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BOOK III - THE CHOICE: CHAPTER 2
"To know Rome is to have assisted at the councils of destiny!" This cry
of a more famous traveller must have struggled for expression in Odo's
breast as the great city, the city of cities, laid her irresistible hold
upon him. His first impression, as he drove in the clear evening light
from the Porta del Popolo to his lodgings in the Via Sistina, was of a
prodigious accumulation of architectural effects, a crowding of century
on century, all fused in the crucible of the Roman sun, so that each
style seemed linked to the other by some subtle affinity of colour.
Nowhere else, surely, is the traveller's first sight so crowded with
surprises, with conflicting challenges to eye and brain. Here, as he
passed, was a fragment of the ancient Servian wall, there a new stucco
shrine embedded in the bricks of a medieval palace; on one hand a lofty
terrace crowned by a row of mouldering busts, on the other a tower with
machicolated parapet, its flanks encrusted with bits of Roman sculpture
and the escutcheons of seventeenth-century Popes. Opposite, perhaps, one
of Fuga's golden-brown churches, with windy saints blowing out of their
niches, overlooked the nereids of a barocco fountain, or an old house
propped itself like a palsied beggar against a row of Corinthian
columns; while everywhere flights of steps led up and down to hanging
gardens or under archways, and each turn revealed some distant glimpse
of convent-walls on the slope of a vineyard or of red-brown ruins
profiled against the dim sea-like reaches of the Campagna.
Afterward, as order was born out of chaos, and he began to thread his
way among the centuries, this first vision lost something of its
intensity; yet it was always, to the last, through the eye that Rome
possessed him. Her life, indeed, as though in obedience to such a
setting, was an external, a spectacular business, from the wild
animation of the cattle-market in the Forum or the hucksters' traffic
among the fountains of the Piazza Navona, to the pompous entertainments
in the cardinals' palaces and the ever-recurring religious ceremonies
and processions. Pius VI., in the reaction from Ganganelli's democratic
ways, had restored the pomp and ceremonial of the Vatican with the
religious discipline of the Holy Office; and never perhaps had Rome been
more splendid on the surface or more silent and empty within. Odo, at
times, as he moved through some assemblage of cardinals and nobles, had
the sensation of walking through a huge reverberating palace, decked out
with all the splendours of art but long since abandoned of men. The
superficial animation, the taste for music and antiquities, all the
dilettantisms of an idle and irresponsible society, seemed to him to
shrivel to dust in the glare of that great past that lit up every corner
of the present.
Through his own connections, and the influence of de Crucis, he saw all
that was best not only among the nobility, but in that ecclesiastical
life now more than ever predominant in Rome. Here at last he was face to
face with the mighty Sphinx, and with the bleaching bones of those who
had tried to guess her riddle. Wherever he went these "lost adventurers"
walked the streets with him, gliding between the Princes of the Church
in the ceremonies of Saint Peter's and the Lateran, or mingling in the
company that ascended the state staircase at some cardinal's levee.
He met indeed many accomplished and amiable ecclesiastics, but it seemed
to him that the more thoughtful among them had either acquired their
peace of mind at the cost of a certain sensitiveness, or had taken
refuge in a study of the past, as the early hermits fled to the desert
from the disorders of Antioch and Alexandria. None seemed disposed to
face the actual problems of life, and this attitude of caution or
indifference had produced a stagnation of thought that contrasted
strongly with the animation of Sir William Hamilton's circle in Naples.
The result in Odo's case was a reaction toward the pleasures of his age;
and of these Rome had but few to offer. He spent some months in the
study of the antique, purchasing a few good examples of sculpture for
the Duke, and then, without great reluctance, set out for Monte Alloro.
Here he found a changed atmosphere. The Duke welcomed him handsomely,
and bestowed the highest praise on the rarities he had collected; but
for the moment the court was ruled by a new favourite, to whom Odo's
coming was obviously unwelcome. This adroit adventurer, whose name was
soon to become notorious throughout Europe, had taken the old prince by
his darling weaknesses, and Odo, having no mind to share in the excesses
of the precious couple, seized the first occasion to set out again on
his travels.
