Chapter: CHAPTER II



 TITANIA.  If you will patiently dance in our round,
  And see our moon-light revels, go with us.
     MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM

Early on the following morning, the travellers set out for Turin.
The luxuriant plain, that extends from the feet of the Alps to that
magnificent city, was not then, as now, shaded by an avenue of trees
nine miles in length; but plantations of olives, mulberry and palms,
festooned with vines, mingled with the pastoral scenery, through with
the rapid Po, after its descent from the mountains, wandered to meet
the humble Doria at Turin. As they advanced towards this city, the Alps,
seen at some distance, began to appear in all their awful sublimity;
chain rising over chain in long succession, their higher points darkened
by the hovering clouds, sometimes hid, and at others seen shooting up
far above them; while their lower steeps, broken into fantastic forms,
were touched with blue and purplish tints, which, as they changed in
light and shade, seemed to open new scenes to the eye. To the east
stretched the plains of Lombardy, with the towers of Turin rising at a
distance; and beyond, the Apennines, bounding the horizon.

The general magnificence of that city, with its vistas of churches and
palaces, branching from the grand square, each opening to a landscape of
the distant Alps or Apennines, was not only such as Emily had never seen
in France, but such as she had never imagined.

Montoni, who had been often at Turin, and cared little about views of
any kind, did not comply with his wife's request, that they might survey
some of the palaces; but staying only till the necessary refreshments
could be obtained, they set forward for Venice with all possible
rapidity. Montoni's manner, during this journey, was grave, and even
haughty; and towards Madame Montoni he was more especially reserved; but
it was not the reserve of respect so much as of pride and discontent.
Of Emily he took little notice. With Cavigni his conversations were
commonly on political or military topics, such as the convulsed state
of their country rendered at this time particularly interesting, Emily
observed, that, at the mention of any daring exploit, Montoni's eyes
lost their sullenness, and seemed instantaneously to gleam with fire;
yet they still retained somewhat of a lurking cunning, and she sometimes
thought that their fire partook more of the glare of malice than the
brightness of valour, though the latter would well have harmonized with
the high chivalric air of his figure, in which Cavigni, with all his gay
and gallant manners, was his inferior.

On entering the Milanese, the gentlemen exchanged their French hats for
the Italian cap of scarlet cloth, embroidered; and Emily was somewhat
surprised to observe, that Montoni added to his the military plume,
while Cavigni retained only the feather: which was usually worn with
such caps: but she at length concluded, that Montoni assumed this ensign
of a soldier for convenience, as a means of passing with more safety
through a country over-run with parties of the military.

Over the beautiful plains of this country the devastations of war
were frequently visible. Where the lands had not been suffered to lie
uncultivated, they were often tracked with the steps of the spoiler;
the vines were torn down from the branches that had supported them, the
olives trampled upon the ground, and even the groves of mulberry trees
had been hewn by the enemy to light fires that destroyed the hamlets and
villages of their owners. Emily turned her eyes with a sigh from
these painful vestiges of contention, to the Alps of the Grison, that
overlooked them to the north, whose awful solitudes seemed to offer to
persecuted man a secure asylum.

The travellers frequently distinguished troops of soldiers moving at
a distance; and they experienced, at the little inns on the road, the
scarcity of provision and other inconveniences, which are a part of
the consequence of intestine war; but they had never reason to be much
alarmed for their immediate safety, and they passed on to Milan with
little interruption of any kind, where they staid not to survey the
grandeur of the city, or even to view its vast cathedral, which was then
building.

Beyond Milan, the country wore the aspect of a ruder devastation; and
though every thing seemed now quiet, the repose was like that of
death, spread over features, which retain the impression of the last
convulsions.

It was not till they had passed the eastern limits of the Milanese, that
the travellers saw any troops since they had left Milan, when, as the
evening was drawing to a close, they descried what appeared to be an
army winding onward along the distant plains, whose spears and other
arms caught the last rays of the sun. As the column advanced through
a part of the road, contracted between two hillocks, some of the
commanders, on horseback, were distinguished on a small eminence,
pointing and making signals for the march; while several of the officers
were riding along the line directing its progress, according to the
signs communicated by those above; and others, separating from the
vanguard, which had emerged from the pass, were riding carelessly along
the plains at some distance to the right of the army.

