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BOOK II - THE NEW LIGHT: CHAPTER 3
2.3.
The night was moonless, with cold dashes of rain, and though the streets
of Turin were well-lit no lantern-ray reached the windings of the lane
behind the Corpus Domini.
As Odo, alone under the wall of the church, awaited his friend's
arrival, he wondered what risk had constrained the reckless Alfieri to
such unwonted caution. Italy was at that time a vast network of
espionage, and the Piedmontese capital passed for one of the
best-policed cities in Europe; but even on a moonless night the law
distinguished between the noble pleasure-seeker and the obscure
delinquent whose fate it was to pay the other's shot. Odo knew that he
would probably be followed and his movements reported to the
authorities; but he was almost equally certain that there would be no
active interference in his affairs. What chiefly puzzled him was
Alfieri's insistence that Cantapresto should not be privy to the
adventure. The soprano had long been the confidant of his pupil's
escapades, and his adroitness had often been of service in intrigues
such as that on which Odo now fancied himself engaged. The place, again,
perplexed him: a sober quarter of convents and private dwellings, in the
very eye of the royal palace, scarce seeming the theatre for a light
adventure. These incongruities revived his former wonder; nor was this
dispelled by Alfieri's approach.
The poet, masked and unattended, rejoined his friend without a word; and
Odo guessed in him an eye and ear alert for pursuit. Guided by the
pressure of his arm, Odo was hurried round the bend of the lane, up a
transverse alley and across a little square lost between high shuttered
buildings. Alfieri, at his first word, gripped his arm with a backward
glance; then urged him on under the denser blackness of an arched
passage-way, at the end of which an oil-light glimmered. Here a gate in
a wall confronted them. It opened at Alfieri's tap and Odo scented wet
box-borders and felt the gravel of a path under foot. The gate was at
once locked behind them and they entered the ground-floor of a house as
dark as the garden. Here a maid-servant of close aspect met them with a
lamp and preceded them upstairs to a bare landing hung with charts and
portulani. On Odo's flushed anticipations this antechamber, which seemed
the approach to some pedant's cabinet, had an effect undeniably
chilling; but Alfieri, heedless of his surprise, had cast off cloak and
mask, and now led the way into a long conventual-looking room lined with
book-shelves. A knot of middle-aged gentlemen of sober dress and manner,
gathered about a cabinet of fossils in the centre of this apartment,
looked up at the entrance of the two friends; then the group divided,
and Odo with a start recognised the girl he had seen on the road to the
Superga.
She bowed gravely to the young men. "My father," said she, in a clear
voice without trace of diffidence, "has gone to his study for a book,
but will be with you in a moment."
She wore a dress in keeping with her manner, its black stuff folds and
the lawn kerchief crossed on her bosom giving height and authority to
her slight figure. The dark unpowdered hair drawn back over a cushion
made a severer setting for her face than the fluctuating brim of her
shade-hat; and this perhaps added to the sense of estrangement with
which Odo gazed at her; but she met his look with a smile, and instantly
the rosy girl flashed through her grave exterior.
"Here is my father," said she; and her companion of the previous day
stepped into the room with several folios under his arm.
Alfieri turned to Odo. "This, my dear Odo," said he, "is my
distinguished friend, Professor Vivaldi, who has done us the honour of
inviting us to his house." He took the Professor's hand. "I have brought
you," he continued, "the friend you were kind enough to include in your
invitation--the Cavaliere Odo Valsecca."
Vivaldi bowed. "Count Alfieri's friends," said he, "are always welcome
to my house; though I fear there is here little to interest a young
gentleman of the Cavaliere Valsecca's years." And Odo detected a shade
of doubt in his glance.
"The Cavaliere Valsecca," Alfieri smilingly rejoined, "is above his
years in wit and learning, and I answer for his interest as I do for his
discretion."
The Professor bowed again. "Count Alfieri, sir," he said, "has doubtless
explained to you the necessity that obliges me to be so private in
receiving my friends; and now perhaps you will join these gentlemen in
examining some rare fossil fish newly sent me from the Monte Bolca."
Odo murmured a civil rejoinder; but the wonder into which the sight of
the young girl had thrown him was fast verging on stupefaction. What
mystery was here? What necessity compelled an elderly professor to
receive his scientific friends like a band of political conspirators?
How above all, in the light of the girl's presence, was Odo to interpret
Alfieri's extravagant allusions to the nature of their visit?