His course had now become one of aimless wandering; for prudence still
forbade his return to Pianura, and his patron's indifference left him
free to come and go as he chose. He had brought from Rome--that albergo
d'ira--a settled melancholy of spirit, which sought refuge in such
distractions as the moment offered. In such a mood change of scene was a
necessity, and he resolved to employ the next months in visiting several
of the mid-Italian cities. Toward Florence he was specially drawn by the
fact that Alfieri now lived there; but, as often happens after such
separations, the reunion was a disappointment. Alfieri, indeed, warmly
welcomed his friend; but he was engrossed in his dawning passion for the
Countess of Albany, and that lady's pitiable situation excluded all
other interests from his mind. To Odo, to whom the years had brought an
increasing detachment, this self-absorption seemed an arrest in growth;
for Alfieri's early worship of liberty had not yet found its destined
channel of expression, and for the moment his enthusiasms had shrunk to
the compass of a romantic adventure. The friends parted after a few days
of unsatisfying intercourse; and it was under the influence of this
final disenchantment that Odo set out for Venice.
It was the vintage season, and the travellers descended from the
Apennines on a landscape diversified by the picturesque incidents of the
grape-gathering. On every slope stood some villa with awnings spread,
and merry parties were picnicking among the vines or watching the
peasants at their work. Cantapresto, who had shown great reluctance at
leaving Monte Alloro, where, as he declared, he found himself as snug as
an eel in a pasty, was now all eagerness to press forward; and Odo was
in the mood to allow any influence to decide his course. He had an
invaluable courier in Cantapresto, whose enormous pretensions generally
assured him the best lodging and the fastest conveyance to be obtained,
and who was never happier than when outwitting a rival emissary, or
bribing a landlord to serve up on Odo's table the repast ordered in
advance for some distinguished traveller. His impatience to reach
Venice, which he described as the scene of all conceivable delights, had
on this occasion tripled his zeal, and they travelled rapidly to Padua,
where he had engaged a burchiello for the passage down the Brenta. Here,
however, he found he had been outdone at his own game; for the servant
of an English Duke had captured the burchiello and embarked his noble
party before Cantapresto reached the wharf. This being the season of the
villeggiatura, when the Venetian nobility were exchanging visits on the
mainland, every conveyance was in motion and no other boat to be had for
a week; while as for the "bucentaur" or public bark, which was just then
getting under way, it was already packed to the gunwale with Jews,
pedlars and such vermin, and the captain swore by the three thousand
relics of Saint Justina that he had no room on board for so much as a
hungry flea.
Odo, who had accompanied Cantapresto to the water-side, was listening to
these assurances and to the soprano's vain invectives, when a
well-dressed young man stepped up to the group. This gentleman, whose
accent and dress showed him to be a Frenchman of quality, told Odo that
he was come from Vicenza, whither he had gone to engage a company of
actors for his friend the Procuratore Bra, who was entertaining a
distinguished company at his villa on the Brenta; that he was now
returning with his players, and that he would be glad to convey Odo so
far on his road to Venice. His friend's seat, he added, was near Oriago,
but a few miles above Fusina, where a public conveyance might always be
found; so that Odo would doubtless be able to proceed the same night to
Venice.
This civil offer Odo at once accepted, and the Frenchman thereupon
suggested that, as the party was to set out the next day at sunrise, the
two should sup together and pass the intervening hours in such
diversions as the city offered. They returned to the inn, where the
actors were also lodged, and Odo's host having ordered a handsome
supper, proposed, with his guest's permission, to invite the leading
members of the company to partake of it. He departed on this errand; and
great was Odo's wonder, when the door reopened, to discover, among the
party it admitted, his old acquaintance of Vercelli, the Count of
Castelrovinato. The latter, whose dress and person had been refurbished,
and who now wore an air of rakish prosperity, greeted him with evident
pleasure, and, while their entertainer was engaged in seating the ladies
of the company, gave him a brief account of the situation.
