
as all the Furies; she will not hear of a female companion; and
when once she sees the beauty of Viola!--I tremble to think of
it.  She is capable of any excess in the storm of her passions."

"Aha, I know what such women are!  My wife, Beatrice Sacchini,
whom I took from Naples, when I failed with this very Viola,
divorced me when my money failed, and, as the mistress of a
judge, passes me in her carriage while I crawl through the
streets.  Plague on her!--but patience, patience! such is the lot
of virtue.  Would I were Robespierre for a day!"

"Cease these tirades!" exclaimed Glyndon, impatiently; "and to
the point.  What would you advise?"

"Leave your Fillide behind."

"Leave her to her own ignorance; leave her unprotected even by
the mind; leave her in the Saturnalia of Rape and Murder?  No!  I
have sinned against her once.  But come what may, I will not so
basely desert one who, with all her errors, trusted her fate to
my love."

"You deserted her at Marseilles."

"True; but I left her in safety, and I did not then believe her
love to be so deep and faithful.  I left her gold, and I imagined
she would be easily consoled; but since THEN WE HAVE KNOWN DANGER
TOGETHER!  And now to leave her alone to that danger which she
would never have incurred but for devotion to me!--no, that is
impossible.  A project occurs to me.  Canst thou not say that
thou hast a sister, a relative, or a benefactress, whom thou
wouldst save?  Can we not--till we have left France--make Fillide
believe that Viola is one in whom THOU only art interested; and
whom, for thy sake only, I permit to share in our escape?"

"Ha, well thought of!--certainly!"

"I will then appear to yield to Fillide's wishes, and resign the
project, which she so resents, of saving the innocent object of
her frantic jealousy.  You, meanwhile, shall yourself entreat
Fillide to intercede with me to extend the means of escape to--"

"To a lady (she knows I have no sister) who has aided me in my
distress.  Yes, I will manage all, never fear.  One word more,--
what has become of that Zanoni?"

"Talk not of him,--I know not."

"Does he love this girl still?"

"It would seem so.  She is his wife, the mother of his infant,
who is with her."

"Wife!--mother!  He loves her.  Aha!  And why--"

"No questions now.  I will go and prepare Viola for the flight;
you, meanwhile, return to Fillide."

"But the address of the Neapolitan?  It is necessary I should
know, lest Fillide inquire."

"Rue M-- T--, No. 27.  Adieu."

Glyndon seized his hat and hastened from the house.

Nicot, left alone, seemed for a few moments buried in thought.
"Oho," he muttered to himself, "can I not turn all this to my
account?  Can I not avenge myself on thee, Zanoni, as I have so
often sworn,--through thy wife and child?  Can I not possess
myself of thy gold, thy passports, and thy Fillide, hot
Englishman, who wouldst humble me with thy loathed benefits, and
who hast chucked me thine alms as to a beggar?  And Fillide, I
love her:  and thy gold, I love THAT more!  Puppets, I move your
strings!"

He passed slowly into the chamber where Fillide yet sat, with
gloomy thought on her brow and tears standing in her dark eyes.
She looked up eagerly as the door opened, and turned from the
rugged face of Nicot with an impatient movement of
disappointment.

"Glyndon," said the painter, drawing a chair to Fillide's, "has
left me to enliven your solitude, fair Italian.  He is not
jealous of the ugly Nicot!--ha, ha!--yet Nicot loved thee well
once, when his fortunes were more fair.  But enough of such past
follies."

"Your friend, then, has left the house.  Whither?  Ah, you look
away; you falter,--you cannot meet my eyes!  Speak!  I implore, I
command thee, speak!"

"Enfant!  And what dost thou fear?"

"FEAR!--yes, alas, I fear!" said the Italian; and her whole frame
seemed to shrink into itself as she fell once more back into her
seat.

Then, after a pause, she tossed the long hair from her eyes, and,
starting up abruptly, paced the room with disordered strides.  At
length she stopped opposite to Nicot, laid her hand on his arm,
drew him towards an escritoire, which she unlocked, and, opening
a well, pointed to the gold that lay within, and said, "Thou art
poor,--thou lovest money; take what thou wilt, but undeceive me.
Who is this woman whom thy friend visits,--and does he love her?"

Nicot's eyes sparkled, and his hands opened and clenched, and
clenched and opened, as he gazed upon the coins.  But reluctantly
resisting the impulse, he said, with an affected bitterness,
"Thinkest thou to bribe me?--if so, it cannot be with gold.  But
what if he does love a rival; what if he betrays thee; what if,
wearied by thy jealousies, he designs in his flight to leave thee
behind,--would such knowledge make thee happier?"

"Yes!" exclaimed the Italian, fiercely; "yes, for it would be
happiness to hate and to be avenged!  Oh, thou knowest not how
sweet is hatred to those who have really loved!"

"But wilt thou swear, if I reveal to thee the secret, that thou
wilt not betray me,--that thou wilt not fall, as women do, into
weak tears and fond reproaches, when thy betrayer returns?"

"Tears, reproaches!  Revenge hides itself in smiles!"

"Thou art a brave creature!" said Nicot, almost admiringly.  "One
condition more:  thy lover designs to fly with his new love, to
leave thee to thy fate; if I prove this to thee, and if I give
thee revenge against thy rival, wilt thou fly with me?  I love
thee!--I will wed thee!"

Fillide's eyes flashed fire; she looked at him with unutterable
disdain, and was silent.

Nicot felt he had gone too far; and with that knowledge of the
evil part of our nature which his own heart and association with
crime had taught him, he resolved to trust the rest to the
passions of the Italian, when raised to the height to which he
was prepared to lead them.

"Pardon me," he said; "my love made me too presumptuous; and yet
it is only that love,--my sympathy for thee, beautiful and
betrayed, that can induce me to wrong, with my revelations, one
whom I have regarded as a brother.  I can depend upon thine oath
to conceal all from Glyndon?"

"On my oath and my wrongs and my mountain blood!"

"Enough! get thy hat and mantle, and follow me."

As Fillide left the room, Nicot's eyes again rested on the gold;
it was much,--much more than he had dared to hope for; and as he
peered into the well and opened the drawers, he perceived a
packet of letters in the well-known hand of Camille Desmoulins.
He seized--he opened the packet; his looks brightened as he
glanced over a few sentences.  "This would give fifty Glyndons to
the guillotine!" he muttered, and thrust the packet into his
bosom.

O artist!--O haunted one!--O erring genius!--behold the two worst
foes,--the False Ideal that knows no God, and the False Love that
burns from the corruption of the senses, and takes no lustre from
the soul!


CHAPTER 7.III.

Liebe sonnt das Reich der Nacht.
"Der Triumph der Liebe."

(Love illumes the realm of Night.)

Letter from Zanoni to Mejnour.

Paris.

Dost thou remember in the old time, when the Beautiful yet dwelt
in Greece, how we two, in the vast Athenian Theatre, witnessed
the birth of Words as undying as ourselves?  Dost thou remember
the thrill of terror that ran through that mighty audience, when
the wild Cassandra burst from her awful silence to shriek to her
relentless god!  How ghastly, at the entrance of the House of
Atreus, about to become her tomb, rang out her exclamations of
foreboding woe:  "Dwelling abhorred of heaven!--human shamble-
house and floor blood-bespattered!" (Aesch. "Agam." 1098.)  Dost
thou remember how, amidst the breathless awe of those assembled
thousands, I drew close to thee, and whispered, "Verily, no
prophet like the poet!  This scene of fabled horror comes to me
as a dream, shadowing forth some likeness in my own remoter
future!"  As I enter this slaughter-house that scene returns to
me, and I hearken to the voice of Cassandra ringing in my ears.
A solemn and warning dread gathers round me, as if I too were
come to find a grave, and "the Net of Hades" had already
entangled me in its web!  What dark treasure-houses of
vicissitude and woe are our memories become!  What our lives, but
the chronicles of unrelenting death!  It seems to me as yesterday
when I stood in the streets of this city of the Gaul, as they
shone with plumed chivalry, and the air rustled with silken
braveries.  Young Louis, the monarch and the lover, was victor of
the Tournament at the Carousel; and all France felt herself
splendid in the splendour of her gorgeous chief!  Now there is
neither throne nor altar; and what is in their stead?  I see it
yonder--the GUILLOTINE!  It is dismal to stand amidst the ruins
of mouldering cities, to startle the serpent and the lizard
amidst the wrecks of Persepolis and Thebes; but more dismal still
to stand as I--the stranger from Empires that have ceased to be--
stand now amidst the yet ghastlier ruins of Law and Order, the
shattering of mankind themselves!  Yet here, even here, Love, the
Beautifier, that hath led my steps, can walk with unshrinking
hope through the wilderness of Death.  Strange is the passion
that makes a world in itself, that individualises the One amidst
the Multitude; that, through all the changes of my solemn life,
yet survives, though ambition and hate and anger are dead; the
one solitary angel, hovering over a universe of tombs on its two
tremulous and human wings,--Hope and Fear!

How is it, Mejnour, that, as my diviner art abandoned me,--as, in
my search for Viola, I was aided but by the ordinary instincts of
the merest mortal,--how is it that I have never desponded, that I
have felt in every difficulty the prevailing prescience that we
should meet at last?  So cruelly was every vestige of her flight
concealed from me,--so suddenly, so secretly had she fled, that
all the spies, all the authorities of Venice, could give me no
clew.  All Italy I searched in vain!  Her young home at Naples!--
how still, in its humble chambers, there seemed to linger the
fragrance of her presence!  All the sublimest secrets of our lore
failed me,--failed to bring her soul visible to mine; yet morning
and night, thou lone and childless one, morning and night,
detached from myself, I can commune with my child!  There in that
most blessed, typical, and mysterious of all relations, Nature
herself appears to supply what Science would refuse.  Space
cannot separate the father's watchful soul from the cradle of his
first-born!  I know not of its resting-place and home,--my
visions picture not the land,--only the small and tender life to
which all space is as yet the heritage!  For to the infant,
before reason dawns,--before man's bad passions can dim the
essence that it takes from the element it hath left, there is no
peculiar country, no native city, and no mortal language.  Its
soul as yet is the denizen of all airs and of every world; and in
space its soul meets with mine,--the child communes with the
father!  Cruel and forsaking one,--thou for whom I left the
wisdom of the spheres; thou whose fatal dower has been the
weakness and terrors of humanity,--couldst thou think that young
soul less safe on earth because I would lead it ever more up to
heaven!  Didst thou think that I could have wronged mine own?
Didst thou not know that in its serenest eyes the life that I
gave it spoke to warn, to upbraid the mother who would bind it to
the darkness and pangs of the prison-house of clay?  Didst thou
not feel that it was I who, permitted by the Heavens, shielded it
from suffering and disease?  And in its wondrous beauty, I
blessed the holy medium through which, at last, my spirit might
confer with thine!

And how have I tracked them hither?  I learned that thy pupil had
been at Venice.  I could not trace the young and gentle neophyte
of Parthenope in the description of the haggard and savage
visitor who had come to Viola before she fled; but when I would
have summoned his IDEA before me, it refused to obey; and I knew
then that his fate had become entwined with Viola's.  I have
tracked him, then, to this Lazar House.  I arrived but yesterday;
I have not yet discovered him.

...

I have just returned from their courts of justice,--dens where
tigers arraign their prey.  I find not whom I would seek.  They
are saved as yet; but I recognise in the crimes of mortals the
dark wisdom of the Everlasting.  Mejnour, I see here, for the
first time, how majestic and beauteous a thing is death!  Of what
sublime virtues we robbed ourselves, when, in the thirst for
virtue, we attained the art by which we can refuse to die!  When
in some happy clime, where to breathe is to enjoy, the charnel-
house swallows up the young and fair; when in the noble pursuit
of knowledge, Death comes to the student, and shuts out the
enchanted land which was opening to his gaze,--how natural for us
to desire to live; how natural to make perpetual life the first
object of research!  But here, from my tower of time, looking
over the darksome past, and into the starry future, I learn how
great hearts feel what sweetness and glory there is to die for
the things they love!  I saw a father sacrificing himself for his
son; he was subjected to charges which a word of his could
dispel,--he was mistaken for his boy.  With what joy he seized
the error, confessed the noble crimes of valour and fidelity
which the son had indeed committed, and went to the doom,
exulting that his death saved the life he had given, not in vain!
I saw women, young, delicate, in the bloom of their beauty; they
had vowed themselves to the cloister.  Hands smeared with the
blood of saints opened the gate that had shut them from the
world, and bade them go forth, forget their vows, forswear the
Divine one these demons would depose, find lovers and helpmates,
and be free.  And some of these young hearts had loved, and even,
though in struggles, loved yet.  Did they forswear the vow?  Did
they abandon the faith?  Did even love allure them?  Mejnour,
with one voice, they preferred to die.  And whence comes this
courage?--because such HEARTS LIVE IN SOME MORE ABSTRACT AND
HOLIER LIFE THAN THEIR OWN.  BUT TO LIVE FOREVER UPON THIS EARTH
IS TO LIVE IN NOTHING DIVINER THAN OURSELVES.  Yes, even amidst
this gory butcherdom, God, the Ever-living, vindicates to man the
sanctity of His servant, Death!

...

Again I have seen thee in spirit; I have seen and blessed thee,
my sweet child!  Dost thou not know me also in thy dreams?  Dost
thou not feel the beating of my heart through the veil of thy
rosy slumbers?  Dost thou not hear the wings of the brighter
beings that I yet can conjure around thee, to watch, to nourish,
and to save?  And when the spell fades at thy waking, when thine
eyes open to the day, will they not look round for me, and ask
thy mother, with their mute eloquence, "Why she has robbed thee
of a father?"

Woman, dost thou not repent thee?  Flying from imaginary fears,
hast thou not come to the very lair of terror, where Danger sits
visible and incarnate?  Oh, if we could but meet, wouldst thou
not fall upon the bosom thou hast so wronged, and feel, poor
wanderer amidst the storms, as if thou hadst regained the
shelter?  Mejnour, still my researches fail me.  I mingle with
all men, even their judges and their spies, but I cannot yet gain
the clew.  I know that she is here.  I know it by an instinct;
the breath of my child seems warmer and more familiar.

They peer at me with venomous looks, as I pass through their
streets.  With a glance I disarm their malice, and fascinate the
basilisks.  Everywhere I see the track and scent the presence of
the Ghostly One that dwells on the Threshold, and whose victims
are the souls that would ASPIRE, and can only FEAR.  I see its
dim shapelessness going before the men of blood, and marshalling
their way.  Robespierre passed me with his furtive step.  Those
eyes of horror were gnawing into his heart.  I looked down upon
their senate; the grim Phantom sat cowering on its floor.  It
hath taken up its abode in the city of Dread.  And what in truth
are these would-be builders of a new world?  Like the students
who have vainly struggled after our supreme science, they have
attempted what is beyond their power; they have passed from this
solid earth of usages and forms into the land of shadow, and its
loathsome keeper has seized them as its prey.  I looked into the
tyrant's shuddering soul, as it trembled past me.  There, amidst
the ruins of a thousand systems which aimed at virtue, sat Crime,
and shivered at its desolation.  Yet this man is the only
Thinker, the only Aspirant, amongst them all.  He still looks for
a future of peace and mercy, to begin,--ay! at what date?  When
he has swept away every foe.  Fool! new foes spring from every
drop of blood.  Led by the eyes of the Unutterable, he is walking
to his doom.

O Viola, thy innocence protects thee!  Thou whom the sweet
humanities of love shut out even from the dreams of aerial and
spiritual beauty, making thy heart a universe of visions fairer
than the wanderer over the rosy Hesperus can survey,--shall not
the same pure affection encompass thee, even here, with a charmed
atmosphere, and terror itself fall harmless on a life too
innocent for wisdom?


CHAPTER 7.IV.

Ombra piu che di notte, in cui di luce
Raggio misto non e;

...

Ne piu il palagio appar, ne piu le sue
Vestigia; ne dir puossi--egli qui fue.
"Ger. Lib., canto xvi.-lxix.

(Darkness greater than of night, in which not a ray of light is
mixed;...The palace appears no more:  not even a vestige,--nor
can one say that it has been.)

The clubs are noisy with clamorous frenzy; the leaders are grim
with schemes.  Black Henriot flies here and there, muttering to
his armed troops, "Robespierre, your beloved, is in danger!"
Robespierre stalks perturbed, his list of victims swelling every
hour.  Tallien, the Macduff to the doomed Macbeth, is whispering
courage to his pale conspirators.  Along the streets heavily roll
the tumbrils.  The shops are closed,--the people are gorged with
gore, and will lap no more.  And night after night, to the eighty
theatres flock the children of the Revolution, to laugh at the
quips of comedy, and weep gentle tears over imaginary woes!

In a small chamber, in the heart of the city, sits the mother,
watching over her child.  It is quiet, happy noon; the sunlight,
broken by the tall roofs in the narrow street, comes yet through
the open casement, the impartial playfellow of the air, gleesome
alike in temple and prison, hall and hovel; as golden and as
blithe, whether it laugh over the first hour of life, or quiver
in its gay delight on the terror and agony of the last!  The
child, where it lay at the feet of Viola, stretched out its
dimpled hands as if to clasp the dancing motes that revelled in
the beam.  The mother turned her eyes from the glory; it saddened
her yet more.  She turned and sighed.

Is this the same Viola who bloomed fairer than their own Idalia
under the skies of Greece?  How changed!  How pale and worn!  She
sat listlessly, her arms dropping on her knee; the smile that was
habitual to her lips was gone.  A heavy, dull despondency, as if
the life of life were no more, seemed to weigh down her youth,
and make it weary of that happy sun!  In truth, her existence had
languished away since it had wandered, as some melancholy stream,
from the source that fed it.  The sudden enthusiasm of fear or
superstition that had almost, as if still in the unconscious
movements of a dream, led her to fly from Zanoni, had ceased from
the day which dawned upon her in a foreign land.  Then--there--
she felt that in the smile she had evermore abandoned lived her
life.  She did not repent,--she would not have recalled the
impulse that winged her flight.  Though the enthusiasm was gone,
the superstition yet remained; she still believed she had saved
her child from that dark and guilty sorcery, concerning which the
traditions of all lands are prodigal, but in none do they find
such credulity, or excite such dread, as in the South of Italy.
This impression was confirmed by the mysterious conversations of
Glyndon, and by her own perception of the fearful change that had
passed over one who represented himself as the victim of the
enchanters.  She did not, therefore, repent; but her very
volition seemed gone.

On their arrival at Paris, Viola saw her companion--the faithful
wife--no more.  Ere three weeks were passed, husband and wife had
ceased to live.

And now, for the first time, the drudgeries of this hard earth
claimed the beautiful Neapolitan.  In that profession, giving
voice and shape to poetry and song, in which her first years were
passed, there is, while it lasts, an excitement in the art that
lifts it from the labour of a calling.  Hovering between two
lives, the Real and Ideal, dwells the life of music and the
stage.  But that life was lost evermore to the idol of the eyes
and ears of Naples.  Lifted to the higher realm of passionate
love, it seemed as if the fictitious genius which represents the
thoughts of others was merged in the genius that grows all
thought itself.  It had been the worst infidelity to the Lost, to
have descended again to live on the applause of others.  And so--
for she would not accept alms from Glyndon--so, by the commonest
arts, the humblest industry which the sex knows, alone and
unseen, she who had slept on the breast of Zanoni found a shelter
for their child.  As when, in the noble verse prefixed to this
chapter, Armida herself has destroyed her enchanted palace,--not
a vestige of that bower, raised of old by Poetry and Love,
remained to say, "It had been!"

And the child avenged the father; it bloomed, it thrived,--it
waxed strong in the light of life.  But still it seemed haunted
and preserved by some other being than her own.  In its sleep
there was that slumber, so deep and rigid, which a thunderbolt
could not have disturbed; and in such sleep often it moved its
arms, as to embrace the air:  often its lips stirred with
murmured sounds of indistinct affection,--NOT FOR HER; and all
the while upon its cheeks a hue of such celestial bloom, upon its
lips a smile of such mysterious joy!  Then, when it waked, its
eyes did not turn first to HER,--wistful, earnest, wandering,
they roved around, to fix on her pale face, at last, in mute
sorrow and reproach.