The company having returned to the cabinet of fossils, none seemed to
observe his disorder but the young lady who was its cause; and seeing
him stand apart she advanced with a smile, saying, "Perhaps you would
rather look at some of my father's other curiosities."
Simple as the words were, they failed to restore Odo's self-possession,
and for a moment he made no answer. Perhaps she partly guessed the cause
of his commotion; yet it was not so much her beauty that silenced him,
as the spirit that seemed to inhabit it. Nature, in general so chary of
her gifts, so prone to use one good feature as the palliation of a dozen
deficiencies, to wed the eloquent lip with the ineffectual eye, had
indeed compounded her of all fine meanings, making each grace the
complement of another and every outward charm expressive of some inward
quality. Here was as little of the convent-bred miss as of the flippant
and vapourish fine lady; and any suggestion of a less fair alternative
vanished before such candid graces. Odo's confusion had in truth sprung
from Alfieri's ambiguous hints; and these shrivelling to nought in the
gaze that encountered his, constraint gave way to a sense of wondering
pleasure.
"I should like to see whatever you will show me," said he, as simply as
one child speaking to another; and she answered in the same tone, "Then
we'll glance at my father's collections before the serious business of
the evening begins."
With these words she began to lead him about the room, pointing out and
explaining the curiosities it contained. It was clear that, like many
scholars of his day, Professor Vivaldi was something of an eclectic in
his studies, for while one table held a fine orrery, a cabinet of coins
stood near, and the book-shelves were surmounted by specimens of coral
and petrified wood. Of all these rarities his daughter had a word to
say, and though her explanations were brief and without affectation of
pedantry, they put her companion's ignorance to the blush. It must be
owned, however, that had his learning been a match for hers it would
have stood him in poor stead at the moment; his faculties being lost in
the wonder of hearing such discourse from such lips. To his compliments
on her erudition she returned with a smile that what learning she had
was no merit, since she had been bred in a library; to which she
suddenly added:--"You are not unknown to me, Cavaliere; but I never
thought to see you here."
The words renewed her hearer's surprise; but giving him no time to
reply, she went on in a lower tone:--"You are young and the world is
fair before you. Have you considered that before risking yourself among
us?"
She coloured under Odo's wondering gaze, and at his random rejoinder
that it was a risk any man would gladly take without considering, she
turned from him with a gesture in which he fancied a shade of
disappointment.
By this they had reached the cabinet of fossils, about which the
interest of the other guests still seemed to centre. Alfieri, indeed,
paced the farther end of the room with the air of awaiting the despatch
of some tedious business; but the others were engaged in an animated
discussion necessitating frequent reference to the folios Vivaldi had
brought from his study.
The latter turned to Odo as though to include him in the group. "I do
not know, sir," said he, "whether you have found leisure to study these
enigmas of that mysterious Sphinx, the earth; for though Count Alfieri
has spoken to me of your unusual acquirements, I understand your tastes
have hitherto lain rather in the direction of philosophy and letters;"
and on Odo's prompt admission of ignorance, he courteously continued:
"The physical sciences seem, indeed, less likely to appeal to the
imaginative and poetical faculty in man, and, on the other hand,
religion has appeared to prohibit their too close investigation; yet I
question if any thoughtful mind can enter on the study of these curious
phenomena without feeling, as it were, an affinity between such
investigations and the most abstract forms of thought. For whether we
regard these figured stones as of terriginous origin, either mere lusus
naturae, or mineral formations produced by a plastic virtue latent in
the earth, or whether as in fact organic substances lapidified by the
action of water; in either case, what speculations must their origin
excite, leading us back into that dark and unexplored period of time
when the breath of Creation was yet moving on the face of the waters!"
Odo had listened but confusedly to the first words of this discourse;
but his intellectual curiosity was too great not to respond to such an
appeal, and all his perplexities slipped from him in the pursuit of the
Professor's thought.
One of the other guests seemed struck by his look of attention. "My dear
Vivaldi," said this gentleman, laying down a fossil, and fixing his gaze
on Odo while he addressed the Professor, "why use such superannuated
formulas in introducing a neophyte to a study designed to subvert the
very foundations of the Mosaic cosmogony? I take it the Cavaliere is one
of us, since he is here this evening: why, then, permit him to stray
even for a moment in the labyrinth of theological error?"
The Professor's deprecating murmur was cut short by an outburst from
another of the learned group, a red-faced spectacled personage in a
doctor's gown.