The young French gentleman (whom he named as the Marquis de
Coeur-Volant) had come to Italy some months previously on the grand
tour, and having fallen a victim to the charms of Venice, had declared
that, instead of continuing on his travels, he meant to complete his
education in that famous school of pleasure. Being master of his own
fortune, he had hired a palace on the Grand Canal, had dispatched his
governor (a simple archaeologist) on a mission of exploration to Sicily
and Greece, and had devoted himself to an assiduous study of Venetian
manners. Among those contributing to his instruction was Mirandolina of
Chioggia, who had just completed a successful engagement at the theatre
of San Moise in Venice. Wishing to detain her in the neighbourhood, her
adorer had prevailed on his friend the Procuratore to give a series of
comedies at his villa of Bellocchio and had engaged to provide him with
a good company of performers. Miranda was of course selected as prima
amorosa; and the Marquess, under Castelrovinato's guidance, had then set
out to collect the rest of the company. This he had succeeded in doing,
and was now returning to Bellocchio, where Miranda was to meet them. Odo
was the more diverted at the hazard which had brought him into such
company, as the Procuratore Bra was one of the noblemen to whom the old
Duke had specially recommended him. On learning this, the Marquess urged
him to present his letter of introduction on arriving at Bellocchio,
where the Procuratore, who was noted for hospitality to strangers, would
doubtless insist on his joining the assembled party. This Odo declined
to do; but his curiosity to see Mirandolina made him hope that chance
would soon throw him in the Procuratore's way.
Meanwhile supper was succeeded by music and dancing, and the company
broke up only in time to proceed to the landing-place where their barge
awaited them. This was a private burchiello of the Procuratore's with a
commodious antechamber for the servants, and a cabin cushioned in
damask. Into this agreeable retreat the actresses were packed with all
their bags and band-boxes; and their travelling-cloaks being rolled into
pillows, they were soon asleep in a huddle of tumbled finery.
Odo and his host preferred to take the air on deck. The sun was rising
above the willow-clad banks of the Brenta, and it was pleasant to glide
in the clear early light past sleeping gardens and villas, and vineyards
where the peasants were already at work. The wind setting from the sea,
they travelled slowly and had full leisure to view the succession of
splendid seats interspersed with gardens, the thriving villages, and the
poplar-groves festooned with vines. Coeur-Volant spoke eloquently of the
pleasures to be enjoyed in this delightful season of the villeggiatura.
"Nowhere," said he, "do people take their pleasures so easily and
naturally as in Venice. My countrymen claim a superiority in this art,
and it may be they possessed it a generation ago. But what a morose
place is France become since philosophy has dethroned enjoyment! If you
go on a visit to one of our noblemen's seats, what do you find there, I
ask? Cards, comedies, music, the opportunity for an agreeable intrigue
in the society of your equals? No--but a hostess engaged in suckling and
bathing her brats, or in studying chemistry and optics with some dirty
school-master, who is given the seat of honour at table and a pavilion
in the park to which he may retire when weary of the homage of the
great; while as for the host, he is busy discussing education or
political economy with his unfortunate guests, if, indeed, he is not
dragging them through leagues of mud and dust to inspect his latest
experiments in forestry and agriculture, or to hear a pack of snuffling
school-children singing hymns to the God of Nature! And what," he
continued, "is the result of it all? The peasants are starving, the
taxes are increasing, the virtuous landlords are ruining themselves in
farming on scientific principles, the tradespeople are grumbling because
the nobility do not spend their money in Paris, the court is dull, the
clergy are furious, the Queen mopes, the King is frightened, and the
whole French people are yawning themselves to death from Normandy to
Provence."
"Yes," said Castelrovinato with his melancholy smile, "the test of
success is to have had one's money's worth; but experience, which is
dried pleasure, is at best a dusty diet, as we know. Yonder, in a fold
of those hills," he added, pointing to the cluster of Euganean mountains
just faintly pencilled above the plain, "lies the little fief from which
I take my name. Acre by acre, tree by tree, it has gone to pay for my
experiments, not in agriculture but in pleasure; and whenever I look
over at it from Venice and reflect on what each rood of ground or trunk
of tree has purchased, I wonder to see my life as bare as ever for all
that I have spent on it."
The young Marquess shrugged his shoulders. "And would your life," he
exclaimed, "have been a whit less bare had you passed it in your
ancestral keep among those windy hills, in the company of swineherds and
charcoal-burners, with a milk-maid for your mistress and the village
priest for your partner at picquet?"