Never had Viola felt before how mighty was her love for Zanoni;
how thought, feeling, heart, soul, life,--all lay crushed and
dormant in the icy absence to which she had doomed herself!  She
heard not the roar without, she felt not one amidst those stormy
millions,--worlds of excitement labouring through every hour.
Only when Glyndon, haggard, wan, and spectre-like, glided in, day
after day, to visit her, did the fair daughter of the careless
South know how heavy and universal was the Death-Air that girt
her round.  Sublime in her passive unconsciousness,--her mechanic
life,--she sat, and feared not, in the den of the Beasts of Prey.

The door of the room opened abruptly, and Glyndon entered.  His
manner was more agitated than usual.

"Is it you, Clarence?" she said in her soft, languid tones.  "You
are before the hour I expected you."

"Who can count on his hours at Paris?" returned Glyndon, with a
frightful smile.  "Is it not enough that I am here!  Your apathy
in the midst of these sorrows appalls me.  You say calmly,
'Farewell;' calmly you bid me, 'Welcome!'--as if in every corner
there was not a spy, and as if with every day there was not a
massacre!"

"Pardon me!  But in these walls lies my world.  I can hardly
credit all the tales you tell me.  Everything here, save THAT,"
and she pointed to the infant, "seems already so lifeless, that
in the tomb itself one could scarcely less heed the crimes that
are done without."

Glyndon paused for a few moments, and gazed with strange and
mingled feelings upon that face and form, still so young, and yet
so invested with that saddest of all repose,--when the heart
feels old.

"O Viola," said he, at last, and in a voice of suppressed
passion, "was it thus I ever thought to see you,--ever thought to
feel for you, when we two first met in the gay haunts of Naples?
Ah, why then did you refuse my love; or why was mine not worthy
of you?  Nay, shrink not!--let me touch your hand.  No passion so
sweet as that youthful love can return to me again.  I feel for
you but as a brother for some younger and lonely sister.  With
you, in your presence, sad though it be, I seem to breathe back
the purer air of my early life.  Here alone, except in scenes of
turbulence and tempest, the Phantom ceases to pursue me.  I
forget even the Death that stalks behind, and haunts me as my
shadow.  But better days may be in store for us yet.  Viola, I at
last begin dimly to perceive how to baffle and subdue the Phantom
that has cursed my life,--it is to brave, and defy it.  In sin
and in riot, as I have told thee, it haunts me not.  But I
comprehend now what Mejnour said in his dark apothegms, 'that I
should dread the spectre most WHEN UNSEEN.'  In virtuous and calm
resolution it appears,--ay, I behold it now; there, there, with
its livid eyes!"--and the drops fell from his brow.  "But it
shall no longer daunt me from that resolution.  I face it, and it
gradually darkens back into the shade."  He paused, and his eyes
dwelt with a terrible exultation upon the sunlit space; then,
with a heavy and deep-drawn breath, he resumed, "Viola, I have
found the means of escape.  We will leave this city.  In some
other land we will endeavour to comfort each other, and forget
the past."

"No," said Viola, calmly; "I have no further wish to stir, till I
am born hence to the last resting-place.  I dreamed of him last
night, Clarence!--dreamed of him for the first time since we
parted; and, do not mock me, methought that he forgave the
deserter, and called me 'Wife.'  That dream hallows the room.
Perhaps it will visit me again before I die."

"Talk not of him,--of the demi-fiend!" cried Glyndon, fiercely,
and stamping his foot.  "Thank the Heavens for any fate that hath
rescued thee from him!"

"Hush!" said Viola, gravely.  And as she was about to proceed,
her eye fell upon the child.  It was standing in the very centre
of that slanting column of light which the sun poured into the
chamber; and the rays seemed to surround it as a halo, and
settled, crown-like, on the gold of its shining hair.  In its
small shape, so exquisitely modelled, in its large, steady,
tranquil eyes, there was something that awed, while it charmed
the mother's pride.  It gazed on Glyndon as he spoke, with a look
which almost might have seemed disdain, and which Viola, at
least, interpreted as a defence of the Absent, stronger than her
own lips could frame.

Glyndon broke the pause.

"Thou wouldst stay, for what?  To betray a mother's duty!  If any
evil happen to thee here, what becomes of thine infant?  Shall it
be brought up an orphan, in a country that has desecrated thy
religion, and where human charity exists no more?  Ah, weep, and
clasp it to thy bosom; but tears do not protect and save."

"Thou hast conquered, my friend, I will fly with thee."

"To-morrow night, then, be prepared.  I will bring thee the
necessary disguises."

And Glyndon then proceeded to sketch rapidly the outline of the
path they were to take, and the story they were to tell.  Viola
listened, but scarcely comprehended; he pressed her hand to his
heart and departed.


CHAPTER 7.V.

Van seco pur anco
Sdegno ed Amor, quasi due Veltri al fianco.
"Ger. Lib." cant. xx. cxvii.

(There went with him still Disdain and Love, like two greyhounds
side by side.)

Glyndon did not perceive, as he hurried from the house, two forms
crouching by the angle of the wall.  He saw still the spectre
gliding by his side; but he beheld not the yet more poisonous
eyes of human envy and woman's jealousy that glared on his
retreating footsteps.

Nicot advanced to the house; Fillide followed him in silence.
The painter, an old sans-culotte, knew well what language to
assume to the porter.  He beckoned the latter from his lodge,
"How is this, citizen?  Thou harbourest a 'suspect.'"

"Citizen, you terrify me!--if so, name him."

"It is not a man; a refugee, an Italian woman, lodges here."

"Yes, au troisieme,--the door to the left.  But what of her?--she
cannot be dangerous, poor child!"

"Citizen, beware!  Dost thou dare to pity her?"

"I?  No, no, indeed.  But--"

"Speak the truth!  Who visits her?"

"No one but an Englishman."

"That is it,--an Englishman, a spy of Pitt and Coburg."

"Just Heaven! is it possible?"

"How, citizen! dost thou speak of Heaven?  Thou must be an
aristocrat!"

"No, indeed; it was but an old bad habit, and escaped me
unawares."

"How often does the Englishman visit her?"

"Daily."

Fillide uttered an exclamation.

She never stirs out," said the porter.  "Her sole occupations are
in work, and care of her infant."

"Her infant!"

Fillide made a bound forward.  Nicot in vain endeavoured to
arrest her.  She sprang up the stairs; she paused not till she
was before the door indicated by the porter; it stood ajar, she
entered, she stood at the threshold, and beheld that face, still
so lovely!  The sight of so much beauty left her hopeless.  And
the child, over whom the mother bent!--she who had never been a
mother!--she uttered no sound; the furies were at work within her
breast.  Viola turned, and saw her, and, terrified by the strange
apparition, with features that expressed the deadliest hate and
scorn and vengeance, uttered a cry, and snatched the child to her
bosom.  The Italian laughed aloud,--turned, descended, and,
gaining the spot where Nicot still conversed with the frightened
porter drew him from the house.  When they were in the open
street, she halted abruptly, and said, "Avenge me, and name thy
price!"

"My price, sweet one! is but permission to love thee.  Thou wilt
fly with me to-morrow night; thou wilt possess thyself of the
passports and the plan."

"And they--"

"Shall, before then, find their asylum in the Conciergerie.  The
guillotine shall requite thy wrongs."

"Do this, and I am satisfied," said Fillide, firmly.

And they spoke no more till they regained the house.  But when
she there, looking up to the dull building, saw the windows of
the room which the belief of Glyndon's love had once made a
paradise, the tiger relented at the heart; something of the woman
gushed back upon her nature, dark and savage as it was.  She
pressed the arm on which she leaned convulsively, and exclaimed,
"No, no! not him! denounce her,--let her perish; but I have slept
on HIS bosom,--not HIM!"

"It shall be as thou wilt," said Nicot, with a devil's sneer;
"but he must be arrested for the moment.  No harm shall happen to
him, for no accuser shall appear.  But her,--thou wilt not relent
for her?"

Fillide turned upon him her eyes, and their dark glance was
sufficient answer.


CHAPTER 7.VI.

In poppa quella
Che guidar gli dovea, fatal Donsella.
"Ger. Lib." cant. xv. 3.

(By the prow was the fatal lady ordained to be the guide.)

The Italian did not overrate that craft of simulation proverbial
with her country and her sex.  Not a word, not a look, that day
revealed to Glyndon the deadly change that had converted devotion
into hate.  He himself, indeed, absorbed in his own schemes, and
in reflections on his own strange destiny, was no nice observer.
But her manner, milder and more subdued than usual, produced a
softening effect upon his meditations towards the evening; and he
then began to converse with her on the certain hope of escape,
and on the future that would await them in less unhallowed lands.

"And thy fair friend," said Fillide, with an averted eye and a
false smile, "who was to be our companion?--thou hast resigned
her, Nicot tells me, in favour of one in whom he is interested.
Is it so?"

"He told thee this!" returned Glyndon, evasively.  "Well! does
the change content thee?"

"Traitor!" muttered Fillide; and she rose suddenly, approached
him, parted the long hair from his forehead caressingly, and
pressed her lips convulsively on his brow.

"This were too fair a head for the doomsman," said she, with a
slight laugh, and, turning away, appeared occupied in
preparations for their departure.

The next morning, when he rose, Glyndon did not see the Italian;
she was absent from the house when he left it.  It was necessary
that he should once more visit C-- before his final Departure,
not only to arrange for Nicot's participation in the flight, but
lest any suspicion should have arisen to thwart or endanger the
plan he had adopted.  C--, though not one of the immediate
coterie of Robespierre, and indeed secretly hostile to him, had
possessed the art of keeping well with each faction as it rose to
power.  Sprung from the dregs of the populace, he had,
nevertheless, the grace and vivacity so often found impartially
amongst every class in France.  He had contrived to enrich
himself--none knew how--in the course of his rapid career.  He
became, indeed, ultimately one of the wealthiest proprietors of
Paris, and at that time kept a splendid and hospitable mansion.
He was one of those whom, from various reasons, Robespierre
deigned to favour; and he had often saved the proscribed and
suspected, by procuring them passports under disguised names, and
advising their method of escape.  But C-- was a man who took this
trouble only for the rich.  "The incorruptible Maximilien," who
did not want the tyrant's faculty of penetration, probably saw
through all his manoeuvres, and the avarice which he cloaked
beneath his charity.  But it was noticeable that Robespierre
frequently seemed to wink at--nay, partially to encourage--such
vice in men whom he meant hereafter to destroy, as would tend to
lower them in the public estimation, and to contrast with his own
austere and unassailable integrity and PURISM.  And, doubtless,
he often grimly smiled in his sleeve at the sumptuous mansion and
the griping covetousness of the worthy Citizen C--.

To this personage, then, Glyndon musingly bent his way.  It was
true, as he had darkly said to Viola, that in proportion as he
had resisted the spectre, its terrors had lost their influence.
The time had come at last, when, seeing crime and vice in all
their hideousness, and in so vast a theatre, he had found that in
vice and crime there are deadlier horrors than in the eyes of a
phantom-fear.  His native nobleness began to return to him.  As
he passed the streets, he revolved in his mind projects of future
repentance and reformation.  He even meditated, as a just return
for Fillide's devotion, the sacrifice of all the reasonings of
his birth and education.  He would repair whatever errors he had
committed against her, by the self-immolation of marriage with
one little congenial with himself.  He who had once revolted from
marriage with the noble and gentle Viola!--he had learned in that
world of wrong to know that right is right, and that Heaven did
not make the one sex to be the victim of the other.  The young
visions of the Beautiful and the Good rose once more before him;
and along the dark ocean of his mind lay the smile of reawakening
virtue, as a path of moonlight.  Never, perhaps, had the
condition of his soul been so elevated and unselfish.

In the meanwhile Jean Nicot, equally absorbed in dreams of the
future, and already in his own mind laying out to the best
advantage the gold of the friend he was about to betray, took his
way to the house honoured by the residence of Robespierre.  He
had no intention to comply with the relenting prayer of Fillide,
that the life of Glyndon should be spared.  He thought with
Barrere, "Il n'y a que les morts qui ne revient pas."  In all men
who have devoted themselves to any study, or any art, with
sufficient pains to attain a certain degree of excellence, there
must be a fund of energy immeasurably above that of the ordinary
herd.  Usually this energy is concentrated on the objects of
their professional ambition, and leaves them, therefore,
apathetic to the other pursuits of men.  But where those objects
are denied, where the stream has not its legitimate vent, the
energy, irritated and aroused, possesses the whole being, and if
not wasted on desultory schemes, or if not purified by conscience
and principle, becomes a dangerous and destructive element in the
social system, through which it wanders in riot and disorder.
Hence, in all wise monarchies,--nay, in all well-constituted
states,--the peculiar care with which channels are opened for
every art and every science; hence the honour paid to their
cultivators by subtle and thoughtful statesmen, who, perhaps, for
themselves, see nothing in a picture but coloured canvas,--
nothing in a problem but an ingenious puzzle.  No state is ever
more in danger than when the talent that should be consecrated to
peace has no occupation but political intrigue or personal
advancement.  Talent unhonoured is talent at war with men.  And
here it is noticeable, that the class of actors having been the
most degraded by the public opinion of the old regime, their very
dust deprived of Christian burial, no men (with certain
exceptions in the company especially favoured by the Court) were
more relentless and revengeful among the scourges of the
Revolution.  In the savage Collot d'Herbois, mauvais comedien,
were embodied the wrongs and the vengeance of a class.

Now the energy of Jean Nicot had never been sufficiently directed
to the art he professed.  Even in his earliest youth, the
political disquisitions of his master, David, had distracted him
from the more tedious labours of the easel.  The defects of his
person had embittered his mind; the atheism of his benefactor had
deadened his conscience.  For one great excellence of religion--
above all, the Religion of the Cross--is, that it raises PATIENCE
first into a virtue, and next into a hope.  Take away the
doctrine of another life, of requital hereafter, of the smile of
a Father upon our sufferings and trials in our ordeal here, and
what becomes of patience?  But without patience, what is man?--
and what a people?  Without patience, art never can be high;
without patience, liberty never can be perfected.  By wild
throes, and impetuous, aimless struggles, Intellect seeks to soar
from Penury, and a nation to struggle into Freedom.  And woe,
thus unfortified, guideless, and unenduring,--woe to both!

Nicot was a villain as a boy.  In most criminals, however
abandoned, there are touches of humanity,--relics of virtue; and
the true delineator of mankind often incurs the taunt of bad
hearts and dull minds, for showing that even the worst alloy has
some particles of gold, and even the best that come stamped from
the mint of Nature have some adulteration of the dross.  But
there are exceptions, though few, to the general rule,--
exceptions, when the conscience lies utterly dead, and when good
or bad are things indifferent but as means to some selfish end.
So was it with the protege of the atheist.  Envy and hate filled
up his whole being, and the consciousness of superior talent only
made him curse the more all who passed him in the sunlight with a
fairer form or happier fortunes.  But, monster though he was,
when his murderous fingers griped the throat of his benefactor,
Time, and that ferment of all evil passions--the Reign of Blood--
had made in the deep hell of his heart a deeper still.  Unable to
exercise his calling (for even had he dared to make his name
prominent, revolutions are no season for painters; and no man--
no! not the richest and proudest magnate of the land, has so
great an interest in peace and order, has so high and essential a
stake in the well being of society, as the poet and the artist),
his whole intellect, ever restless and unguided, was left to
ponder over the images of guilt most congenial to it.  He had no
future but in this life; and how in this life had the men of
power around him, the great wrestlers for dominion, thriven?  All
that was good, pure, unselfish,--whether among Royalists or
Republicans,--swept to the shambles, and the deathsmen left alone
in the pomp and purple of their victims!  Nobler paupers than
Jean Nicot would despair; and Poverty would rise in its ghastly
multitudes to cut the throat of Wealth, and then gash itself limb
by limb, if Patience, the Angel of the Poor, sat not by its side,
pointing with solemn finger to the life to come!  And now, as
Nicot neared the house of the Dictator, he began to meditate a
reversal of his plans of the previous day:  not that he faltered
in his resolution to denounce Glyndon, and Viola would
necessarily share his fate, as a companion and accomplice,--no,
THERE he was resolved! for he hated both (to say nothing of his
old but never-to-be-forgotten grudge against Zanoni).  Viola had
scorned him, Glyndon had served, and the thought of gratitude was
as intolerable to him as the memory of insult.  But why, now,
should he fly from France?--he could possess himself of Glyndon's
gold; he doubted not that he could so master Fillide by her wrath
and jealousy that he could command her acquiescence in all he
proposed.  The papers he had purloined--Desmoulins'
correspondence with Glyndon--while it insured the fate of the
latter, might be eminently serviceable to Robespierre, might
induce the tyrant to forget his own old liaisons with Hebert, and
enlist him among the allies and tools of the King of Terror.
Hopes of advancement, of wealth, of a career, again rose before
him.  This correspondence, dated shortly before Camille
Desmoulins' death, was written with that careless and daring
imprudence which characterised the spoiled child of Danton.  It
spoke openly of designs against Robespierre; it named
confederates whom the tyrant desired only a popular pretext to
crush.  It was a new instrument of death in the hands of the
Death-compeller.  What greater gift could he bestow on Maximilien
the Incorruptible?

Nursing these thoughts, he arrived at last before the door of
Citizen Dupleix.  Around the threshold were grouped, in admired
confusion, some eight or ten sturdy Jacobins, the voluntary body-
guard of Robespierre,--tall fellows, well armed, and insolent
with the power that reflects power, mingled with women, young and
fair, and gayly dressed, who had come, upon the rumour that
Maximilien had had an attack of bile, to inquire tenderly of his
health; for Robespierre, strange though it seem, was the idol of
the sex!

Through this cortege stationed without the door, and reaching up
the stairs to the landing-place,--for Robespierre's apartments
were not spacious enough to afford sufficient antechamber for
levees so numerous and miscellaneous,--Nicot forced his way; and
far from friendly or flattering were the expressions that regaled
his ears.

"Aha, le joli Polichinelle!" said a comely matron, whose robe his
obtrusive and angular elbows cruelly discomposed.  "But how could
one expect gallantry from such a scarecrow!"

"Citizen, I beg to advise thee (The courteous use of the plural
was proscribed at Paris.  The Societies Populaires had decided
that whoever used it should be prosecuted as suspect et
adulateur!  At the door of the public administrations and popular
societies was written up, "Ici on s'honore du Citoyen, et on se
tutoye"!!! ("Here they respect the title of Citizen, and they
'thee' and 'thou' one another.")  Take away Murder from the
French Revolution and it becomes the greatest farce ever played
before the angels!) that thou art treading on my feet.  I beg thy
pardon, but now I look at thine, I see the hall is not wide
enough for them."

"Ho! Citizen Nicot," cried a Jacobin, shouldering his formidable
bludgeon, "and what brings thee hither?--thinkest thou that
Hebert's crimes are forgotten already?  Off, sport of Nature! and
thank the Etre Supreme that he made thee insignificant enough to
be forgiven."

"A pretty face to look out of the National Window" (The
Guillotine.), said the woman whose robe the painter had ruffled.

"Citizens," said Nicot, white with passion, but constraining
himself so that his words seemed to come from grinded teeth, "I
have the honour to inform you that I seek the Representant upon
business of the utmost importance to the public and himself;
and," he added slowly and malignantly, glaring round, "I call all
good citizens to be my witnesses when I shall complain to
Robespierre of the reception bestowed on me by some amongst you."

There was in the man's look and his tone of voice so much of deep
and concentrated malignity, that the idlers drew back, and as the
remembrance of the sudden ups and downs of revolutionary life
occurred to them, several voices were lifted to assure the
squalid and ragged painter that nothing was farther from their
thoughts than to offer affront to a citizen whose very appearance
proved him to be an exemplary sans-culotte.  Nicot received these
apologies in sullen silence, and, folding his arms, leaned
against the wall, waiting in grim patience for his admission.

The loiterers talked to each other in separate knots of two and
three; and through the general hum rang the clear, loud, careless
whistle of the tall Jacobin who stood guard by the stairs.  Next
to Nicot, an old woman and a young virgin were muttering in
earnest whispers, and the atheist painter chuckled inly to
overhear their discourse.

"I assure thee, my dear," said the crone, with a mysterious shake
of head, "that the divine Catherine Theot, whom the impious now
persecute, is really inspired.  There can be no doubt that the
elect, of whom Dom Gerle and the virtuous Robespierre are
destined to be the two grand prophets, will enjoy eternal life
here, and exterminate all their enemies.  There is no doubt of
it,--not the least!"