"Pardon me for suggesting," he exclaimed, "that the conditional terms in
which our host was careful to present his hypotheses are better suited
to the instruction of the neophyte than our learned friend's positive
assertions. But if the Vulcanists are to claim the Cavaliere Valsecca,
may not the Diluvials also have a hearing? How often must it be repeated
that theology as well as physical science is satisfied by the Diluvial
explanation of the origin of petrified organisms, whereas inexorable
logic compels the Vulcanists to own that their thesis is subversive of
all dogmatic belief?"
The first speaker answered with a gesture of disdain. "My dear doctor,
you occupy a chair in our venerated University. From that exalted
cathedra the Mosaic theory of Creation must still be expounded; but in
the security of these surroundings--the catacombs of the new faith--why
keep up the forms of an obsolete creed? As long ago as Pythagoras, man
was taught that all things were in a state of flux, without end as
without beginning, and must we still, after more than two thousand
years, pretend to regard the universe as some gigantic toy manufactured
in six days by a Superhuman Artisan, who is presently to destroy it at
his pleasure?"
"Sir," cried the other, flushing from red to purple at this assault, "I
know not on what ground you insinuate that my private convictions differ
from my public doctrine--"
But here, with a firmness tempered by the most scrupulous courtesy,
Professor Vivaldi intervened.
"Gentlemen," said he, "the discussion in which you are engaged,
interesting as it is, must, I fear, distract us from the true purpose of
our meeting. I am happy to offer my house as the asylum of all free
research; but you must remember that the first object of these reunions
is, not the special study of any one branch of modern science, but the
application of physical investigation to the origin and destiny of man.
In other words, we ask the study of nature to lead us to the knowledge
of ourselves; and it is because we approach this great problem from a
point as yet unsanctioned by dogmatic authority, that I am reluctantly
obliged"--and here he turned to Odo with a smile--"to throw a veil of
privacy over these inoffensive meetings."
Here at last was the key to the enigma. The gentlemen assembled in
Professor Vivaldi's rooms were met there to discuss questions not safely
aired in public. They were conspirators indeed, but the liberation they
planned was intellectual rather than political; though the acuter among
them doubtless saw whither such innovations tended. Meanwhile they were
content to linger in that wide field of speculation which the
development of the physical sciences had recently opened to philosophic
thought. As, at the Revival of Learning, the thinker imprisoned in
mediaeval dialectics suddenly felt under his feet the firm ground of
classic argument, so, in the eighteenth century, philosophy, long
suspended in the void of metaphysic, touched earth again and,
Antaeus-like, drew fresh life from the contact. It was clear that
Professor Vivaldi, whose very name had been unknown to Odo, was an
important figure in the learned world, and one uniting the tact and
firmness necessary to control those dissensions from which philosophy
itself does not preserve its disciples. His words calmed the two
disputants who were preparing to do battle over Odo's unborn scientific
creed, and the talk growing more general, the Professor turned to his
daughter, saying, "My Fulvia, is the study prepared?"
She signed her assent, and her father led the way to an inner cabinet,
where seats were drawn about a table scattered with pamphlets, gazettes
and dictionaries, and set out with modest refreshments. Here began a
conversation ranging from chemistry to taxation, and from the
perfectibility of man to the secondary origin of the earth's surface. It
was evident to Odo that, though the Professor's guests represented all
shades of opinion, some being clearly loth to leave the safe anchorage
of orthodoxy, while others already braved the seas of free enquiry, yet
all were at one as to the need of unhampered action and discussion.
Odo's dormant curiosity woke with a start at the summons of fresh
knowledge. Here were worlds to explore, or rather the actual world about
him, a region then stranger and more unfamiliar than the lost Atlantis
of fable. Liberty was the word on every lip, and if to some it
represented the right to doubt the Diluvial origin of fossils, to others
that of reforming the penal code, to a third (as to Alfieri) merely
personal independence and relief from civil restrictions; yet these
fragmentary conceptions seemed, to Odo's excited fancy, to blend in the
vision of a New Light encircling the whole horizon of thought. He
understood at last Alfieri's allusion to a face for the sight of which
men were ready to lay down their lives; and if, as he walked home before
dawn, those heavenly lineaments were blent in memory with features of a
mortal cast, yet these were pure and grave enough to stand for the image
of the goddess.
Content of BOOK II - THE NEW LIGHT: CHAPTER 3 [Edith Wharton's novel: The Valley Of Decision]
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