"Perhaps not," the other agreed. "There is a tale of a man who spent his
life in wishing he had lived differently; and when he died he was
surrounded by a throng of spectral shapes, each one exactly like the
other, who, on his asking what they were, replied: 'We are all the
different lives you might have lived.'"
"If you are going to tell ghost-stories," cried Coeur-Volant, "I will
call for a bottle of Canary!"
"And I," rejoined the Count good-humouredly, "will try to coax the
ladies forth with a song;" and picking up his lute, which always lay
within reach, he began to sing in the Venetian dialect:--
There's a villa on the Brenta
Where the statues, white as snow,
All along the water-terrace
Perch like sea-gulls in a row.
There's a garden on the Brenta
Where the fairest ladies meet,
Picking roses from the trellis
For the gallants at their feet.
There's an arbour on the Brenta
Made of yews that screen the light,
Where I kiss my girl at midday
Close as lovers kiss at night.
The players soon emerged at this call and presently the deck resounded
with song and laughter. All the company were familiar with the Venetian
bacaroles, and Castelrovinato's lute was passed from hand to hand, as
one after another, incited by the Marquess's Canary, tried to recall
some favourite measure--"La biondina in gondoleta" or "Guarda, che bella
luna."
Meanwhile life was stirring in the villages and gardens, and groups of
people appearing on the terraces overhanging the water. Never had Odo
beheld a livelier scene. The pillared houses with their rows of statues
and vases, the flights of marble steps descending to the gilded
river-gates, where boats bobbed against the landings and boatmen gasped
in the shade of their awnings; the marble trellises hung with grapes,
the gardens where parterres of flowers and parti-coloured gravel
alternated with the dusk of tunnelled yew-walks; the company playing at
bowls in the long alleys, or drinking chocolate in gazebos above the
river; the boats darting hither and thither on the stream itself, the
travelling-chaises, market-waggons and pannier-asses crowding the
causeway along the bank--all were unrolled before him with as little
effect of reality as the episodes woven in some gaily-tinted tapestry.
Even the peasants in the vineyards seemed as merry and thoughtless as
the quality in their gardens. The vintage-time is the holiday of the
rural year and the day's work was interspersed with frequent intervals
of relaxation. At the villages where the burchiello touched for
refreshments, handsome young women in scarlet bodices came on board with
baskets of melons, grapes, figs and peaches; and under the trellises on
the landings, lads and girls with flowers in their hair were dancing the
monferrina to the rattle of tambourines or the chant of some wandering
ballad-singer. These scenes were so engaging to the comedians that they
could not be restrained from going ashore and mingling in the village
diversions; and the Marquess, though impatient to rejoin his divinity,
was too volatile not to be drawn into the adventure. The whole party
accordingly disembarked, and were presently giving an exhibition of
their talents to the assembled idlers, the Pantaloon, Harlequin and
Doctor enacting a comical intermezzo which Cantapresto had that morning
composed for them, while Scaramouch and Columbine joined the dancers,
and the rest of the company, seizing on a train of donkeys laden with
vegetables for the Venetian market, stripped these patient animals of
their panniers, and mounting them bareback started a Corso around the
village square amid the invectives of the drivers and the applause of
the crowd.
Day was declining when the Marquess at last succeeded in driving his
flock to their fold, and the moon sent a quiver of brightness across the
water as the burchiello touched at the landing of a villa set amid
close-massed foliage high above the river. Gardens peopled with statues
descended from the portico of the villa to the marble platform on the
water's edge, where a throng of boatmen in the Procuratore's livery
hurried forward to receive the Marquess and his companions. The
comedians, sobered by the magnificence of their surroundings, followed
their leader like awe-struck children. Light and music streamed from the
long facade overhead, but the lower gardens lay hushed and dark, the air
fragrant with unseen flowers, the late moon just burnishing the edges of
the laurel-thickets from which, now and again, a nightingale's song
gushed in a fountain of sound. Odo, spellbound, followed the others
without a thought of his own share in the adventure. Never before had
beauty so ministered to every sense. He felt himself lost in his
surroundings, absorbed in the scent and murmur of the night.
Content of BOOK III - THE CHOICE: CHAPTER 2 [Edith Wharton's novel: The Valley Of Decision]
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