"How delightful!" said the girl; "ce cher Robespierre!--he does
not look very long-lived either!"

"The greater the miracle," said the old woman.  "I am just
eighty-one, and I don't feel a day older since Catherine Theot
promised me I should be one of the elect!"

Here the women were jostled aside by some newcomers, who talked
loud and eagerly.

"Yes," cried a brawny man, whose garb denoted him to be a
butcher, with bare arms, and a cap of liberty on his head; "I am
come to warn Robespierre.  They lay a snare for him; they offer
him the Palais National.  'On ne peut etre ami du peuple et
habiter un palais.'" ("No one can be a friend of the people, and
dwell in a palace."--"Papiers inedits trouves chez Robespierre,"
etc., volume ii. page 132.)

"No, indeed," answered a cordonnier; "I like him best in his
little lodging with the menuisier:  it looks like one of US."

Another rush of the crowd, and a new group were thrown forward in
the vicinity of Nicot.  And these men gabbled and chattered
faster and louder than the rest.

"But my plan is--"

"Au diable with YOUR plan!  I tell you MY scheme is--"

"Nonsense!" cried a third.  "When Robespierre understands MY new
method of making gunpowder, the enemies of France shall--"

"Bah! who fears foreign enemies?" interrupted a fourth; "the
enemies to be feared are at home.  MY new guillotine takes off
fifty heads at a time!"

"But MY new Constitution!" exclaimed a fifth.

"MY new Religion, citizen!" murmured, complacently, a sixth.

"Sacre mille tonnerres, silence!" roared forth one of the Jacobin
guard.

And the crowd suddenly parted as a fierce-looking man, buttoned
up to the chin, his sword rattling by his side, his spurs
clinking at his heel, descended the stairs,--his cheeks swollen
and purple with intemperance, his eyes dead and savage as a
vulture's.  There was a still pause, as all, with pale cheeks,
made way for the relentless Henriot.  (Or H_a_nriot.  It is
singular how undetermined are not only the characters of the
French Revolution, but even the spelling of their names.  With
the historians it is Vergniau_d_,--with the journalists of the
time it is Vorgniau_x_.  With one authority it is Robespierre,--
with another Robe_r_spierre.)  Scarce had this gruff and iron
minion of the tyrant stalked through the throng, than a new
movement of respect and agitation and fear swayed the increasing
crowd, as there glided in, with the noiselessness of a shadow, a
smiling, sober citizen, plainly but neatly clad, with a downcast
humble eye.  A milder, meeker face no pastoral poet could assign
to Corydon or Thyrsis,--why did the crowd shrink and hold their
breath?  As the ferret in a burrow crept that slight form amongst
the larger and rougher creatures that huddled and pressed back on
each other as he passed.  A wink of his stealthy eye, and the
huge Jacobins left the passage clear, without sound or question.
On he went to the apartment of the tyrant, and thither will we
follow him.


CHAPTER 7.VII.

Constitutum est, ut quisquis eum HOMINEM dixisset fuisse,
capitalem penderet poenam.
St. Augustine, "Of the God Serapis," l. 18, "de Civ. Dei," c. 5.)

(It was decreed, that whoso should say that he had been a MAN,
should suffer the punishment of a capital offence.)

Robespierre was reclining languidly in his fauteuil, his
cadaverous countenance more jaded and fatigued than usual.  He to
whom Catherine Theot assured immortal life, looked, indeed, like
a man at death's door.  On the table before him was a dish heaped
with oranges, with the juice of which it is said that he could
alone assuage the acrid bile that overflowed his system; and an
old woman, richly dressed (she had been a Marquise in the old
regime) was employed in peeling the Hesperian fruits for the sick
Dragon, with delicate fingers covered with jewels.  I have before
said that Robespierre was the idol of the women.  Strange
certainly!--but then they were French women!  The old Marquise,
who, like Catherine Theot, called him "son," really seemed to
love him piously and disinterestedly as a mother; and as she
peeled the oranges, and heaped on him the most caressing and
soothing expressions, the livid ghost of a smile fluttered about
his meagre lips.  At a distance, Payan and Couthon, seated at
another table, were writing rapidly, and occasionally pausing
from their work to consult with each other in brief whispers.

Suddenly one of the Jacobins opened the door, and, approaching
Robespierre, whispered to him the name of Guerin.  (See for the
espionage on which Guerin was employed, "Les Papiers inedits,"
etc., volume i. page 366, No. xxviii.)  At that word the sick man
started up, as if new life were in the sound.

"My kind friend," he said to the Marquise, "forgive me; I must
dispense with thy tender cares.  France demands me.  I am never
ill when I can serve my country!"

The old Marquise lifted up her eyes to heaven and murmured, "Quel
ange!"

Robespierre waved his hand impatiently; and the old woman, with a
sigh, patted his pale cheek, kissed his forehead, and
submissively withdrew.  The next moment, the smiling, sober man
we have before described, stood, bending low, before the tyrant.
And well might Robespierre welcome one of the subtlest agents of
his power,--one on whom he relied more than the clubs of his
Jacobins, the tongues of his orators, the bayonets of his armies;
Guerin, the most renowned of his ecouteurs,--the searching,
prying, universal, omnipresent spy, who glided like a sunbeam
through chink and crevice, and brought to him intelligence not
only of the deeds, but the hearts of men!

"Well, citizen, well!--and what of Tallien?"

"This morning, early, two minutes after eight, he went out."

"So early?--hem!"

"He passed Rue des Quatre Fils, Rue de Temple, Rue de la Reunion,
au Marais, Rue Martin; nothing observable, except that--"

"That what?"

"He amused himself at a stall in bargaining for some books."

"Bargaining for books!  Aha, the charlatan!--he would cloak the
intriguant under the savant!  Well!"

"At last, in the Rue des Fosses Montmartre, an individual in a
blue surtout (unknown) accosted him.  They walked together about
the street some minutes, and were joined by Legendre."

"Legendre! approach, Payan!  Legendre, thou hearest!"

"I went into a fruit-stall, and hired two little girls to go and
play at ball within hearing.  They heard Legendre say, 'I believe
his power is wearing itself out.'  And Tallien answered, 'And
HIMSELF too.  I would not give three months' purchase for his
life.'  I do not know, citizen, if they meant THEE?"

"Nor I, citizen," answered Robespierre, with a fell smile,
succeeded by an expression of gloomy thought.  "Ha!" he muttered;
"I am young yet,--in the prime of life.  I commit no excess.  No;
my constitution is sound, sound.  Anything farther of Tallien?"

"Yes.  The woman whom he loves--Teresa de Fontenai--who lies in
prison, still continues to correspond with him; to urge him to
save her by thy destruction:  this my listeners overheard.  His
servant is the messenger between the prisoner and himself."

"So!  The servant shall be seized in the open streets of Paris.
The Reign of Terror is not over yet.  With the letters found on
him, if such their context, I will pluck Tallien from his benches
in the Convention."

Robespierre rose, and after walking a few moments to and fro the
room in thought, opened the door and summoned one of the Jacobins
without.  To him he gave his orders for the watch and arrest of
Tallien's servant, and then threw himself again into his chair.
As the Jacobin departed, Guerin whispered,--

"Is not that the Citizen Aristides?"

"Yes; a faithful fellow, if he would wash himself, and not swear
so much."

"Didst thou not guillotine his brother?"

"But Aristides denounced him."

"Nevertheless, are such men safe about thy person?"

"Humph! that is true."  And Robespierre, drawing out his pocket-
book, wrote a memorandum in it, replaced it in his vest, and
resumed,--

"What else of Tallien?"

"Nothing more.  He and Legendre, with the unknown, walked to the
Jardin Egalite, and there parted.  I saw Tallien to his house.
But I have other news.  Thou badest me watch for those who
threaten thee in secret letters."

"Guerin! hast thou detected them?  Hast thou--hast thou--"

And the tyrant, as he spoke, opened and shut both his hands, as
if already grasping the lives of the writers, and one of those
convulsive grimaces that seemed like an epileptic affection, to
which he was subject, distorted his features.

"Citizen, I think I have found one.  Thou must know that amongst
those most disaffected is the painter Nicot."

"Stay, stay!" said Robespierre, opening a manuscript book, bound
in red morocco (for Robespierre was neat and precise, even in his
death-lists), and turning to an alphabetical index,--"Nicot!--I
have him,--atheist, sans-culotte (I hate slovens), friend of
Hebert!  Aha!  N.B.--Rene Dumas knows of his early career and
crimes.  Proceed!"

"This Nicot has been suspected of diffusing tracts and pamphlets
against thyself and the Comite.  Yesterday evening, when he was
out, his porter admitted me into his apartment, Rue Beau Repaire.
With my master-key I opened his desk and escritoire.  I found
herein a drawing of thyself at the guillotine; and underneath was
written, 'Bourreau de ton pays, lis l'arret de ton chatiment!'
(Executioner of thy country, read the decree of thy punishment!)
I compared the words with the fragments of the various letters
thou gavest me:  the handwriting tallies with one.  See, I tore
off the writing."

Robespierre looked, smiled, and, as if his vengeance were already
satisfied, threw himself on his chair.  "It is well!  I feared it
was a more powerful enemy.  This man must be arrested at once."

"And he waits below.  I brushed by him as I ascended the stairs."

"Does he so?--admit!--nay,--hold! hold!  Guerin, withdraw into
the inner chamber till I summon thee again.  Dear Payan, see that
this Nicot conceals no weapons."

Payan, who was as brave as Robespierre was pusillanimous,
repressed the smile of disdain that quivered on his lips a
moment, and left the room.

Meanwhile Robespierre, with his head buried in his bosom, seemed
plunged in deep thought.  "Life is a melancholy thing, Couthon!"
said he, suddenly.

"Begging your pardon, I think death worse," answered the
philanthropist, gently.

Robespierre made no rejoinder, but took from his portefeuille
that singular letter, which was found afterwards amongst his
papers, and is marked LXI. in the published collection.
("Papiers inedits,' etc., volume ii. page 156.)

"Without doubt," it began, "you are uneasy at not having earlier
received news from me.  Be not alarmed; you know that I ought
only to reply by our ordinary courier; and as he has been
interrupted, dans sa derniere course, that is the cause of my
delay.  When you receive this, employ all diligence to fly a
theatre where you are about to appear and disappear for the last
time.  It were idle to recall to you all the reasons that expose
you to peril.  The last step that should place you sur le sopha
de la presidence, but brings you to the scaffold; and the mob
will spit on your face as it has spat on those whom you have
judged.  Since, then, you have accumulated here a sufficient
treasure for existence, I await you with great impatience, to
laugh with you at the part you have played in the troubles of a
nation as credulous as it is avid of novelties.  Take your part
according to our arrangements,--all is prepared.  I conclude,--
our courier waits.  I expect your reply."

Musingly and slowly the Dictator devoured the contents of this
epistle.  "No," he said to himself,--"no; he who has tasted power
can no longer enjoy repose.  Yet, Danton, Danton! thou wert
right; better to be a poor fisherman than to govern men."  ("Il
vaudrait mieux," said Danton, in his dungeon, "etre un pauvre
pecheur que de gouverner les hommes.")

The door opened, and Payan reappeared and whispered Robespierre,
"All is safe!  See the man."

The Dictator, satisfied, summoned his attendant Jacobin to
conduct Nicot to his presence.  The painter entered with a
fearless expression in his deformed features, and stood erect
before Robespierre, who scanned him with a sidelong eye.

It is remarkable that most of the principal actors of the
Revolution were singularly hideous in appearance,--from the
colossal ugliness of Mirabeau and Danton, or the villanous
ferocity in the countenances of David and Simon, to the filthy
squalor of Marat, the sinister and bilious meanness of the
Dictator's features.  But Robespierre, who was said to resemble a
cat, had also a cat's cleanness; and his prim and dainty dress,
his shaven smoothness, the womanly whiteness of his lean hands,
made yet more remarkable the disorderly ruffianism that
characterised the attire and mien of the painter-sans-culotte.

"And so, citizen," said Robespierre, mildly, "thou wouldst speak
with me?  I know thy merits and civism have been overlooked too
long.  Thou wouldst ask some suitable provision in the state?
Scruple not--say on!"

"Virtuous Robespierre, toi qui eclaires l'univers (Thou who
enlightenest the world.), I come not to ask a favour, but to
render service to the state.  I have discovered a correspondence
that lays open a conspiracy of which many of the actors are yet
unsuspected."  And he placed the papers on the table.
Robespierre seized, and ran his eye over them rapidly and
eagerly.

"Good!--good!" he muttered to himself:  "this is all I wanted.
Barrere, Legendre!  I have them!  Camille Desmoulins was but
their dupe.  I loved him once; I never loved them!  Citizen
Nicot, I thank thee.  I observe these letters are addressed to an
Englishman.  What Frenchman but must distrust these English
wolves in sheep's clothing!  France wants no longer citizens of
the world; that farce ended with Anarcharsis Clootz.  I beg
pardon, Citizen Nicot; but Clootz and Hebert were THY friends."

"Nay," said Nicot, apologetically, "we are all liable to be
deceived.  I ceased to honour them whom thou didst declare
against; for I disown my own senses rather than thy justice."

"Yes, I pretend to justice; that IS the virtue I affect," said
Robespierre, meekly; and with his feline propensities he enjoyed,
even in that critical hour of vast schemes, of imminent danger,
of meditated revenge, the pleasure of playing with a solitary
victim.  (The most detestable anecdote of this peculiar hypocrisy
in Robespierre is that in which he is recorded to have tenderly
pressed the hand of his old school-friend, Camille Desmoulins,
the day that he signed the warrant for his arrest.)  "And my
justice shall no longer be blind to thy services, good Nicot.
Thou knowest this Glyndon?"

"Yes, well,--intimately.  He WAS my friend, but I would give up
my brother if he were one of the 'indulgents.'  I am not ashamed
to say that I have received favours from this man."

"Aha!--and thou dost honestly hold the doctrine that where a man
threatens my life all personal favours are to be forgotten?"

"All!"

"Good citizen!--kind Nicot!--oblige me by writing the address of
this Glyndon."

Nicot stooped to the table; and suddenly when the pen was in his
hand, a thought flashed across him, and he paused, embarrassed
and confused.

"Write on, KIND Nicot!"

The painter slowly obeyed.

"Who are the other familiars of Glyndon?"

"It was on that point I was about to speak to thee,
Representant," said Nicot.  "He visits daily a woman, a
foreigner, who knows all his secrets; she affects to be poor, and
to support her child by industry.  But she is the wife of an
Italian of immense wealth, and there is no doubt that she has
moneys which are spent in corrupting the citizens.  She should be
seized and arrested."

"Write down her name also."

"But no time is to be lost; for I know that both have a design to
escape from Paris this very night."

"Our government is prompt, good Nicot,--never fear.  Humph!--
humph!" and Robespierre took the paper on which Nicot had
written, and stooping over it--for he was near-sighted--added,
smilingly, "Dost thou always write the same hand, citizen?  This
seems almost like a disguised character."

"I should not like them to know who denounced them,
Representant."

"Good! good!  Thy virtue shall be rewarded, trust me.  Salut et
fraternite!"

Robespierre half rose as he spoke, and Nicot withdrew.

"Ho, there!--without!" cried the Dictator, ringing his bell; and
as the ready Jacobin attended the summons, "Follow that man, Jean
Nicot.  The instant he has cleared the house seize him.  At once
to the Conciergerie with him.  Stay!--nothing against the law;
there is thy warrant.  The public accuser shall have my
instruction.  Away!--quick!"

The Jacobin vanished.  All trace of illness, of infirmity, had
gone from the valetudinarian; he stood erect on the floor, his
face twitching convulsively, and his arms folded.  "Ho! Guerin!"
the spy reappeared--"take these addresses!  Within an hour this
Englishman and his woman must be in prison; their revelations
will aid me against worthier foes.  They shall die:  they shall
perish with the rest on the 10th,--the third day from this.
There!" and he wrote hastily,--"there, also, is thy warrant!
Off!

"And now, Couthon, Payan, we will dally no longer with Tallien
and his crew.  I have information that the Convention will NOT
attend the Fete on the 10th.  We must trust only to the sword of
the law.  I must compose my thoughts,--prepare my harangue.  To-
morrow, I will reappear at the Convention; to-morrow, bold St.
Just joins us, fresh from our victorious armies; to-morrow, from
the tribune, I will dart the thunderbolt on the masked enemies of
France; to-morrow, I will demand, in the face of the country, the
heads of the conspirators."


CHAPTER 7.VIII.

Le glaive est contre toi tourne de toutes parties.
La Harpe, "Jeanne de Naples," Act iv. sc. 4.

(The sword is raised against you on all sides.)

In the mean time Glyndon, after an audience of some length with
C--, in which the final preparations were arranged, sanguine of
safety, and foreseeing no obstacle to escape, bent his way back
to Fillide.  Suddenly, in the midst of his cheerful thoughts, he
fancied he heard a voice too well and too terribly recognised,
hissing in his ear, "What! thou wouldst defy and escape me! thou
wouldst go back to virtue and content.  It is in vain,--it is too
late.  No, _I_ will not haunt thee; HUMAN footsteps, no less
inexorable, dog thee now.  Me thou shalt not see again till in
the dungeon, at midnight, before thy doom!  Behold--"

And Glyndon, mechanically turning his head, saw, close behind
him, the stealthy figure of a man whom he had observed before,
but with little heed, pass and repass him, as he quitted the
house of Citizen C--.  Instantly and instinctively he knew that
he was watched,--that he was pursued.  The street he was in was
obscure and deserted, for the day was oppressively sultry, and it
was the hour when few were abroad, either on business or
pleasure.  Bold as he was, an icy chill shot through his heart,
he knew too well the tremendous system that then reigned in Paris
not to be aware of his danger.  As the sight of the first plague-
boil to the victim of the pestilence, was the first sight of the
shadowy spy to that of the Revolution:  the watch, the arrest,
the trial, the guillotine,--these made the regular and rapid
steps of the monster that the anarchists called Law!  He breathed
hard, he heard distinctly the loud beating of his heart.  And so
he paused, still and motionless, gazing upon the shadow that
halted also behind him.

Presently, the absence of all allies to the spy, the solitude of
the streets, reanimated his courage; he made a step towards his
pursuer, who retreated as he advanced.  "Citizen, thou followest
me," he said.  "Thy business?"

"Surely," answered the man, with a deprecating smile, "the
streets are broad enough for both?  Thou art not so bad a
republican as to arrogate all Paris to thyself!"

"Go on first, then.  I make way for thee."

The man bowed, doffed his hat politely, and passed forward.  The
next moment Glyndon plunged into a winding lane, and fled fast
through a labyrinth of streets, passages, and alleys.  By degrees
he composed himself, and, looking behind, imagined that he had
baffled the pursuer; he then, by a circuitous route, bent his way
once more to his home.  As he emerged into one of the broader
streets, a passenger, wrapped in a mantle, brushing so quickly by
him that he did not observe his countenance, whispered, "Clarence
Glyndon, you are dogged,--follow me!" and the stranger walked
quickly before him.  Clarence turned, and sickened once more to
see at his heels, with the same servile smile on his face, the
pursuer he fancied he had escaped.  He forgot the injunction of
the stranger to follow him, and perceiving a crowd gathered close
at hand, round a caricature-shop, dived amidst them, and, gaining
another street, altered the direction he had before taken, and,
after a long and breathless course, gained without once more
seeing the spy, a distant quartier of the city.

Here, indeed, all seemed so serene and fair that his artist eye,
even in that imminent hour, rested with pleasure on the scene.
It was a comparatively broad space, formed by one of the noble
quays.  The Seine flowed majestically along, with boats and craft
resting on its surface.  The sun gilt a thousand spires and
domes, and gleamed on the white palaces of a fallen chivalry.
Here fatigued and panting, he paused an instant, and a cooler air
from the river fanned his brow.  "Awhile, at least, I am safe
here," he murmured; and as he spoke, some thirty paces behind
him, he beheld the spy.  He stood rooted to the spot; wearied
and spent as he was, escape seemed no longer possible,--the river
on one  side (no bridge at hand), and the long row of mansions
closing up the other.  As he halted, he heard laughter and
obscene songs from a house a little in his rear, between himself
and the spy.  It was a cafe fearfully known in that quarter.
Hither often resorted the black troop of Henriot,--the minions
and huissiers of Robespierre.  The spy, then, had hunted the
victim within the jaws of the hounds.  The man slowly advanced,
and, pausing before the open window of the cafe, put his head
through the aperture, as to address and summon forth its armed
inmates.

At that very instant, and while the spy's head was thus turned
from him, standing in the half-open gateway of the house
immediately before him, he perceived the stranger who had warned;
the figure, scarcely distinguishable through the mantle that
wrapped it, motioned to him to enter.  He sprang noiselessly
through the friendly opening:  the door closed; breathlessly he
followed the stranger up a flight of broad stairs and through a
suite of empty rooms, until, having gained a small cabinet, his
conductor doffed the large hat and the long mantle that had
hitherto concealed his shape and features, and Glyndon beheld
Zanoni!


CHAPTER 7.IX.

Think not my magic wonders wrought by aid
Of Stygian angels summoned up from hell;
Scorned and accursed be those who have essayed
Her gloomy Dives and Afrites to compel.
But by perception of the secret powers
Of mineral springs in Nature's inmost cell,
Of herbs in curtain of her greenest bowers,
And of the moving stars o'er mountain tops and towers.
Wiffen's "Translation of Tasso," cant. xiv. xliii.

"You are safe here, young Englishman!" said Zanoni, motioning
Glyndon to a seat.  "Fortunate for you that I come on your track
at last!"

"Far happier had it been if we had never met!  Yet even in these
last hours of my fate, I rejoice to look once more on the face of
that ominous and mysterious being to whom I can ascribe all the
sufferings I have known.  Here, then, thou shalt not palter with
or elude me.  Here, before we part, thou shalt unravel to me the
dark enigma, if not of thy life, of my own!"

"Hast thou suffered?  Poor neophyte!" said Zanoni, pityingly.
"Yes; I see it on thy brow.  But wherefore wouldst thou blame me?
Did I not warn thee against the whispers of thy spirit; did I not
warn thee to forbear?  Did I not tell thee that the ordeal was
one of awful hazard and tremendous fears,--nay, did I not offer
to resign to thee the heart that was mighty enough, while mine,
Glyndon, to content me?  Was it not thine own daring and resolute
choice to brave the initiation!  Of thine own free will didst
thou make Mejnour thy master, and his lore thy study!"

"But whence came the irresistible desires of that wild and unholy
knowledge?  I knew them not till thine evil eye fell upon me, and
I was drawn into the magic atmosphere of thy being!"

"Thou errest!--the desires were in thee; and, whether in one
direction or the other, would have forced their way!  Man! thou
askest me the enigma of thy fate and my own!  Look round all
being, is there not mystery everywhere?  Can thine eye trace the
ripening of the grain beneath the earth?  In the moral and the
physical world alike, lie dark portents, far more wondrous than
the powers thou wouldst ascribe to me!"

"Dost thou disown those powers; dost thou confess thyself an
imposter?--or wilt thou dare to tell me that thou art indeed sold
to the Evil one,--a magician whose familiar has haunted me night
and day?"

"It matters not what I am," returned Zanoni; "it matters only
whether I can aid thee to exorcise thy dismal phantom, and return
once more to the wholesome air of this common life.  Something,
however, will I tell thee, not to vindicate myself, but the
Heaven and the Nature that thy doubts malign."

Zanoni paused a moment, and resumed with a slight smile,--

"In thy younger days thou hast doubtless read with delight the
great Christian poet, whose muse, like the morning it celebrated,
came to earth, 'crowned with flowers culled in Paradise.'
('L'aurea testa
Di rose colte in Paradiso infiora.'
Tasso, "Ger. Lib." iv. l.)
"No spirit was more imbued with the knightly superstitions of the
time; and surely the Poet of Jerusalem hath sufficiently, to
satisfy even the Inquisitor he consulted, execrated all the
practitioners of the unlawful spells invoked,--

'Per isforzar Cocito o Flegetonte.'
(To constrain Cocytus or Phlegethon.)

But in his sorrows and his wrongs, in the prison of his madhouse,
know you not that Tasso himself found his solace, his escape, in
the recognition of a holy and spiritual Theurgia,--of a magic
that could summon the Angel, or the Good Genius, not the Fiend?
And do you not remember how he, deeply versed as he was for his
age, in the mysteries of the nobler Platonism, which hints at the
secrets of all the starry brotherhoods, from the Chaldean to the
later Rosicrucian, discriminates in his lovely verse, between the
black art of Ismeno and the glorious lore of the Enchanter who
counsels and guides upon their errand the champions of the Holy
Land?  HIS, not the charms wrought by the aid of the Stygian
Rebels (See this remarkable passage, which does indeed not
unfaithfully represent the doctrine of the Pythagorean and the
Platonist, in Tasso, cant. xiv. stanzas xli. to xlvii. ("Ger.
Lib.")  They are beautifully translated by Wiffen.), but the
perception of the secret powers of the fountain and the herb,--
the Arcana of the unknown nature and the various motions of the
stars.  His, the holy haunts of Lebanon and Carmel,--beneath his
feet he saw the clouds, the snows, the hues of Iris, the
generations of the rains and dews.  Did the Christian Hermit who
converted that Enchanter (no fabulous being, but the type of all
spirit that would aspire through Nature up to God) command him to
lay aside these sublime studies, 'Le solite arte e l' uso mio'?
No! but to cherish and direct them to worthy ends.  And in this
grand conception of the poet lies the secret of the true
Theurgia, which startles your ignorance in a more learned day
with puerile apprehensions, and the nightmares of a sick man's
dreams."

Again Zanoni paused, and again resumed:--

"In ages far remote,--of a civilisation far different from that
which now merges the individual in the state,--there existed men
of ardent minds, and an intense desire of knowledge.  In the
mighty and solemn kingdoms in which they dwelt, there were no
turbulent and earthly channels to work off the fever of their
minds.  Set in the antique mould of casts through which no
intellect could pierce, no valour could force its way, the thirst
for wisdom alone reigned in the hearts of those who received its
study as a heritage from sire to son.  Hence, even in your
imperfect records of the progress of human knowledge, you find
that, in the earliest ages, Philosophy descended not to the
business and homes of men.  It dwelt amidst the wonders of the
loftier creation; it sought to analyse the formation of matter,--
the essentials of the prevailing soul; to read the mysteries of
the starry orbs; to dive into those depths of Nature in which
Zoroaster is said by the schoolmen first to have discovered the
arts which your ignorance classes under the name of magic.  In
such an age, then, arose some men, who, amidst the vanities and
delusions of their class, imagined that they detected gleams of a
brighter and steadier lore.  They fancied an affinity existing
among all the works of Nature, and that in the lowliest lay the
secret attraction that might conduct them upward to the loftiest.
(Agreeably, it would seem, to the notion of Iamblichus and
Plotinus, that the universe is as an animal; so that there is
sympathy and communication between one part and the other; in the
smallest part may be the subtlest nerve.  And hence the universal
magnetism of Nature.  But man contemplates the universe as an
animalcule would an elephant.  The animalcule, seeing scarcely
the tip of the hoof, would be incapable of comprehending that the
trunk belonged to the same creature,--that the effect produced
upon one extremity would be felt in an instant by the other.)
Centuries passed, and lives were wasted in these discoveries; but
step after step was chronicled and marked, and became the guide
to the few who alone had the hereditary privilege to track their
path.

At last from this dimness upon some eyes the light broke; but
think not, young visionary, that to those who nursed unholy
thoughts, over whom the Origin of Evil held a sway, that dawning
was vouchsafed.  It could be given then, as now, only to the
purest ecstasies of imagination and intellect, undistracted by
the cares of a vulgar life, or the appetites of the common clay.
Far from descending to the assistance of a fiend, theirs was but
the august ambition to approach nearer to the Fount of Good; the
more they emancipated themselves from this limbo of the planets,
the more they were penetrated by the splendour and beneficence of
God.  And if they sought, and at last discovered, how to the eye
of the Spirit all the subtler modifications of being and of
matter might be made apparent; if they discovered how, for the
wings of the Spirit, all space might be annihilated, and while
the body stood heavy and solid here, as a deserted tomb, the
freed IDEA might wander from star to star,--if such discoveries
became in truth their own, the sublimest luxury of their
knowledge was but this, to wonder, to venerate, and adore!  For,
as one not unlearned in these high matters has expressed it,
'There is a principle of the soul superior to all external
nature, and through this principle we are capable of surpassing
the order and systems of the world, and participating the
immortal life and the energy of the Sublime Celestials.  When the
soul is elevated to natures above itself, it deserts the order to
which it is awhile compelled, and by a religious magnetism is
attracted to another and a loftier, with which it blends and
mingles.'  (From Iamblichus, "On the Mysteries," c. 7, sect. 7.)
Grant, then, that such beings found at last the secret to arrest
death; to fascinate danger and the foe; to walk the revolutions
of the earth unharmed,--think you that this life could teach them
other desire than to yearn the more for the Immortal, and to fit
their intellect the better for the higher being to which they
might, when Time and Death exist no longer, be transferred?  Away
with your gloomy fantasies of sorcerer and demon!--the soul can
aspire only to the light; and even the error of our lofty
knowledge was but the forgetfulness of the weakness, the
passions, and the bonds which the death we so vainly conquered
only can purge away!"

This address was so different from what Glyndon had anticipated,
that he remained for some moments speechless, and at length
faltered out,--

"But why, then, to me--"

"Why," added Zanoni,--"why to thee have been only the penance and
the terror,--the Threshold and the Phantom?  Vain man! look to
the commonest elements of the common learning.  Can every tyro at
his mere wish and will become the master; can the student, when
he has bought his Euclid, become a Newton; can the youth whom the
Muses haunt, say, 'I will equal Homer;' yea, can yon pale tyrant,
with all the parchment laws of a hundred system-shapers, and the
pikes of his dauntless multitude, carve, at his will, a
constitution not more vicious than the one which the madness of a
mob could overthrow?  When, in that far time to which I have
referred, the student aspired to the heights to which thou
wouldst have sprung at a single bound, he was trained from his
very cradle to the career he was to run.  The internal and the
outward nature were made clear to his eyes, year after year, as
they opened on the day.  He was not admitted to the practical
initiation till not one earthly wish chained that sublimest
faculty which you call the IMAGINATION, one carnal desire clouded
the penetrative essence that you call the INTELLECT.  And even
then, and at the best, how few attained to the last mystery!
Happier inasmuch as they attained the earlier to the holy glories
for which Death is the heavenliest gate."

Zanoni paused, and a shade of thought and sorrow darkened his
celestial beauty.

"And are there, indeed, others, besides thee and Mejnour, who lay
claim to thine attributes, and have attained to thy secrets?"

"Others there have been before us, but we two now are alone on
earth."

"Imposter, thou betrayest thyself!  If they could conquer Death,
why live they not yet?" (Glyndon appears to forget that Mejnour
had before answered the very question which his doubts here a
second time suggest.)

"Child of a day!" answered Zanoni, mournfully, "have I not told
thee the error of our knowledge was the forgetfulness of the
desires and passions which the spirit never can wholly and
permanently conquer while this matter cloaks it?  Canst thou
think that it is no sorrow, either to reject all human ties, all
friendship, and all love, or to see, day after day, friendship
and love wither from our life, as blossoms from the stem?  Canst
thou wonder how, with the power to live while the world shall
last, ere even our ordinary date be finished we yet may prefer to
die?  Wonder rather that there are two who have clung so
faithfully to earth!  Me, I confess, that earth can enamour yet.
Attaining to the last secret while youth was in its bloom, youth
still colours all around me with its own luxuriant beauty; to me,
yet, to breathe is to enjoy.  The freshness has not faded from
the face of Nature, and not an herb in which I cannot discover a
new charm,--an undetected wonder.

As with my youth, so with Mejnour's age:  he will tell you that
life to him is but a power to examine; and not till he has
exhausted all the marvels which the Creator has sown on earth,
would he desire new habitations for the renewed Spirit to
explore.  We are the types of the two essences of what is
imperishable,--'ART, that enjoys; and SCIENCE, that
contemplates!'  And now, that thou mayest be contented that the
secrets are not vouchsafed to thee, learn that so utterly must
the idea detach itself from what makes up the occupation and
excitement of men; so must it be void of whatever would covet, or
love, or hate,--that for the ambitious man, for the lover, the
hater, the power avails not.  And I, at last, bound and blinded
by the most common of household ties; I, darkened and helpless,
adjure thee, the baffled and discontented,--I adjure thee to
direct, to guide me; where are they?  Oh, tell me,--speak!  My
wife,--my child?  Silent!--oh, thou knowest now that I am no
sorcerer, no enemy.  I cannot give thee what thy faculties deny,
--I cannot achieve what the passionless Mejnour failed to
accomplish; but I can give thee the next-best boon, perhaps the
fairest,--I can reconcile thee to the daily world, and place
peace between thy conscience and thyself."

"Wilt thou promise?"

"By their sweet lives, I promise!"

Glyndon looked and believed.  He whispered the address to the
house whither his fatal step already had brought woe and doom.

"Bless thee for this," exclaimed Zanoni, passionately, "and thou
shalt be blessed!  What! couldst thou not perceive that at the
entrance to all the grander worlds dwell the race that intimidate
and awe?  Who in thy daily world ever left the old regions of
Custom and Prescription, and felt not the first seizure of the
shapeless and nameless Fear?  Everywhere around thee where men
aspire and labour, though they see it not,--in the closet of the
sage, in the council of the demagogue, in the camp of the
warrior,--everywhere cowers and darkens the Unutterable Horror.
But there, where thou hast ventured, alone is the Phantom
VISIBLE; and never will it cease to haunt, till thou canst pass
to the Infinite, as the seraph; or return to the Familiar, as a
child!  But answer me this:  when, seeking to adhere to some calm
resolve of virtue, the Phantom hath stalked suddenly to thy side;
when its voice hath whispered thee despair; when its ghastly eyes
would scare thee back to those scenes of earthly craft or riotous
excitement from which, as it leaves thee to worse foes to the
soul, its presence is ever absent,--hast thou never bravely
resisted the spectre and thine own horror; hast thou never said,
'Come what may, to Virtue I will cling?'"

"Alas!" answered Glyndon, "only of late have I dared to do so."

"And thou hast felt then that the Phantom grew more dim and its
power more faint?"

"It is true."

"Rejoice, then!--thou hast overcome the true terror and mystery
of the ordeal.  Resolve is the first success.  Rejoice, for the
exorcism is sure!  Thou art not of those who, denying a life to
come, are the victims of the Inexorable Horror.  Oh, when shall
men learn, at last, that if the Great Religion inculcates so
rigidly the necessity of FAITH, it is not alone that FAITH leads
to the world to be; but that without faith there is no excellence
in this,--faith in something wiser, happier, diviner, than we see
on earth!--the artist calls it the Ideal,--the priest, Faith.
The Ideal and Faith are one and the same.  Return, O wanderer,
return!  Feel what beauty and holiness dwell in the Customary and
the Old.  Back to thy gateway glide, thou Horror! and calm, on
the childlike heart, smile again, O azure Heaven, with thy night
and thy morning star but as one, though under its double name of
Memory and Hope!"

As he thus spoke, Zanoni laid his hand gently on the burning
temples of his excited and wondering listener; and presently a
sort of trance came over him:  he imagined that he was returned
to the home of his infancy; that he was in the small chamber
where, over his early slumbers, his mother had watched and
prayed.  There it was,--visible, palpable, solitary, unaltered.
In the recess, the homely bed; on the walls, the shelves filled
with holy books; the very easel on which he had first sought to
call the ideal to the canvas, dust-covered, broken, in the
corner.  Below the window lay the old churchyard:  he saw it
green in the distance, the sun glancing through the yew-trees; he
saw the tomb where father and mother lay united, and the spire
pointing up to heaven, the symbol of the hopes of those who
consigned the ashes to the dust; in his ear rang the bells,
pealing, as on a Sabbath day.  Far fled all the visions of
anxiety and awe that had haunted and convulsed; youth, boyhood,
childhood came back to him with innocent desires and hopes; he
thought he fell upon his knees to pray.  He woke,--he woke in
delicious tears, he felt that the Phantom was fled forever.  He
looked round,--Zanoni was gone.  On the table lay these lines,
the ink yet wet:--

"I will find ways and means for thy escape.  At nightfall, as the
clock strikes nine, a boat shall wait thee on the river before
this house; the boatman will guide thee to a retreat where thou
mayst rest in safety till the Reign of Terror, which nears its
close, be past.  Think no more of the sensual love that lured,
and wellnigh lost thee.  It betrayed, and would have destroyed.
Thou wilt regain thy land in safety,--long years yet spared to
thee to muse over the past, and to redeem it.  For thy future, be
thy dream thy guide, and thy tears thy baptism."

The Englishman obeyed the injunctions of the letter, and found
their truth.


CHAPTER 7.X.

Quid mirare meas tot in uno corpore formas?
Propert.

(Why wonder that I have so many forms in a single body?)

Zanoni to Mejnour.

...

"She is in one of their prisons,--their inexorable prisons.  It
is Robespierre's order,--I have tracked the cause to Glyndon.
This, then, made that terrible connection between their fates
which I could not unravel, but which (till severed as it now is)
wrapped Glyndon himself in the same cloud that concealed her.  In
prison,--in prison!--it is the gate of the grave!  Her trial, and
the inevitable execution that follows such trial, is the third
day from this.  The tyrant has fixed all his schemes of slaughter
for the 10th of Thermidor.  While the deaths of the unoffending
strike awe to the city, his satellites are to massacre his foes.
There is but one hope left,--that the Power which now dooms the
doomer, may render me an instrument to expedite his fall.  But
two days left,--two days!  In all my wealth of time I see but two
days; all beyond,--darkness, solitude.  I may save her yet.  The
tyrant shall fall the day before that which he has set apart for
slaughter!  For the first time I mix among the broils and
stratagems of men, and my mind leaps up from my despair, armed
and eager for the contest."

...

A crowd had gathered round the Rue St. Honore; a young man was
just arrested by the order of Robespierre.  He was known to be in
the service of Tallien, that hostile leader in the Convention,
whom the tyrant had hitherto trembled to attack.  This incident
had therefore produced a greater excitement than a circumstance
so customary as an arrest in the Reign of Terror might be
supposed to create.  Amongst the crowd were many friends of
Tallien, many foes to the tyrant, many weary of beholding the
tiger dragging victim after victim to its den.  Hoarse,
foreboding murmurs were heard; fierce eyes glared upon the
officers as they seized their prisoner; and though they did not
yet dare openly to resist, those in the rear pressed on those
behind, and encumbered the path of the captive and his captors.
The young man struggled hard for escape, and, by a violent
effort, at last wrenched himself from the grasp.  The crowd made
way, and closed round to protect him, as he dived and darted
through their ranks; but suddenly the trampling of horses was
heard at hand,--the savage Henriot and his troop were bearing
down upon the mob.  The crowd gave way in alarm, and the prisoner
was again seized by one of the partisans of the Dictator.  At
that moment a voice whispered the prisoner, "Thou hast a letter
which, if found on thee, ruins thy last hope.  Give it to me!  I
will bear it to Tallien."  The prisoner turned in amaze, read
something that encouraged him in the eyes of the stranger who
thus accosted him.  The troop were now on the spot; the Jacobin
who had seized the prisoner released hold of him for a moment to
escape the hoofs of the horses:  in that moment the opportunity
was found,--the stranger had disappeared.

...

At the house of Tallien the principal foes of the tyrant were
assembled.  Common danger made common fellowship.  All factions
laid aside their feuds for the hour to unite against the
formidable man who was marching over all factions to his gory
throne.  There was bold Lecointre, the declared enemy; there,
creeping Barrere, who would reconcile all extremes, the hero of
the cowards; Barras, calm and collected; Collet d'Herbois,
breathing wrath and vengeance, and seeing not that the crimes of
Robespierre alone sheltered his own.

The council was agitated and irresolute.  The awe which the
uniform success and the prodigious energy of Robespierre excited
still held the greater part under its control.  Tallien, whom the
tyrant most feared, and who alone could give head and substance
and direction to so many contradictory passions, was too sullied
by the memory of his own cruelties not to feel embarrassed by his
position as the champion of mercy.  "It is true," he said, after
an animating harangue from Lecointre, "that the Usurper menaces
us all.  But he is still so beloved by his mobs,--still so
supported by his Jacobins:  better delay open hostilities till
the hour is more ripe.  To attempt and not succeed is to give us,
bound hand and foot, to the guillotine.  Every day his power must
decline.  Procrastination is our best ally--"  While yet
speaking, and while yet producing the effect of water on the
fire, it was announced that a stranger demanded to see him
instantly on business that brooked no delay.

"I am not at leisure," said the orator, impatiently.  The servant
placed a note on the table.  Tallien opened it, and found these
words in pencil, "From the prison of Teresa de Fontenai."  He
turned pale, started up, and hastened to the anteroom, where he
beheld a face entirely strange to him.

"Hope of France!" said the visitor to him, and the very sound of
his voice went straight to the heart,--"your servant is arrested
in the streets.  I have saved your life, and that of your wife
who will be.  I bring to you this letter from Teresa de
Fontenai."

Tallien, with a trembling hand, opened the letter, and read,--

"Am I forever to implore you in vain?  Again and again I say,
'Lose not an hour if you value my life and your own.'  My trial
and death are fixed the third day from this,--the 10th Thermidor.
Strike while it is yet time,--strike the monster!--you have two
days yet.  If you fail,--if you procrastinate,--see me for the
last time as I pass your windows to the guillotine!"

"Her trial will give proof against you," said the stranger.  "Her
death is the herald of your own.  Fear not the populace,--the
populace would have rescued your servant.  Fear not Robespierre,
--he gives himself to your hands.  To-morrow he comes to the
Convention,--to-morrow you must cast the last throw for his head
or your own."

"To-morrow he comes to the Convention!  And who are you that know
so well what is concealed from me?"

"A man like you, who would save the woman he loves."

Before Tallien could recover his surprise, the visitor was gone.

Back went the Avenger to his conclave an altered man.  "I have
heard tidings,--no matter what," he cried,--"that have changed my
purpose.  On the 10th we are destined to the guillotine.  I
revoke my counsel for delay.  Robespierre comes to the Convention
to-morrow; THERE we must confront and crush him.  From the
Mountain shall frown against him the grim shade of Danton,--from
the Plain shall rise, in their bloody cerements, the spectres of
Vergniaud and Condorcet.  Frappons!"

"Frappons!" cried even Barrere, startled into energy by the new
daring of his colleague,--"frappons! il n'y a que les morts qui
ne reviennent pas."

It was observable (and the fact may be found in one of the
memoirs of the time) that, during that day and night (the 7th
Thermidor), a stranger to all the previous events of that stormy
time was seen in various parts of the city,--in the cafes, the
clubs, the haunts of the various factions; that, to the
astonishment and dismay of his hearers, he talked aloud of the
crimes of Robespierre, and predicted his coming fall; and, as he
spoke, he stirred up the hearts of men, he loosed the bonds of
their fear,--he inflamed them with unwonted rage and daring.  But
what surprised them most was, that no voice replied, no hand was
lifted against him, no minion, even of the tyrant, cried, "Arrest
the traitor."  In that impunity men read, as in a book, that the
populace had deserted the man of blood.

Once only a fierce, brawny Jacobin sprang up from the table at
which he sat, drinking deep, and, approaching the stranger, said,
"I seize thee, in the name of the Republic."

"Citizen Aristides," answered the stranger, in a whisper, "go to
the lodgings of Robespierre,--he is from home; and in the left
pocket of the vest which he cast off not an hour since thou wilt
find a paper; when thou hast read that, return.  I will await
thee; and if thou wouldst then seize me, I will go without a
struggle.  Look round on those lowering brows; touch me NOW, and
thou wilt be torn to pieces."

The Jacobin felt as if compelled to obey against his will.  He
went forth muttering; he returned,--the stranger was still there.
"Mille tonnerres," he said to him, "I thank thee; the poltroon
had my name in his list for the guillotine."

With that the Jacobin Aristides sprang upon the table and
shouted, "Death to the Tyrant!"


CHAPTER 7.XI.

Le lendemain, 8 Thermidor, Robespierre se decida a prononcer son
fameux discours.
Thiers, "Hist. de la Revolution."

(The next day, 8th Thermidor, Robespierre resolved to deliver his
celebrated discourse.)

The morning rose,--the 8th of Thermidor (July 26).  Robespierre
has gone to the Convention.  He has gone with his laboured
speech; he has gone with his phrases of philanthropy and virtue;
he has gone to single out his prey.  All his agents are prepared
for his reception; the fierce St. Just has arrived from the
armies to second his courage and inflame his wrath.  His ominous
apparition prepares the audience for the crisis.  "Citizens!"
screeched the shrill voice of Robespierre "others have placed
before you flattering pictures; I come to announce to you useful
truths.

...

And they attribute to me,--to me alone!--whatever of harsh or
evil is committed:  it is Robespierre who wishes it; it is
Robespierre who ordains it.  Is there a new tax?--it is
Robespierre who ruins you.  They call me tyrant!--and why?
Because I have acquired some influence; but how?--in speaking
truth; and who pretends that truth is to be without force in the
mouths of the Representatives of the French people?  Doubtless,
truth has its power, its rage, its despotism, its accents,
touching, terrible, which resound in the pure heart as in the
guilty conscience; and which Falsehood can no more imitate than
Salmoneus could forge the thunderbolts of Heaven.  What am I whom
they accuse?  A slave of liberty,--a living martyr of the
Republic; the victim as the enemy of crime!  All ruffianism
affronts me, and actions legitimate in others are crimes in me.
It is enough to know me to be calumniated.  It is in my very zeal
that they discover my guilt.  Take from me my conscience, and I
should be the most miserable of men!"

He paused; and Couthon wiped his eyes, and St. Just murmured
applause as with stern looks he gazed on the rebellious Mountain;
and there was a dead, mournful, and chilling silence through the
audience.  The touching sentiment woke no echo.

The orator cast his eyes around.  Ho! he will soon arouse that
apathy.  He proceeds, he praises, he pities himself no more.  He
denounces,--he accuses.  Overflooded with his venom, he vomits it
forth on all.  At home, abroad, finances, war,--on all!  Shriller
and sharper rose his voice,--

"A conspiracy exists against the public liberty.  It owes its
strength to a criminal coalition in the very bosom of the
Convention; it has accomplices in the bosom of the Committee of
Public Safety...What is the remedy to this evil?  To punish the
traitors; to purify this committee; to crush all factions by the
weight of the National Authority; to raise upon their ruins the
power of Liberty and Justice.  Such are the principles of that
Reform.  Must I be ambitious to profess them?--then the
principles are proscribed, and Tyranny reigns amongst us!  For
what can you object to a man who is in the right, and has at
least this knowledge,--he knows how to die for his native land!
I am made to combat crime, and not to govern it.  The time, alas!
is not yet arrived when men of worth can serve with impunity
their country.  So long as the knaves rule, the defenders of
liberty will be only the proscribed."

For two hours, through that cold and gloomy audience, shrilled
the Death-speech.  In silence it began, in silence closed.  The
enemies of the orator were afraid to express resentment; they
knew not yet the exact balance of power.  His partisans were
afraid to approve; they knew not whom of their own friends and
relations the accusations were designed to single forth.  "Take
care!" whispered each to each; "it is thou whom he threatens."
But silent though the audience, it was, at the first, wellnigh
subdued.  There was still about this terrible man the spell of an
overmastering will.  Always--though not what is called a great
orator--resolute, and sovereign in the use of words; words seemed
as things when uttered by one who with a nod moved the troops of
Henriot, and influenced the judgment of Rene Dumas, grim
President of the Tribunal.  Lecointre of Versailles rose, and
there was an anxious movement of attention; for Lecointre was one
of the fiercest foes of the tyrant.  What was the dismay of the
Tallien faction; what the complacent smile of Couthon,--when
Lecointre demanded only that the oration should be printed!  All
seemed paralyzed.  At length Bourdon de l'Oise, whose name was
doubly marked in the black list of the Dictator, stalked to the
tribune, and moved the bold counter-resolution, that the speech
should be referred to the two committees whom that very speech
accused.  Still no applause from the conspirators; they sat
torpid as frozen men.  The shrinking Barrere, ever on the prudent
side, looked round before he rose.  He rises, and sides with
Lecointre!  Then Couthon seized the occasion, and from his seat
(a privilege permitted only to the paralytic philanthropist) (M.
Thiers in his History, volume iv. page 79, makes a curious
blunder:  he says, "Couthon s'elance a la tribune.'  (Couthon
darted towards the tribune.)  Poor Couthon! whose half body was
dead, and who was always wheeled in his chair into the
Convention, and spoke sitting.), and with his melodious voice
sought to convert the crisis into a triumph.

He demanded, not only that the harangue should be printed, but
sent to all the communes and all the armies.  It was necessary to
soothe a wronged and ulcerated heart.  Deputies, the most
faithful, had been accused of shedding blood.  "Ah! if HE had
contributed to the death of one innocent man, he should immolate
himself with grief."  Beautiful tenderness!--and while he spoke,
he fondled the spaniel in his bosom.  Bravo, Couthon!
Robespierre triumphs! The reign of Terror shall endure!  The old
submission settles dovelike back in the assembly!  They vote the
printing of the Death-speech, and its transmission to all the
municipalities.  From the benches of the Mountain, Tallien,
alarmed, dismayed, impatient, and indignant, cast his gaze where
sat the strangers admitted to hear the debates; and suddenly he
met the eyes of the Unknown who had brought to him the letter
from Teresa de Fontenai the preceding day.  The eyes fascinated
him as he gazed.  In aftertimes he often said that their regard,
fixed, earnest, half-reproachful, and yet cheering and
triumphant, filled him with new life and courage.  They spoke to
his heart as the trumpet speaks to the war-horse.  He moved from
his seat; he whispered with his allies:  the spirit he had drawn
in was contagious; the men whom Robespierre especially  had
denounced, and who saw the sword over their heads, woke from
their torpid trance.  Vadier, Cambon, Billaud-Varennes, Panis,
Amar, rose at once,--all at once demanded speech.  Vadier is
first heard, the rest succeed.  It burst forth, the Mountain,
with its fires and consuming lava; flood upon flood they rush, a
legion of Ciceros upon the startled Catiline!  Robespierre
falters, hesitates,--would qualify, retract.  They gather new
courage from his new fears; they interrupt him; they drown his
voice; they demand the reversal of the motion.  Amar moves again
that the speech be referred to the Committees, to the
Committees,--to his enemies!  Confusion and noise and clamour!
Robespierre wraps himself in silent and superb disdain.  Pale,
defeated, but not yet destroyed, he stands,--a storm in the midst
of storm!

The motion is carried.  All men foresee in that defeat the
Dictator's downfall.  A solitary cry rose from the galleries; it
was caught up; it circled through the hall, the audience:  "A bas
le tyrant!  Vive la republique!"  (Down with the tyrant!  Hurrah
for the republic!)


CHAPTER 7.XII.

Aupres d'un corps aussi avili que la Convention, il restait des
chances pour que Robespierre sortit vainqueur de cette lutte.
Lacretelle, volume xii.

(Amongst a body so debased as the Convention, there still
remained some chances that Robespierre would come off victor in
the struggle.)

As Robespierre left the hall, there was a dead and ominous
silence in the crowd without.  The herd, in every country, side
with success; and the rats run from the falling tower.  But
Robespierre, who wanted courage, never wanted pride, and the last
often supplied the place of the first; thoughtfully, and with an
impenetrable brow, he passed through the throng, leaning on St.
Just, Payan and his brother following him.

As they got into the open space, Robespierre abruptly broke the
silence.

"How many heads were to fall upon the tenth?"

"Eighty," replied Payan.

"Ah, we must not tarry so long; a day may lose an empire:
terrorism must serve us yet!"

He was silent a few moments, and his eyes roved suspiciously
through the street.

"St. Just," he said abruptly, "they have not found this
Englishman whose revelations, or whose trial, would have crushed
the Amars and the Talliens.  No, no! my Jacobins themselves are
growing dull and blind.  But they have seized a woman,--only a
woman!"

"A woman's hand stabbed Marat," said St. Just.  Robespierre
stopped short, and breathed hard.

"St. Just," said he, "when this peril is past, we will found the
Reign of Peace.  There shall be homes and gardens set apart for
the old.  David is already designing the porticos.  Virtuous men
shall be appointed to instruct the young.  All vice and disorder
shall be NOT exterminated--no, no! only banished!  We must not
die yet.  Posterity cannot judge us till our work is done.  We
have recalled L'Etre Supreme; we must now remodel this corrupted
world.  All shall be love and brotherhood; and--ho!  Simon!
Simon!--hold!  Your pencil, St. Just!"  And Robespierre wrote
hastily.  "This to Citizen President Dumas.  Go with it quick,
Simon.  These eighty heads must fall TO-MORROW,--TO-MORROW,
Simon.  Dumas will advance their trial a day.  I will write to
Fouquier-Tinville, the public accuser.  We meet at the Jacobins
to-night, Simon; there we will denounce the Convention itself;
there we will rally round us the last friends of liberty and
France."

A shout was heard in the distance behind, "Vive la republique!"

The tyrant's eye shot a vindictive gleam.  "The republic!--faugh!
We did not destroy the throne of a thousand years for that
canaille!"

THE TRIAL, THE EXECUTION, OF THE VICTIMS IS ADVANCED A DAY!  By
the aid of the mysterious intelligence that had guided and
animated him hitherto, Zanoni learned that his arts had been in
vain.  He knew that Viola was safe, if she could but survive an
hour the life of the tyrant.  He knew that Robespierre's hours
were numbered; that the 10th of Thermidor, on which he had
originally designed the execution of his last victims, would see
himself at the scaffold. Zanoni had toiled, had schemed for the
fall of the Butcher and his reign.  To what end?  A single word
from the tyrant had baffled the result of all.  The execution of
Viola is advanced a day.  Vain seer, who wouldst make thyself the
instrument of the Eternal, the very dangers that now beset the
tyrant but expedite the doom of his victims!  To-morrow, eighty
heads, and hers whose pillow has been thy heart!  To-morrow! and
Maximilien is safe to-night!


CHAPTER 7.XIII.

Erde mag zuruck in Erde stauben;
Fliegt der Geist doch aus dem morschen Haus.
Seine Asche mag der Sturmwind treiben,
Sein Leben dauert ewig aus!
Elegie.

(Earth may crumble back into earth; the Spirit will still escape
from its frail tenement.  The wind of the storm may scatter his
ashes; his being endures forever.)

To-morrow!--and it is already twilight.  One after one, the
gentle stars come smiling through the heaven.  The Seine, in its
slow waters, yet trembles with the last kiss of the rosy day; and
still in the blue sky gleams the spire of Notre Dame; and still
in the blue sky looms the guillotine by the Barriere du Trone.
Turn to that time-worn building, once the church and the convent
of the Freres-Precheurs, known by the then holy name of Jacobins;
there the new Jacobins hold their club.  There, in that oblong
hall, once the library of the peaceful monks, assemble the
idolaters of St. Robespierre.  Two immense tribunes, raised at
either end, contain the lees and dregs of the atrocious
populace,--the majority of that audience consisting of the furies
of the guillotine (furies de guillotine).  In the midst of the
hall are the bureau and chair of the president,--the chair long
preserved by the piety of the monks as the relic of St. Thomas
Aquinas!  Above this seat scowls the harsh bust of Brutus.  An
iron lamp and two branches scatter over the vast room a murky,
fuliginous ray, beneath the light of which the fierce faces of
that Pandemonium seem more grim and haggard.  There, from the
orator's tribune, shrieks the shrill wrath of Robespierre!

Meanwhile all is chaos, disorder, half daring and half cowardice,
in the Committee of his foes.  Rumours fly from street to street,
from haunt to haunt, from house to house.  The swallows flit low,
and the cattle group together before the storm.  And above this
roar of the lives and things of the little hour, alone in his
chamber stood he on whose starry youth--symbol of the
imperishable bloom of the calm Ideal amidst the mouldering
Actual--the clouds of ages had rolled in vain.

All those exertions which ordinary wit and courage could suggest
had been tried in vain.  All such exertions WERE in vain, where,
in that Saturnalia of death, a life was the object.  Nothing but
the fall of Robespierre could have saved his victims; now, too
late, that fall would only serve to avenge.

Once more, in that last agony of excitement and despair, the seer
had plunged into solitude, to invoke again the aid or counsel of
those mysterious intermediates between earth and heaven who had
renounced the intercourse of the spirit when subjected to the
common bondage of the mortal.  In the intense desire and anguish
of his heart, perhaps, lay a power not yet called forth; for who
has not felt that the sharpness of extreme grief cuts and grinds
away many of those strongest bonds of infirmity and doubt which
bind down the souls of men to the cabined darkness of the hour;
and that from the cloud and thunderstorm often swoops the
Olympian eagle that can ravish us aloft!

And the invocation was heard,--the bondage of sense was rent away
from the visual mind.  He looked, and saw,--no, not the being he
had called, with its limbs of light and unutterably tranquil
smile--not his familiar, Adon-Ai, the Son of Glory and the Star,
but the Evil Omen, the dark Chimera, the implacable Foe, with
exultation and malice burning in its hell-lit eyes.  The Spectre,
no longer cowering and retreating into shadow, rose before him,
gigantic and erect; the face, whose veil no mortal hand had ever
raised, was still concealed, but the form was more distinct,
corporeal, and cast from it, as an atmosphere, horror and rage
and awe.  As an iceberg, the breath of that presence froze the
air; as a cloud, it filled the chamber and blackened the stars
from heaven.

"Lo!" said its voice, "I am here once more.  Thou hast robbed me
of a meaner prey.  Now exorcise THYSELF from my power!  Thy life
has left thee, to live in the heart of a daughter of the charnel
and the worm.  In that life I come to thee with my inexorable
tread.  Thou art returned to the Threshold,--thou, whose steps
have trodden the verges of the Infinite!  And as the goblin of
its fantasy seizes on a child in the dark,--mighty one, who
wouldst conquer Death,--I seize on thee!"

"Back to thy thraldom, slave!  If thou art come to the voice that
called thee not, it is again not to command, but to obey!  Thou,
from whose whisper I gained the boons of the lives lovelier and
dearer than my own; thou--I command thee, not by spell and charm,
but by the force of a soul mightier than the malice of thy
being,--thou serve me yet, and speak again the secret that can
rescue the lives thou hast, by permission of the Universal
Master, permitted me to retain awhile in the temple of the clay!"

Brighter and more devouringly burned the glare from those lurid
eyes; more visible and colossal yet rose the dilating shape; a
yet fiercer and more disdainful hate spoke in the voice that
answered, "Didst thou think that my boon would be other than thy
curse?  Happy for thee hadst thou mourned over the deaths which
come by the gentle hand of Nature,--hadst thou never known how
the name of mother consecrates the face of Beauty, and never,
bending over thy first-born, felt the imperishable sweetness of a
father's love!  They are saved, for what?--the mother, for the
death of violence and shame and blood, for the doomsman's hand to
put aside that shining hair which has entangled thy bridegroom
kisses; the child, first and last of thine offspring, in whom
thou didst hope to found a race that should hear with thee the
music of celestial harps, and float, by the side of thy familiar,
Adon-Ai, through the azure rivers of joy,--the child, to live on
a few days as a fungus in a burial-vault, a thing of the
loathsome dungeon, dying of cruelty and neglect and famine.  Ha!
ha! thou who wouldst baffle Death, learn how the deathless die if
they dare to love the mortal.  Now, Chaldean, behold my boons!
Now I seize and wrap thee with the pestilence of my presence;
now, evermore, till thy long race is run, mine eyes shall glow
into thy brain, and mine arms shall clasp thee, when thou wouldst
take the wings of the Morning and flee from the embrace of
Night!"

"I tell thee, no!  And again I compel thee, speak and answer to
the lord who can command his slave.  I know, though my lore fails
me, and the reeds on which I leaned pierce my side,--I know yet
that it is written that the life of which I question can be saved
from the headsman.  Thou wrappest her future in the darkness of
thy shadow, but thou canst not shape it.  Thou mayest foreshow
the antidote; thou canst not effect the bane.  From thee I wring
the secret, though it torture thee to name it.  I approach thee,
--I look dauntless into thine eyes.  The soul that loves can dare
all things.  Shadow, I defy thee, and compel!"

The spectre waned and recoiled.  Like a vapour that lessens as
the sun pierces and pervades it, the form shrank cowering and
dwarfed in the dimmer distance, and through the casement again
rushed the stars.

"Yes," said the Voice, with a faint and hollow accent, "thou
CANST save her from the headsman; for it is written, that
sacrifice can save.  Ha! ha!"  And the shape again suddenly
dilated into the gloom of its giant stature, and its ghastly
laugh exulted, as if the Foe, a moment baffled, had regained its
might.  "Ha! ha!--thou canst save her life, if thou wilt
sacrifice thine own!  Is it for this thou hast lived on through
crumbling empires and countless generations of thy race?  At last
shall Death reclaim thee?  Wouldst thou save her?--DIE FOR HER!
Fall, O stately column, over which stars yet unformed may gleam,
--fall, that the herb at thy base may drink a few hours longer
the sunlight and the dews!  Silent!  Art thou ready for the
sacrifice?  See, the moon moves up through heaven.  Beautiful and
wise one, wilt thou bid her smile to-morrow on thy headless
clay?"

"Back! for my soul, in answering thee from depths where thou
canst not hear it, has regained its glory; and I hear the wings
of Adon-Ai gliding musical through the air."

He spoke; and, with a low shriek of baffled rage and hate, the
Thing was gone, and through the room rushed, luminous and sudden,
the Presence of silvery light.

As the heavenly visitor stood in the atmosphere of his own
lustre, and looked upon the face of the Theurgist with an aspect
of ineffable tenderness and love, all space seemed lighted from
his smile.  Along the blue air without, from that chamber in
which his wings had halted, to the farthest star in the azure
distance, it seemed as if the track of his flight were visible,
by a lengthened splendour in the air, like the column of
moonlight on the sea.  Like the flower that diffuses perfume as
the very breath of its life, so the emanation of that presence
was joy.  Over the world, as a million times swifter than light,
than electricity, the Son of Glory had sped his way to the side
of love, his wings had scattered delight as the morning scatters
dew.  For that brief moment, Poverty had ceased to mourn, Disease
fled from its prey, and Hope breathed a dream of Heaven into the
darkness of Despair.

"Thou art right," said the melodious Voice.  "Thy courage has
restored thy power.  Once more, in the haunts of earth, thy soul
charms me to thy side.  Wiser now, in the moment when thou
comprehendest Death, than when thy unfettered spirit learned the
solemn mystery of Life; the human affections that thralled and
humbled thee awhile bring to thee, in these last hours of thy
mortality, the sublimest heritage of thy race,--the eternity that
commences from the grave."

"O Adon-Ai," said the Chaldean, as, circumfused in the splendour
of the visitant, a glory more radiant than human beauty settled
round his form, and seemed already to belong to the eternity of
which the Bright One spoke, "as men, before they die, see and
comprehend the enigmas hidden from them before (The greatest
poet, and one of the noblest thinkers, of the last age, said, on
his deathbed, "Many things obscure to me before, now clear up,
and become visible."--See the "Life of Schiller."), so in this
hour, when the sacrifice of self to another brings the course of
ages to its goal, I see the littleness of Life, compared to the
majesty of Death; but oh, Divine Consoler, even here, even in thy
presence, the affections that inspire me, sadden.  To leave
behind me in this bad world, unaided, unprotected, those for whom
I die! the wife! the child!--oh, speak comfort to me in this!"

"And what," said the visitor, with a slight accent of reproof in
the tone of celestial pity,--"what, with all thy wisdom and thy
starry secrets, with all thy empire of the past, and thy visions
of the future; what art thou to the All-Directing and Omniscient?
Canst thou yet imagine that thy presence on earth can give to the
hearts thou lovest the shelter which the humblest take from the
wings of the Presence that lives in heaven?  Fear not thou for
their future.  Whether thou live or die, their future is the care
of the Most High!  In the dungeon and on the scaffold looks
everlasting the Eye of HIM, tenderer than thou to love, wiser
than thou to guide, mightier than thou to save!"

Zanoni bowed his head; and when he looked up again, the last
shadow had left his brow.  The visitor was gone; but still the
glory of his presence seemed to shine upon the spot, still the
solitary air seemed to murmur with tremulous delight.  And thus
ever shall it be with those who have once, detaching themselves
utterly from life, received the visit of the Angel FAITH.
Solitude and space retain the splendour, and it settles like a
halo round their graves.


CHAPTER 7.XIV.

Dann zur Blumenflor der Sterne
Aufgeschauet liebewarm,
Fass' ihn freundlich Arm in Arm
Trag' ihn in die blaue Ferne.
Uhland, "An den Tod."

Then towards the Garden of the Star
Lift up thine aspect warm with love,
And, friendlike link'd through space afar,
Mount with him, arm in arm, above.
Uhland, "Poem to Death."

He stood upon the lofty balcony that overlooked the quiet city.
Though afar, the fiercest passions of men were at work on the web
of strife and doom, all that gave itself to his view was calm and
still in the rays of the summer moon, for his soul was wrapped
from man and man's narrow sphere, and only the serener glories of
creation were present to the vision of the seer.  There he stood,
alone and thoughtful, to take the last farewell of the wondrous
life that he had known.

Coursing through the fields of space, he beheld the gossamer
shapes, whose choral joys his spirit had so often shared.  There,
group upon group, they circled in the starry silence multiform in
the unimaginable beauty of a being fed by ambrosial dews and
serenest light.  In his trance, all the universe stretched
visible beyond; in the green valleys afar, he saw the dances of
the fairies; in the bowels of the mountains, he beheld the race
that breathe the lurid air of the volcanoes, and hide from the
light of heaven; on every leaf in the numberless forests, in
every drop of the unmeasured seas, he surveyed its separate and
swarming world; far up, in the farthest blue, he saw orb upon orb
ripening into shape, and planets starting from the central fire,
to run their day of ten thousand years.  For everywhere in
creation is the breath of the Creator, and in every spot where
the breath breathes is life!  And alone, in the distance, the
lonely man beheld his Magian brother.  There, at work with his
numbers and his Cabala, amidst the wrecks of Rome, passionless
and calm, sat in his cell the mystic Mejnour,--living on, living
ever while the world lasts, indifferent whether his knowledge
produces weal or woe; a mechanical agent of a more tender and a
wiser will, that guides every spring to its inscrutable designs.
Living on,--living ever,--as science that cares alone for
knowledge, and halts not to consider how knowledge advances
happiness; how Human Improvement, rushing through civilisation,
crushes in its march all who cannot grapple to its wheels ("You
colonise the lands of the savage with the Anglo-Saxon,--you
civilise that portion of THE EARTH; but is the SAVAGE civilised?
He is exterminated!  You accumulate machinery,--you increase the
total of wealth; but what becomes of the labour you displace?
One generation is sacrificed to the next.  You diffuse
knowledge,--and the world seems to grow brighter; but Discontent
at Poverty replaces Ignorance, happy with its crust.  Every
improvement, every advancement in civilisation, injures some, to
benefit others, and either cherishes the want of to-day, or
prepares the revolution of to-morrow."--Stephen Montague.); ever,
with its Cabala and its number, lives on to change, in its
bloodless movements, the face of the habitable world!

And, "Oh, farewell to life!" murmured the glorious dreamer.
"Sweet, O life! hast thou been to me.  How fathomless thy joys,--
how rapturously has my soul bounded forth upon the upward paths!
To him who forever renews his youth in the clear fount of Nature,
how exquisite is the mere happiness TO BE!  Farewell, ye lamps of
heaven, and ye million tribes, the Populace of Air.  Not a mote
in the beam, not an herb on the mountain, not a pebble on the
shore, not a seed far-blown into the wilderness, but contributed
to the lore that sought in all the true principle of life, the
Beautiful, the Joyous, the Immortal.  To others, a land, a city,
a hearth, has been a home; MY home has been wherever the
intellect could pierce, or the spirit could breathe the air."

He paused, and through the immeasurable space his eyes and his
heart, penetrating the dismal dungeon, rested on his child.  He
saw it slumbering in the arms of the pale mother, and HIS soul
spoke to the sleeping soul.  "Forgive me, if my desire was sin; I
dreamed to have reared and nurtured thee to the divinest
destinies my visions could foresee.  Betimes, as the mortal part
was strengthened against disease, to have purified the spiritual
from every sin; to have led thee, heaven upon heaven, through the
holy ecstasies which make up the existence of the orders that
dwell on high; to have formed, from thy sublime affections, the
pure and ever-living communication between thy mother and myself.
The dream was but a dream--it is no more!  In sight myself of the
grave, I feel, at last, that through the portals of the grave
lies the true initiation into the holy and the wise.  Beyond
those portals I await ye both, beloved pilgrims!"

From his numbers and his Cabala, in his cell, amidst the wrecks
of Rome, Mejnour, startled, looked up, and through the spirit,
felt that the spirit of his distant friend addressed him.

"Fare thee well forever upon this earth!  Thy last companion
forsakes thy side.  Thine age survives the youth of all; and the
Final Day shall find thee still the contemplator of our tombs.  I
go with my free will into the land of darkness; but new suns and
systems blaze around us from the grave.  I go where the souls of
those for whom I resign the clay shall be my co-mates through
eternal youth.  At last I recognise the true ordeal and the real
victory.  Mejnour, cast down thy elixir; lay by thy load of
years!  Wherever the soul can wander, the Eternal Soul of all
things protects it still!"


CHAPTER 7.XV.

Il ne veulent plus perdre un moment d'une nuit si precieuse.
Lacretelle, tom. xii.

(They would not lose another moment of so precious a night.)

It was late that night, and Rene-Francois Dumas, President of the
Revolutionary Tribunal, had re-entered his cabinet, on his return
from the Jacobin Club.  With him were two men who might be said
to represent, the one the moral, the other the physical force of
the Reign of Terror:  Fouquier-Tinville, the Public Accuser, and
Francois Henriot, the General of the Parisian National Guard.
This formidable triumvirate were assembled to debate on the
proceedings of the next day; and the three sister-witches over
their hellish caldron were scarcely animated by a more fiend-like
spirit, or engaged in more execrable designs, than these three
heroes of the Revolution in their premeditated massacre of the
morrow.

Dumas was but little altered in appearance since, in the earlier
part of this narrative, he was presented to the reader, except
that his manner was somewhat more short and severe, and his eye
yet more restless.  But he seemed almost a superior being by the
side of his associates.  Rene Dumas, born of respectable parents,
and well educated, despite his ferocity, was not without a
certain refinement, which perhaps rendered him the more
acceptable to the precise and formal Robespierre.  (Dumas was a
beau in his way.  His gala-dress was a BLOOD-RED COAT, with the
finest ruffles.)  But Henriot had been a lackey, a thief, a spy
of the police; he had drunk the blood of Madame de Lamballe, and
had risen to his present rank for no quality but his ruffianism;
and Fouquier-Tinville, the son of a provincial agriculturist, and
afterwards a clerk at the Bureau of the Police, was little less
base in his manners, and yet more, from a certain loathsome
buffoonery, revolting in his speech,--bull-headed, with black,
sleek hair, with a narrow and livid forehead, with small eyes,
that twinkled with a sinister malice; strongly and coarsely
built, he looked what he was, the audacious bully of a lawless
and relentless Bar.

Dumas trimmed the candles, and bent over the list of the victims
for the morrow.

"It is a long catalogue," said the president; "eighty trials for
one day!  And Robespierre's orders to despatch the whole fournee
are unequivocal."

"Pooh!" said Fouquier, with a coarse, loud laugh; "we must try
them en masse.  I know how to deal with our jury.  'Je pense,
citoyens, que vous etes convaincus du crime des accuses?' (I
think, citizens, that you are convinced of the crime of the
accused.)  Ha! ha!--the longer the list, the shorter the work."

"Oh, yes," growled out Henriot, with an oath,--as usual, half-
drunk, and lolling on his chair, with his spurred heels on the
table,--"little Tinville is the man for despatch."

"Citizen Henriot," said Dumas, gravely, "permit me to request
thee to select another footstool; and for the rest, let me warn
thee that to-morrow is a critical and important day; one that
will decide the fate of France."

"A fig for little France!  Vive le Vertueux Robespierre, la
Colonne de la Republique! (Long life to the virtuous Robespierre,
the pillar of the Republic!)  Plague on this talking; it is dry
work.  Hast thou no eau de vie in that little cupboard?"

Dumas and Fouquier exchanged looks of disgust.  Dumas shrugged
his shoulders, and replied,--

"It is to guard thee against eau de vie, Citizen General Henriot,
that I have requested thee to meet me here.  Listen if thou
canst!"

"Oh, talk away! thy metier is to talk, mine to fight and to
drink."

"To-morrow, I tell thee then, the populace will be abroad; all
factions will be astir.  It is probable enough that they will
even seek to arrest our tumbrils on their way to the guillotine.
Have thy men armed and ready; keep the streets clear; cut down
without mercy whomsoever may obstruct the ways."

"I understand," said Henriot, striking his sword so loudly that
Dumas half-started at the clank,--"Black Henriot is no
'Indulgent.'"

"Look to it, then, citizen,--look to it!  And hark thee," he
added, with a grave and sombre brow, "if thou wouldst keep thine
own head on thy shoulders, beware of the eau de vie."

"My own head!--sacre mille tonnerres!  Dost thou threaten the
general of the Parisian army?"

Dumas, like Robespierre, a precise atrabilious, and arrogant man,
was about to retort, when the craftier Tinville laid his hand on
his arm, and, turning to the general, said, "My dear Henriot, thy
dauntless republicanism, which is too ready to give offence, must
learn to take a reprimand from the representative of Republican
Law.  Seriously, mon cher, thou must be sober for the next three
or four days; after the crisis is over, thou and I will drink a
bottle together.  Come, Dumas relax thine austerity, and shake
hands with our friend.  No quarrels amongst ourselves!"

Dumas hesitated, and extended his hand, which the ruffian
clasped; and, maudlin tears succeeding his ferocity, he half-
sobbed, half-hiccoughed forth his protestations of civism and his
promises of sobriety.

"Well, we depend on thee, mon general," said Dumas; "and now,
since we shall all have need of vigour for to-morrow, go home and
sleep soundly."

"Yes, I forgive thee, Dumas,--I forgive thee.  I am not
vindictive,--I! but still, if a man threatens me; if a man
insults me--" and, with the quick changes of intoxication, again
his eyes gleamed fire through their foul tears.  With some
difficulty Fouquier succeeded at last in soothing the brute, and
leading him from the chamber.  But still, as some wild beast
disappointed of a prey, he growled and snarled as his heavy tread
descended the stairs.  A tall trooper, mounted, was leading
Henriot's horse to and fro the streets; and as the general waited
at the porch till his attendant turned, a stranger stationed by
the wall accosted him:

"General Henriot, I have desired to speak with thee.  Next to
Robespierre, thou art, or shouldst be, the most powerful man in
France."

"Hem!--yes, I ought to be.  What then?--every man has not his
deserts!"

"Hist!" said the stranger; "thy pay is scarcely suitable to thy
rank and thy wants."

"That is true."

"Even in a revolution, a man takes care of his fortunes!"

"Diable! speak out, citizen."

"I have a thousand pieces of gold with me,--they are thine, if
thou wilt grant me one small favour."

"Citizen, I grant it!" said Henriot, waving his hand
majestically.  "Is it to denounce some rascal who has offended
thee?"

"No; it is simply this:  write these words to President Dumas,
'Admit the bearer to thy presence; and, if thou canst, grant him
the request he will make to thee, it will be an inestimable
obligation to Francois Henriot.'"  The stranger, as he spoke,
placed pencil and tablets in the shaking hands of the soldier.

"And where is the gold?"

"Here."

With some difficulty, Henriot scrawled the words dictated to him,
clutched the gold, mounted his horse, and was gone.

Meanwhile Fouquier, when he had closed the door upon Henriot,
said sharply, "How canst thou be so mad as to incense that
brigand?  Knowest thou not that our laws are nothing without the
physical force of the National Guard, and that he is their
leader?"

"I know this, that Robespierre must have been mad to place that
drunkard at their head; and mark my words, Fouquier, if the
struggle come, it is that man's incapacity and cowardice that
will destroy us.  Yes, thou mayst live thyself to accuse thy
beloved Robespierre, and to perish in his fall."

"For all that, we must keep well with Henriot till we can find
the occasion to seize and behead him.  To be safe, we must fawn
on those who are still in power; and fawn the more, the more we
would depose them.  Do not think this Henriot, when he wakes to-
morrow, will forget thy threats.  He is the most revengeful of
human beings.  Thou must send and soothe him in the morning!"

"Right," said Dumas, convinced.  "I was too hasty; and now I
think we have nothing further to do, since we have arranged to
make short work with our fournee of to-morrow.  I see in the list
a knave I have long marked out, though his crime once procured me
a legacy,--Nicot, the Hebertist."

"And young Andre Chenier, the poet?  Ah, I forgot; we be headed
HIM to-day!  Revolutionary virtue is at its acme.  His own
brother abandoned him." (His brother is said, indeed, to have
contributed to the condemnation of this virtuous and illustrious
person.  He was heard to cry aloud, "Si mon frere est coupable,
qu'il perisse" (If my brother be culpable, let him die).  This
brother, Marie-Joseph, also a poet, and the author of "Charles
IX.," so celebrated in the earlier days of the Revolution,
enjoyed, of course, according to the wonted justice of the world,
a triumphant career, and was proclaimed in the Champ de Mars "le
premier de poetes Francais," a title due to his murdered
brother.)

"There is a foreigner,--an Italian woman in the list; but I can
find no charge made out against her."

"All the same we must execute her for the sake of the round
number; eighty sounds better than seventy-nine!"

Here a huissier brought a paper on which was written the request
of Henriot.

"Ah! this is fortunate," said Tinville, to whom Dumas chucked the
scroll,--"grant the prayer by all means; so at least that it does
not lessen our bead-roll.  But I will do Henriot the justice to
say that he never asks to let off, but to put on.  Good-night!  I
am worn out--my escort waits below.  Only on such an occasion
would I venture forth in the streets at night."  (During the
latter part of the Reign of Terror, Fouquier rarely stirred out
at night, and never without an escort.  In the Reign of Terror
those most terrified were its kings.)  And Fouquier, with a long
yawn, quitted the room.

"Admit the bearer!" said Dumas, who, withered and dried, as
lawyers in practice mostly are, seemed to require as little sleep
as his parchments.

The stranger entered.

"Rene-Francois Dumas," said he, seating himself opposite to the
president, and markedly adopting the plural, as if in contempt of
the revolutionary jargon, "amidst the excitement and occupations
of your later life, I know not if you can remember that we have
met before?"

The judge scanned the features of his visitor, and a pale blush
settled on his sallow cheeks, "Yes, citizen, I remember!"

"And you recall the words I then uttered!  You spoke tenderly and
philanthropically of your horror of capital executions; you
exulted in the approaching Revolution as the termination of all
sanguinary punishments; you quoted reverently the saying of
Maximilien Robespierre, the rising statesman, 'The executioner is
the invention of the tyrant:' and I replied, that while you
spoke, a foreboding seized me that we should meet again when your
ideas of death and the philosophy of revolutions might be
changed!  Was I right, Citizen Rene-Francois Dumas, President of
the Revolutionary Tribunal?"

"Pooh!" said Dumas, with some confusion on his brazen brow, "I
spoke then as men speak who have not acted.  Revolutions are not
made with rose-water!  But truce to the gossip of the long-ago.
I remember, also, that thou didst then save the life of my
relation, and it will please thee to learn that his intended
murderer will be guillotined to-morrow."

"That concerns yourself,--your justice or your revenge.  Permit
me the egotism to remind you that you then promised that if ever
a day should come when you could serve me, your life--yes, the
phrase was, 'your heart's blood'--was at my bidding.  Think not,
austere judge, that I come to ask a boon that can affect
yourself,--I come but to ask a day's respite for another!"

"Citizen, it is impossible!  I have the order of Robespierre that
not one less than the total on my list must undergo their trial
for to-morrow.  As for the verdict, that rests with the jury!"

"I do not ask you to diminish the catalogue.  Listen still!  In
your death-roll there is the name of an Italian woman whose
youth, whose beauty, and whose freedom not only from every crime,
but every tangible charge, will excite only compassion, and not
terror.  Even YOU would tremble to pronounce her sentence.  It
will be dangerous on a day when the populace will be excited,
when your tumbrils may be arrested, to expose youth and innocence
and beauty to the pity and courage of a revolted crowd."

Dumas looked up and shrunk from the eye of the stranger.

"I do not deny, citizen, that there is reason in what thou
urgest.  But my orders are positive."

"Positive only as to the number of the victims.  I offer you a
substitute for this one.  I offer you the head of a man who knows
all of the very conspiracy which now threatens Robespierre and
yourself, and compared with one clew to which, you would think
even eighty ordinary lives a cheap purchase."

"That alters the case," said Dumas, eagerly; "if thou canst do
this, on my own responsibility I will postpone the trial of the
Italian.  Now name the proxy!"

"You behold him!"

"Thou!" exclaimed Dumas, while a fear he could not conceal
betrayed itself through his surprise.  "Thou!--and thou comest to
me alone at night, to offer thyself to justice.  Ha!--this is a
snare.  Tremble, fool!--thou art in my power, and I can have
BOTH!"

"You can," said the stranger, with a calm smile of disdain; "but
my life is valueless without my revelations.  Sit still, I
command you,--hear me!" and the light in those dauntless eyes
spell-bound and awed the judge.  "You will remove me to the
Conciergerie,--you will fix my trial, under the name of Zanoni,
amidst your fournee of to-morrow.  If I do not satisfy you by my
speech, you hold the woman I die to save as your hostage.  It is
but the reprieve for her of a single day that I demand.  The day
following the morrow I shall be dust, and you may wreak your
vengeance on the life that remains.  Tush! judge and condemner of
thousands, do you hesitate,--do you imagine that the man who
voluntarily offers himself to death will be daunted into uttering
one syllable at your Bar against his will?  Have you not had
experience enough of the inflexibility of pride and courage?
President, I place before you the ink and implements!  Write to
the jailer a reprieve of one day for the woman whose life can
avail you nothing, and I will bear the order to my own prison:
I, who can now tell this much as an earnest of what I can
communicate,--while I speak, your own name, judge, is in a list
of death.  I can tell you by whose hand it is written down; I can
tell you in what quarter to look for danger; I can tell you from
what cloud, in this lurid atmosphere, hangs the storm that shall
burst on Robespierre and his reign!"

Dumas grew pale; and his eyes vainly sought to escape the
magnetic gaze that overpowered and mastered him.  Mechanically,
and as if under an agency not his own, he wrote while the
stranger dictated.

"Well," he said then, forcing a smile to his lips, "I promised I
would serve you; see, I am faithful to my word.  I suppose that
you are one of those fools of feeling,--those professors of anti-
revolutionary virtue, of whom I have seen not a few before my
Bar.  Faugh! it sickens me to see those who make a merit of
incivism, and perish to save some bad patriot, because it is a
son, or a father, or a wife, or a daughter, who is saved."

"I AM one of those fools of feeling," said the stranger, rising.
"You have divined aright."

"And wilt thou not, in return for my mercy, utter to-night the
revelations thou wouldst proclaim to-morrow?  Come; and perhaps
thou too--nay, the woman also--may receive, not reprieve, but
pardon."

"Before your tribunal, and there alone!  Nor will I deceive you,
president.  My information may avail you not; and even while I
show the cloud, the bolt may fall."

"Tush! prophet, look to thyself!  Go, madman, go.  I know too
well the contumacious obstinacy of the class to which I suspect
thou belongest, to waste further words.  Diable! but ye grow so
accustomed to look on death, that ye forget the respect ye owe to
it.  Since thou offerest me thy head, I accept it.  To-morrow
thou mayst repent; it will be too late."

"Ay, too late, president!" echoed the calm visitor.

"But, remember, it is not pardon, it is but a day's reprieve, I
have promised to this woman.  According as thou dost satisfy me
to-morrow, she lives or dies.  I am frank, citizen; thy ghost
shall not haunt me for want of faith."

"It is but a day that I have asked; the rest I leave to justice
and to Heaven.  Your huissiers wait below."


CHAPTER 7.XVI.

Und den Mordstahl seh' ich blinken;
Und das Morderauge gluhn!
"Kassandra."

(And I see the steel of Murder glitter,
And the eye of Murder glow.)

Viola was in the prison that opened not but for those already
condemned before adjudged.  Since her exile from Zanoni, her very
intellect had seemed paralysed.  All that beautiful exuberance of
fancy which, if not the fruit of genius, seemed its blossoms; all
that gush of exquisite thought which Zanoni had justly told her
flowed with mysteries and subtleties ever new to him, the wise
one,--all were gone, annihilated; the blossom withered, the fount
dried up.  From something almost above womanhood, she seemed
listlessly to sink into something below childhood.  With the
inspirer the inspirations had ceased; and, in deserting love,
genius also was left behind.

She scarcely comprehended why she had been thus torn from her
home and the mechanism of her dull tasks.  She scarcely knew what
meant those kindly groups, that, struck with her exceeding
loveliness, had gathered round her in the prison, with mournful
looks, but with words of comfort.  She, who had hitherto been
taught to abhor those whom Law condemns for crime, was amazed to
hear that beings thus compassionate and tender, with cloudless
and lofty brows, with gallant and gentle mien, were criminals for
whom Law had no punishment short of death.  But they, the
savages, gaunt and menacing, who had dragged her from her home,
who had attempted to snatch from her the infant while she clasped
it in her arms, and laughed fierce scorn at her mute, quivering
lips,--THEY were the chosen citizens, the men of virtue, the
favourites of Power, the ministers of Law!  Such thy black
caprices, O thou, the ever-shifting and calumnious,--Human
Judgment!

A squalid, and yet a gay world, did the prison-houses of that day
present.  There, as in the sepulchre to which they led, all ranks
were cast with an even-handed scorn.  And yet there, the
reverence that comes from great emotions restored Nature's first
and imperishable, and most lovely, and most noble Law,--THE
INEQUALITY BETWEEN MAN AND MAN!  There, place was given by the
prisoners, whether royalists or sans-culottes, to Age, to
Learning, to Renown, to Beauty; and Strength, with its own inborn
chivalry, raised into rank the helpless and the weak.  The iron
sinews and the Herculean shoulders made way for the woman and the
child; and the graces of Humanity, lost elsewhere, sought their
refuge in the abode of Terror.

"And wherefore, my child, do they bring thee hither?" asked an
old, grey-haired priest.

"I cannot guess."

"Ah, if you know not your offence, fear the worst!"

"And my child?"--for the infant was still suffered to rest upon
her bosom.

"Alas, young mother, they will suffer thy child to live.'

"And for this,--an orphan in the dungeon!" murmured the accusing
heart of Viola,--"have I reserved his offspring!  Zanoni, even in
thought, ask not--ask not what I have done with the child I bore
thee!"

Night came; the crowd rushed to the grate to hear the muster-
roll.  (Called, in the mocking jargon of the day, "The Evening
Gazette.")  Her name was with the doomed.  And the old priest,
better prepared to die, but reserved from the death-list, laid
his hands on her head, and blessed her while he wept.  She heard,
and wondered; but she did not weep.  With downcast eyes, with
arms folded on her bosom, she bent submissively to the call.  But
now another name was uttered; and a man, who had pushed rudely
past her to gaze or to listen, shrieked out a howl of despair and
rage.  She turned, and their eyes met.  Through the distance of
time she recognised that hideous aspect.  Nicot's face settled
back into its devilish sneer.  "At least, gentle Neapolitan, the
guillotine will unite us.  Oh, we shall sleep well our wedding-
night!"  And, with a laugh, he strode away through the crowd, and
vanished into his lair.

...

She was placed in her gloomy cell, to await the morrow.  But the
child was still spared her; and she thought it seemed as if
conscious of the awful present.  In their way to the prison it
had not moaned or wept.  It had looked with its clear eyes,
unshrinking, on the gleaming pikes and savage brows of the
huissiers.  And now, alone in the dungeon, it put its arms round
her neck, and murmured its indistinct sounds, low and sweet as
some unknown language of consolation and of heaven.  And of
heaven it was!--for, at the murmur, the terror melted from her
soul; upward, from the dungeon and the death,--upward, where the
happy cherubim chant the mercy of the All-loving, whispered that
cherub's voice.  She fell upon her knees and prayed.  The
despoilers of all that beautifies and hallows life had desecrated
the altar, and denied the God!--they had removed from the last
hour of their victims the Priest, the Scripture, and the Cross!
But Faith builds in the dungeon and the lazar-house its sublimest
shrines; and up, through roofs of stone, that shut out the eye of
Heaven, ascends the ladder where the angels glide to and fro,--
PRAYER.

And there, in the very cell beside her own, the atheist Nicot
sits stolid amidst the darkness, and hugs the thought of Danton,
that death is nothingness.  ("Ma demeure sera bientot LE NEANT"
(My abode will soon be nothingness), said Danton before his
judges.))  His, no spectacle of an appalled and perturbed
conscience!  Remorse is the echo of a lost virtue, and virtue he
never knew.  Had he to live again, he would live the same.  But
more terrible than the death-bed of a believing and despairing
sinner that blank gloom of apathy,--that contemplation of the
worm and the rat of the charnel-house; that grim and loathsome
NOTHINGNESS which, for his eye, falls like a pall over the
universe of life.  Still, staring into space, gnawing his livid
lip, he looks upon the darkness, convinced that darkness is
forever and forever!

...

Place, there! place!  Room yet in your crowded cells.  Another
has come to the slaughter-house.

As the jailer, lamp in hand, ushered in the stranger, the latter
touched him and whispered.  The stranger drew a jewel from his
finger.  Diantre, how the diamond flashed in the ray of the lamp!
Value each head of your eighty at a thousand francs, and the
jewel is more worth than all!  The jailer paused, and the diamond
laughed in his dazzled eyes.  O thou Cerberus, thou hast mastered
all else that seems human in that fell employ!  Thou hast no
pity, no love, and no remorse.  But Avarice survives the rest,
and the foul heart's master-serpent swallows up the tribe.  Ha!
ha! crafty stranger, thou hast conquered!  They tread the gloomy
corridor; they arrive at the door where the jailer has placed the
fatal mark, now to be erased, for the prisoner within is to be
reprieved a day.  The key grates in the lock; the door yawns,--
the stranger takes the lamp and enters.


CHAPTER 7.XVII.  The Seventeenth and Last.

Cosi vince Goffredo!
"Ger. Lib." cant. xx.-xliv.

(Thus conquered Godfrey.)

And Viola was in prayer.  She heard not the opening of the door;
she saw not the dark shadow that fell along the floor.  HIS
power, HIS arts were gone; but the mystery and the spell known to
HER simple heart did not desert her in the hours of trial and
despair.  When Science falls as a firework from the sky it would
invade; when Genius withers as a flower in the breath of the icy
charnel,--the hope of a child-like soul wraps the air in light,
and the innocence of unquestioning Belief covers the grave with
blossoms.

In the farthest corner of the cell she knelt; and the infant, as
if to imitate what it could not comprehend, bent its little
limbs, and bowed its smiling face, and knelt with her also, by
her side.

He stood and gazed upon them as the light of the lamp fell calmly
on their forms.  It fell over those clouds of golden hair,
dishevelled, parted, thrown back from the rapt, candid brow; the
dark eyes raised on high, where, through the human tears, a light
as from above was mirrored; the hands clasped, the lips apart,
the form all animate and holy with the sad serenity of innocence
and the touching humility of woman.  And he heard her voice,
though it scarcely left her lips:  the low voice that the heart
speaks,--loud enough for God to hear!

"And if never more to see him, O Father!  Canst Thou not make the
love that will not die, minister, even beyond the grave, to his
earthly fate?  Canst Thou not yet permit it, as a living spirit,
to hover over him,--a spirit fairer than all his science can
conjure?  Oh, whatever lot be ordained to either, grant--even
though a thousand ages may roll between us--grant, when at last
purified and regenerate, and fitted for the transport of such
reunion--grant that we may meet once more!  And for his child,--
it kneels to Thee from the dungeon floor!  To-morrow, and whose
breast shall cradle it; whose hand shall feed; whose lips shall
pray for its weal below and its soul hereafter!"  She paused,--
her voice choked with sobs.

"Thou Viola!--thou, thyself.  He whom thou hast deserted is here
to preserve the mother to the child!"

She started!--those accents, tremulous as her own!  She started
to her feet!--he was there,--in all the pride of his unwaning
youth and superhuman beauty; there, in the house of dread, and in
the hour of travail; there, image and personation of the love
that can pierce the Valley of the Shadow, and can glide, the
unscathed wanderer from the heaven, through the roaring abyss of
hell!

With a cry never, perhaps, heard before in that gloomy vault,--a
cry of delight and rapture, she sprang forward, and fell at his
feet.

He bent down to raise her; but she slid from his arms.  He called
her by the familiar epithets of the old endearment, and she only
answered him by sobs.  Wildly, passionately, she kissed his
hands, the hem of his garment, but voice was gone.

"Look up, look up!--I am here,--I am here to save thee!  Wilt
thou deny to me thy sweet face?  Truant, wouldst thou fly me
still?"

"Fly thee!" she said, at last, and in a broken voice; "oh, if my
thoughts wronged thee,--oh, if my dream, that awful dream,
deceived,--kneel down with me, and pray for our child!"  Then
springing to her feet with a sudden impulse, she caught up the
infant, and, placing it in his arms, sobbed forth, with
deprecating and humble tones, "Not for my sake,--not for mine,
did I abandon thee, but--"

"Hush!" said Zanoni; "I know all the thoughts that thy confused
and struggling senses can scarcely analyse themselves.  And see
how, with a look, thy child answers them!"

And in truth the face of that strange infant seemed radiant with
its silent and unfathomable joy.  It seemed as if it recognised
the father; it clung--it forced itself to his breast, and there,
nestling, turned its bright, clear eyes upon Viola, and smiled.

"Pray for my child!" said Zanoni, mournfully.  "The thoughts of
souls that would aspire as mine are All PRAYER!"  And, seating
himself by her side, he began to reveal to her some of the holier
secrets of his lofty being.  He spoke of the sublime and intense
faith from which alone the diviner knowledge can arise,--the
faith which, seeing the immortal everywhere, purifies and exalts
the mortal that beholds, the glorious ambition that dwells not in
the cabals and crimes of earth, but amidst those solemn wonders
that speak not of men, but of God; of that power to abstract the
soul from the clay which gives to the eye of the soul its subtle
vision, and to the soul's wing the unlimited realm; of that pure,
severe, and daring initiation from which the mind emerges, as
from death, into clear perceptions of its kindred with the
Father-Principles of life and light, so that in its own sense of
the Beautiful it finds its joy; in the serenity of its will, its
power; in its sympathy with the youthfulness of the Infinite
Creation, of which itself is an essence and a part, the secrets
that embalm the very clay which they consecrate, and renew the
strength of life with the ambrosia of mysterious and celestial
sleep.  And while he spoke, Viola listened, breathless.  If she
could not comprehend, she no longer dared to distrust.  She felt
that in that enthusiasm, self-deceiving or not, no fiend could
lurk; and by an intuition, rather than an effort of the reason,
she saw before her, like a starry ocean, the depth and mysterious
beauty of the soul which her fears had wronged.  Yet, when he
said (concluding his strange confessions) that to this life
WITHIN life and ABOVE life he had dreamed to raise her own, the
fear of humanity crept over her, and he read in her silence how
vain, with all his science, would the dream have been.

But now, as he closed, and, leaning on his breast, she felt the
clasp of his protecting arms,--when, in one holy kiss, the past
was forgiven and the present lost,--then there returned to her
the sweet and warm hopes of the natural life, of the loving
woman.  He was come to save her!  She asked not how,--she
believed it without a question.  They should be at last again
united.  They would fly far from those scenes of violence and
blood.  Their happy Ionian isle, their fearless solitudes, would
once more receive them.  She laughed, with a child's joy, as this
picture rose up amidst the gloom of the dungeon.  Her mind,
faithful to its sweet, simple instincts, refused to receive the
lofty images that flitted confusedly by it, and settled back to
its human visions, yet more baseless, of the earthly happiness
and the tranquil home.

"Talk not now to me, beloved,--talk not more now to me of the
past!  Thou art here,--thou wilt save me; we shall live yet the
common happy life, that life with thee is happiness and glory
enough to me.  Traverse, if thou wilt, in thy pride of soul, the
universe; thy heart again is the universe to mine.  I thought but
now that I was prepared to die; I see thee, touch thee, and again
I know how beautiful a thing is life!  See through the grate the
stars are fading from the sky; the morrow will soon be here,--The
MORROW which will open the prison doors!  Thou sayest thou canst
save me,--I will not doubt it now.  Oh, let us dwell no more in
cities!  I never doubted thee in our lovely isle; no dreams
haunted me there, except dreams of joy and beauty; and thine eyes
made yet more beautiful and joyous the world in waking.  To-
morrow!--why do you not smile?  To-morrow, love! is not TO-MORROW
a blessed word!  Cruel! you would punish me still, that you will
not share my joy.  Aha! see our little one, how it laughs to my
eyes!  I will talk to THAT.  Child, thy father is come back!"

And taking the infant in her arms, and seating herself at a
little distance, she rocked it to and fro on her bosom, and
prattled to it, and kissed it between every word, and laughed and
wept by fits, as ever and anon she cast over her shoulder her
playful, mirthful glance upon the father to whom those fading
stars smiled sadly their last farewell.  How beautiful she seemed
as she thus sat, unconscious of the future!  Still half a child
herself, her child laughing to her laughter,--two soft triflers
on the brink of the grave!  Over her throat, as she bent, fell,
like a golden cloud, her redundant hair; it covered her treasure
like a veil of light, and the child's little hands put it aside
from time to time, to smile through the parted tresses, and then
to cover its face and peep and smile again.  It were cruel to
damp that joy, more cruel still to share it.

"Viola," said Zanoni, at last, "dost thou remember that, seated
by the cave on the moonlit beach, in our bridal isle, thou once
didst ask me for this amulet?--the charm of a superstition long
vanished from the world, with the creed to which it belonged.  It
is the last relic of my native land, and my mother, on her
deathbed, placed it round my neck.  I told thee then I would give
it thee on that day WHEN THE LAWS OF OUR BEING SHOULD BECOME THE
SAME."

"I remember it well."

"To-morrow it shall be thine!"

"Ah, that dear to-morrow!"  And, gently laying down her child,--
for it slept now,--she threw herself on his breast, and pointed
to the dawn that began greyly to creep along the skies.

There, in those horror-breathing walls, the day-star looked
through the dismal bars upon those three beings, in whom were
concentrated whatever is most tender in human ties; whatever is
most mysterious in the combinations of the human mind; the
sleeping Innocence; the trustful Affection, that, contented with
a touch, a breath, can foresee no sorrow; the weary Science that,
traversing all the secrets of creation, comes at last to Death
for their solution, and still clings, as it nears the threshold,
to the breast of Love.  Thus, within, THE WITHIN,--a dungeon;
without, the WITHOUT,--stately with marts and halls, with palaces
and temples; Revenge and Terror, at their dark schemes and
counter-schemes; to and fro, upon the tide of the shifting
passions, reeled the destinies of men and nations; and hard at
hand that day-star, waning into space, looked with impartial eye
on the church tower and the guillotine.  Up springs the
blithesome morn.  In yon gardens the birds renew their familiar
song.  The fishes are sporting through the freshening waters of
the Seine.  The gladness of divine nature, the roar and
dissonance of mortal life, awake again:  the trader unbars his
windows; the flower-girls troop gayly to their haunts; busy feet
are tramping to the daily drudgeries that revolutions which
strike down kings and kaisars, leave the same Cain's heritage to
the boor; the wagons groan and reel to the mart; Tyranny, up
betimes, holds its pallid levee; Conspiracy, that hath not slept,
hears the clock, and whispers to its own heart, "The hour draws
near."  A group gather, eager-eyed, round the purlieus of the
Convention Hall; to-day decides the sovereignty of France,--about
the courts of the Tribunal their customary hum and stir.  No
matter what the hazard of the die, or who the ruler, this day
eighty heads shall fall!

...

And she slept so sweetly.  Wearied out with joy, secure in the
presence of the eyes regained, she had laughed and wept herself
to sleep; and still in that slumber there seemed a happy
consciousness that the loved was by,--the lost was found.  For
she smiled and murmured to herself, and breathed his name often,
and stretched out her arms, and sighed if they touched him not.
He gazed upon her as he stood apart,--with what emotions it were
vain to say.  She would wake no more to him; she could not know
how dearly the safety of that sleep was purchased.  That morrow
she had so yearned for,--it had come at last.  HOW WOULD SHE
GREET THE EVE?  Amidst all the exquisite hopes with which love
and youth contemplate the future, her eyes had closed.  Those
hopes still lent their iris-colours to her dreams.  She would
wake to live!  To-morrow, and the Reign of Terror was no more;
the prison gates would be opened,--she would go forth, with their
child, into that summer-world of light.  And HE?--he turned, and
his eye fell upon the child; it was broad awake, and that clear,
serious, thoughtful look which it mostly wore, watched him with a
solemn steadiness.  He bent over and kissed its lips.

"Never more," he murmured, "O heritor of love and grief,--never
more wilt thou see me in thy visions; never more will the light
of those eyes be fed by celestial commune; never more can my soul
guard from thy pillow the trouble and the disease.  Not such as I
would have vainly shaped it, must be thy lot.  In common with thy
race, it must be thine to suffer, to struggle, and to err.  But
mild be thy human trials, and strong be thy spirit to love and to
believe!  And thus, as I gaze upon thee,--thus may my nature
breathe into thine its last and most intense desire; may my love
for thy mother pass to thee, and in thy looks may she hear my
spirit comfort and console her.  Hark! they come!  Yes! I await
ye both beyond the grave!"

The door slowly opened; the jailer appeared, and through the
aperture rushed, at the same instant, a ray of sunlight:  it
streamed over the fair, hushed face of the happy sleeper,--it
played like a smile upon the lips of the child that, still, mute,
and steadfast, watched the movements of its father.  At that
moment Viola muttered in her sleep, "The day is come,--the gates
are open!  Give me thy hand; we will go forth!  To sea, to sea!
How the sunshine plays upon the waters!--to home, beloved one, to
home again!"

"Citizen, thine hour is come!"

"Hist! she sleeps!  A moment!  There, it is done! thank Heaven!--
and STILL she sleeps!"  He would not kiss, lest he should awaken
her, but gently placed round her neck the amulet that would speak
to her, hereafter, the farewell,--and promise, in that farewell,
reunion!  He is at the threshold,--he turns again, and again.
The door closes!  He is gone forever!

She woke at last,--she gazed round.  "Zanoni, it is day!"  No
answer but the low wail of her child.  Merciful Heaven! was it
then all a dream?  She tossed back the long tresses that must
veil her sight; she felt the amulet on her bosom,--it was NO
dream!  "O God! and he is gone!"  She sprang to the door,-- she
shrieked aloud.  The jailer comes.  "My husband, my child's
father?"

"He is gone before thee, woman!"

"Whither?  Speak--speak!"

"To the guillotine!"--and the black door closed again.

It closed upon the senseless!  As a lightning-flash, Zanoni's
words, his sadness, the true meaning of his mystic gift, the very
sacrifice he made for her, all became distinct for a moment to
her mind,--and then darkness swept on it like a storm, yet
darkness which had its light.  And while she sat there, mute,
rigid, voiceless, as congealed to stone, A VISION, like a wind,
glided over the deeps within,--the grim court, the judge, the
jury, the accuser; and amidst the victims the one dauntless and
radiant form.

"Thou knowest the danger to the State,--confess!"

"I know; and I keep my promise.  Judge, I reveal thy doom!  I
know that the Anarchy thou callest a State expires with the
setting of this sun.  Hark, to the tramp without; hark to the
roar of voices!  Room there, ye dead!--room in hell for
Robespierre and his crew!"

They hurry into the court,--the hasty and pale messengers; there
is confusion and fear and dismay!  "Off with the conspirator, and
to-morrow the woman thou wouldst have saved shall die!"

"To-morrow, president, the steel falls on THEE!"

On, through the crowded and roaring streets, on moves the
Procession of Death.  Ha, brave people! thou art aroused at last.
They shall not die!  Death is dethroned!--Robespierre has
fallen!--they rush to the rescue!  Hideous in the tumbril, by the
side of Zanoni, raved and gesticulated that form which, in his
prophetic dreams, he had seen his companion at the place of
death.  "Save us!--save us!" howled the atheist Nicot.  "On,
brave populace! we SHALL be saved!"  And through the crowd, her
dark hair streaming wild, her eyes flashing fire, pressed a
female form, "My Clarence!" she shrieked, in the soft Southern
language native to the ears of Viola; "butcher! what hast thou
done with Clarence?"  Her eyes roved over the eager faces of the
prisoners; she saw not the one she sought.  "Thank Heaven!--thank
Heaven!  I am not thy murderess!"

Nearer and nearer press the populace,--another moment, and the
deathsman is defrauded.  O Zanoni! why still upon THY brow the
resignation that speaks no hope?  Tramp! tramp! through the
streets dash the armed troop; faithful to his orders, Black
Henriot leads them on.  Tramp! tramp! over the craven and
scattered crowd!  Here, flying in disorder,--there, trampled in
the mire, the shrieking rescuers!  And amidst them, stricken by
the sabres of the guard, her long hair blood-bedabbled, lies the
Italian woman; and still upon her writhing lips sits joy, as they
murmur, "Clarence! I have not destroyed thee!"

On to the Barriere du Trone.  It frowns dark in the air,--the
giant instrument of murder!  One after one to the glaive,--
another and another and another!  Mercy!  O mercy!  Is the bridge
between the sun and the shades so brief,--brief as a sigh?
There, there,--HIS turn has come.  "Die not yet; leave me not
behind; hear me--hear me!" shrieked the inspired sleeper.  "What!
and thou smilest still!"  They smiled,--those pale lips,--and
WITH the smile, the place of doom, the headsman, the horror
vanished.  With that smile, all space seemed suffused in eternal
sunshine.  Up from the earth he rose; he hovered over her,--a
thing not of matter, an IDEA of joy and light!  Behind, Heaven
opened, deep after deep; and the Hosts of Beauty were seen, rank
upon rank, afar; and "Welcome!" in a myriad melodies, broke from
your choral multitude, ye People of the Skies,--"welcome!  O
purified by sacrifice, and immortal only through the grave,--this
it is to die."  And radiant amidst the radiant, the IMAGE
stretched forth its arms, and murmured to the sleeper:
"Companion of Eternity!--THIS it is to die!"

...

"Ho! wherefore do they make us signs from the house-tops?
Wherefore gather the crowds through the street?  Why sounds the
bell?  Why shrieks the tocsin?  Hark to the guns!--the armed
clash!  Fellow-captives, is there hope for us at last?"

So gasp out the prisoners, each to each.  Day wanes--evening
closes; still they press their white faces to the bars, and still
from window and from house-top they see the smiles of friends,--
the waving signals!  "Hurrah!" at last,--"Hurrah!  Robespierre is
fallen!  The Reign of Terror is no more!  God hath permitted us
to live!"

Yes; cast thine eyes into the hall where the tyrant and his
conclave hearkened to the roar without!  Fulfilling the prophecy
of Dumas, Henriot, drunk with blood and alcohol, reels within,
and chucks his gory sabre on the floor.  "All is lost!"

"Wretch! thy cowardice hath destroyed us!" yelled the fierce
Coffinhal, as he hurled the coward from the window.

Calm as despair stands the stern St. Just; the palsied Couthon
crawls, grovelling, beneath table; a shot,--an explosion!
Robespierre would destroy himself!  The trembling hand has
mangled, and failed to kill!  The clock of the Hotel de Ville
strikes the third hour.  Through the battered door, along the
gloomy passages, into the Death-hall, burst the crowd.  Mangled,
livid, blood-stained, speechless but not unconscious, sits
haughty yet, in his seat erect, the Master-Murderer!  Around him
they throng; they hoot,--they execrate, their faces gleaming in
the tossing torches!  HE, and not the starry Magian, the REAL
Sorcerer!  And round HIS last hours gather the Fiends he raised!

They drag him forth!  Open thy gates, inexorable prison!  The
Conciergerie receives its prey!  Never a word again on earth
spoke Maximilien Robespierre!  Pour forth thy thousands, and tens
of thousands, emancipated Paris!  To the Place de la Revolution
rolls the tumbril of the King of Terror,--St. Just, Dumas,
Couthon, his companions to the grave!  A woman--a childless
woman, with hoary hair--springs to his side, "Thy death makes me
drunk with joy!"  He opened his bloodshot eyes,--"Descend to hell
with the curses of wives and mothers!"

The headsmen wrench the rag from the shattered jaw; a shriek, and
the crowd laugh, and the axe descends amidst the shout of the
countless thousands, and blackness rushes on thy soul, Maximilien
Robespierre!  So ended the Reign of Terror.

...

Daylight in the prison.  From cell to cell they hurry with the
news,--crowd upon crowd; the joyous captives mingled with the
very jailers, who, for fear, would fain seem joyous too; they
stream through the dens and alleys of the grim house they will
shortly leave.  They burst into a cell, forgotten since the
previous morning.  They found there a young female, sitting upon
her wretched bed; her arms crossed upon her bosom, her face
raised upward; the eyes unclosed, and a smile of more than
serenity--of bliss--upon her lips.  Even in the riot of their
joy, they drew back in astonishment and awe.  Never had they seen
life so beautiful; and as they crept nearer, and with noiseless
feet, they saw that the lips breathed not, that the repose was of
marble, that the beauty and the ecstasy were of death.  They
gathered round in silence; and lo! at her feet there was a young
infant, who, wakened by their tread, looked at them steadfastly,
and with its rosy fingers played with its dead mother's robe.  An
orphan there in a dungeon vault!

"Poor one!" said a female (herself a parent), "and they say the
father fell yesterday; and now the mother!  Alone in the world,
what can be its fate?"

The infant smiled fearlessly on the crowd, as the woman spoke
thus.  And the old priest, who stood amongst them, said gently,
"Woman, see! the orphan smiles!  THE FATHERLESS ARE THE CARE OF
GOD!"

---------


NOTE.

The curiosity which Zanoni has excited among those who think it
worth while to dive into the subtler meanings they believe it
intended to convey, may excuse me in adding a few words, not in
explanation of its mysteries, but upon the principles which
permit them.  Zanoni is not, as some have supposed, an allegory;
but beneath the narrative it relates, TYPICAL meanings are
concealed.  It is to be regarded in two characters, distinct yet
harmonious,--1st, that of the simple and objective fiction, in
which (once granting the license of the author to select a
subject which is, or appears to be, preternatural) the reader
judges the writer by the usual canons,--namely, by the
consistency of his characters under such admitted circumstances,
the interest of his story, and the coherence of his plot; of the
work regarded in this view, it is not my intention to say
anything, whether in exposition of the design, or in defence of
the execution.  No typical meanings (which, in plain terms are
but moral suggestions, more or less numerous, more or less
subtle) can afford just excuse to a writer of fiction, for the
errors he should avoid in the most ordinary novel.  We have no
right to expect the most ingenious reader to search for the inner
meaning, if the obvious course of the narrative be tedious and
displeasing.  It is, on the contrary, in proportion as we are
satisfied with the objective sense of a work of imagination, that
we are inclined to search into its depths for the more secret
intentions of the author.  Were we not so divinely charmed with
"Faust," and "Hamlet," and "Prometheus," so ardently carried on
by the interest of the story told to the common understanding, we
should trouble ourselves little with the types in each which all
of us can detect,--none of us can elucidate; none elucidate, for
the essence of type is mystery.  We behold the figure, we cannot
lift the veil.  The author himself is not called upon to explain
what he designed.  An allegory is a personation of distinct and
definite things,--virtues or qualities,--and the key can be given
easily; but a writer who conveys typical meanings, may express
them in myriads.  He cannot disentangle all the hues which
commingle into the light he seeks to cast upon truth; and
therefore the great masters of this enchanted soil,--Fairyland of
Fairyland, Poetry imbedded beneath Poetry,--wisely leave to each
mind to guess at such truths as best please or instruct it.  To
have asked Goethe to explain the "Faust" would have entailed as
complex and puzzling an answer as to have asked Mephistopheles to
explain what is beneath the earth we tread on.  The stores
beneath may differ for every passenger; each step may require a
new description; and what is treasure to the geologist may be
rubbish to the miner.  Six worlds may lie under a sod, but to the
common eye they are but six layers of stone.

Art in itself, if not necessarily typical, is essentially a
suggester of something subtler than that which it embodies to the
sense.  What Pliny tells us of a great painter of old, is true of
most great painters; "their works express something beyond the
works,"--"more felt than understood."  This belongs to the
concentration of intellect which high art demands, and which, of
all the arts, sculpture best illustrates.  Take Thorwaldsen's
Statue of Mercury,--it is but a single figure, yet it tells to
those conversant with mythology a whole legend.  The god has
removed the pipe from his lips, because he has already lulled to
sleep the Argus, whom you do not see.  He is pressing his heel
against his sword, because the moment is come when he may slay
his victim.  Apply the principle of this noble concentration of
art to the moral writer:  he, too, gives to your eye but a single
figure; yet each attitude, each expression, may refer to events
and truths you must have the learning to remember, the acuteness
to penetrate, or the imagination to conjecture.  But to a
classical judge of sculpture, would not the exquisite pleasure of
discovering the all not told in Thorwaldsen's masterpiece be
destroyed if the artist had engraved in detail his meaning at the
base of the statue?  Is it not the same with the typical sense
which the artist in words conveys?  The pleasure of divining art
in each is the noble exercise of all by whom art is worthily
regarded.

We of the humbler race not unreasonably shelter ourselves under
the authority of the masters, on whom the world's judgment is
pronounced; and great names are cited, not with the arrogance of
equals, but with the humility of inferiors.

The author of Zanoni gives, then, no key to mysteries, be they
trivial or important, which may be found in the secret chambers
by those who lift the tapestry from the wall; but out of the many
solutions of the main enigma--if enigma, indeed, there be--which
have been sent to him, he ventures to select the one which he
subjoins, from the ingenuity and thought which it displays, and
from respect for the distinguished writer (one of the most
eminent our time has produced) who deemed him worthy of an honour
he is proud to display.  He leaves it to the reader to agree
with, or dissent from the explanation.  "A hundred men," says the
old Platonist, "may read the book by the help of the same lamp,
yet all may differ on the text, for the lamp only lights the
characters,--the mind must divine the meaning."  The object of a
parable is not that of a problem; it does not seek to convince,
but to suggest.  It takes the thought below the surface of the
understanding to the deeper intelligence which the world rarely
tasks.  It is not sunlight on the water; it is a hymn chanted to
the nymph who hearkens and awakes below.

...

"ZANONI EXPLAINED.

BY--."

MEJNOUR:--Contemplation of the Actual,--SCIENCE.  Always old, and
must last as long as the Actual.  Less fallible than Idealism,
but less practically potent, from its ignorance of the human
heart.

ZANONI:--Contemplation of the Ideal,--IDEALISM.  Always
necessarily sympathetic:  lives by enjoyment; and is therefore
typified by eternal youth.  ("I do not understand the making
Idealism less undying (on this scene of existence) than
Science."--Commentator.  Because, granting the above premises,
Idealism is more subjected than Science to the Affections, or to
Instinct, because the Affections, sooner or later, force Idealism
into the Actual, and in the Actual its immortality departs.  The
only absolutely Actual portion of the work is found in the
concluding scenes that depict the Reign of Terror.  The
introduction of this part was objected to by some as out of
keeping with the fanciful portions that preceded it.  But if the
writer of the solution has rightly shown or suggested the
intention of the author, the most strongly and rudely actual
scene of the age in which the story is cast was the necessary and
harmonious completion of the whole.  The excesses and crimes of
Humanity are the grave of the Ideal.-- Author.)  Idealism is the
potent Interpreter and Prophet of the Real; but its powers are
impaired in proportion to their exposure to human passion.

VIOLA:--Human INSTINCT.  (Hardly worthy to be called LOVE, as
Love would not forsake its object at the bidding of
Superstition.)  Resorts, first in its aspiration after the Ideal,
to tinsel shows; then relinquishes these for a higher love; but
is still, from the conditions of its nature, inadequate to this,
and liable to suspicion and mistrust.  Its greatest force
(Maternal Instinct) has power to penetrate some secrets, to trace
some movements of the Ideal, but, too feeble to command them,
yields to Superstition, sees sin where there is none, while
committing sin, under a false guidance; weakly seeking refuge
amidst the very tumults of the warring passions of the Actual,
while deserting the serene Ideal,--pining, nevertheless, in the
absence of the Ideal, and expiring (not perishing, but becoming
transmuted) in the aspiration after having the laws of the two
natures reconciled.

(It might best suit popular apprehension to call these three the
Understanding, the Imagination, and the Heart.)

CHILD:--NEW-BORN INSTINCT, while trained and informed by
Idealism, promises a preter-human result by its early,
incommunicable vigilance and intelligence, but is compelled, by
inevitable orphanhood, and the one-half of the laws of its
existence, to lapse into ordinary conditions.

AIDON-AI:--FAITH, which manifests its splendour, and delivers its
oracles, and imparts its marvels, only to the higher moods of the
soul, and whose directed antagonism is with Fear; so that those
who employ the resources of Fear must dispense with those of
Faith.  Yet aspiration holds open a way of restoration, and may
summon Faith, even when the cry issues from beneath the yoke of
fear.

DWELLER OF THE THRESHOLD:--FEAR (or HORROR), from whose
ghastliness men are protected by the opacity of the region of
Prescription and Custom.  The moment this protection is
relinquished, and the human spirit pierces the cloud, and enters
alone on the unexplored regions of Nature, this Natural Horror
haunts it, and is to be successfully encountered only by
defiance,--by aspiration towards, and reliance on, the Former and
Director of Nature, whose Messenger and Instrument of reassurance
is Faith.

MERVALE:--CONVENTIONALISM.

NICOT:--Base, grovelling, malignant PASSION.

GLYNDON:--UNSUSTAINED ASPIRATION:  Would follow Instinct, but is
deterred by Conventionalism, is overawed by Idealism, yet
attracted, and transiently inspired, but has not steadiness for
the initiatory contemplation of the Actual.  He conjoins its
snatched privileges with a besetting sensualism, and suffers at
once from the horror of the one and the disgust of the other,
involving the innocent in the fatal conflict of his spirit.  When
on the point of perishing, he is rescued by Idealism, and, unable
to rise to that species of existence, is grateful to be replunged
into the region of the Familiar, and takes up his rest henceforth
in Custom.  (Mirror of Young Manhood.)

...

ARGUMENT.

Human Existence subject to, and exempt from, ordinary conditions
(Sickness, Poverty, Ignorance, Death).

SCIENCE is ever striving to carry the most gifted beyond ordinary
conditions,--the result being as many victims as efforts, and the
striver being finally left a solitary,--for his object is
unsuitable to the natures he has to deal with.

The pursuit of the Ideal involves so much emotion as to render
the Idealist vulnerable by human passion, however long and well
guarded, still vulnerable,--liable, at last, to a union with
Instinct.  Passion obscures both Insight and Forecast.  All
effort to elevate Instinct to Idealism is abortive, the laws of
their being not coinciding (in the early stage of the existence
of the one).  Instinct is either alarmed, and takes refuge in
Superstition or Custom, or is left helpless to human charity, or
given over to providential care.

Idealism, stripped of in sight and forecast, loses its serenity,
becomes subject once more to the horror from which it had
escaped, and by accepting its aids, forfeits the higher help of
Faith; aspiration, however, remaining still possible, and,
thereby, slow restoration; and also, SOMETHING BETTER.

Summoned by aspiration, Faith extorts from Fear itself the saving
truth to which Science continues blind, and which Idealism itself
hails as its crowning acquisition,--the inestimable PROOF wrought
out by all labours and all conflicts.

Pending the elaboration of this proof,

CONVENTIONALISM plods on, safe and complacent;

SELFISH PASSION perishes, grovelling and hopeless;

INSTINCT sleeps, in order to a loftier waking; and

IDEALISM learns, as its ultimate lesson, that self-sacrifice is
true redemption; that the region beyond the grave is the fitting
one for exemption from mortal conditions; and that Death is the
everlasting portal, indicated by the finger of God,--the broad
avenue through which man does not issue solitary and stealthy
into the region of Free Existence, but enters triumphant, hailed
by a hierarchy of immortal natures.

The result is (in other words), THAT THE UNIVERSAL HUMAN LOT IS,
AFTER ALL, THAT OF THE HIGHEST PRIVILEGE.





End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of Zanoni, by Edward Bulwer Lytton