As they drew nearer, Montoni, distinguishing the feathers that waved
in their caps, and the banners and liveries of the bands that followed
them, thought he knew this to be the small army commanded by the famous
captain Utaldo, with whom, as well as with some of the other chiefs, he
was personally acquainted. He, therefore, gave orders that the carriages
should draw up by the side of the road, to await their arrival, and
give them the pass. A faint strain of martial music now stole by, and,
gradually strengthening as the troops approached, Emily distinguished
the drums and trumpets, with the clash of cymbals and of arms, that were
struck by a small party, in time to the march.

Montoni being now certain that these were the bands of the victorious
Utaldo, leaned from the carriage window, and hailed their general
by waving his cap in the air; which compliment the chief returned by
raising his spear, and then letting it down again suddenly, while some
of his officers, who were riding at a distance from the troops, came up
to the carriage, and saluted Montoni as an old acquaintance. The captain
himself soon after arriving, his bands halted while he conversed with
Montoni, whom he appeared much rejoiced to see; and from what he said,
Emily understood that this was a victorious army, returning into their
own principality; while the numerous waggons, that accompanied them,
contained the rich spoils of the enemy, their own wounded soldiers, and
the prisoners they had taken in battle, who were to be ransomed when
the peace, then negociating between the neighbouring states, should be
ratified. The chiefs on the following day were to separate, and each,
taking his share of the spoil, was to return with his own band to his
castle. This was therefore to be an evening of uncommon and general
festivity, in commemoration of the victory they had accomplished
together, and of the farewell which the commanders were about to take of
each other.

Emily, as these officers conversed with Montoni, observed with
admiration, tinctured with awe, their high martial air, mingled with
the haughtiness of the nobless of those days, and heightened by the
gallantry of their dress, by the plumes towering on their caps, the
armorial coat, Persian sash, and ancient Spanish cloak. Utaldo, telling
Montoni that his army were going to encamp for the night near a village
at only a few miles distance, invited him to turn back and partake
of their festivity, assuring the ladies also, that they should be
pleasantly accommodated; but Montoni excused himself, adding, that
it was his design to reach Verona that evening; and, after some
conversation concerning the state of the country towards that city, they
parted.

The travellers proceeded without any interruption; but it was some hours
after sun-set before they arrived at Verona, whose beautiful environs
were therefore not seen by Emily till the following morning; when,
leaving that pleasant town at an early hour, they set off for Padua,
where they embarked on the Brenta for Venice. Here the scene was
entirely changed; no vestiges of war, such as had deformed the plains of
the Milanese, appeared; on the contrary, all was peace and elegance. The
verdant banks of the Brenta exhibited a continued landscape of beauty,
gaiety, and splendour. Emily gazed with admiration on the villas of the
Venetian noblesse, with their cool porticos and colonnades, overhung
with poplars and cypresses of majestic height and lively verdure; on
their rich orangeries, whose blossoms perfumed the air, and on the
luxuriant willows, that dipped their light leaves in the wave, and
sheltered from the sun the gay parties whose music came at intervals on
the breeze. The Carnival did, indeed, appear to extend from Venice along
the whole line of these enchanting shores; the river was gay with boats
passing to that city, exhibiting the fantastic diversity of a masquerade
in the dresses of the people within them; and, towards evening, groups
of dancers frequently were seen beneath the trees.

Cavigni, meanwhile, informed her of the names of the noblemen to whom
the several villas they passed belonged, adding light sketches of their
characters, such as served to amuse rather than to inform, exhibiting
his own wit instead of the delineation of truth. Emily was sometimes
diverted by his conversation; but his gaiety did not entertain Madame
Montoni, as it had formerly done; she was frequently grave, and Montoni
retained his usual reserve.

Nothing could exceed Emily's admiration on her first view of Venice,
with its islets, palaces, and towers rising out of the sea, whose clear
surface reflected the tremulous picture in all its colours. The sun,
sinking in the west, tinted the waves and the lofty mountains of Friuli,
which skirt the northern shores of the Adriatic, with a saffron glow,
while on the marble porticos and colonnades of St. Mark were thrown
the rich lights and shades of evening. As they glided on, the grander
features of this city appeared more distinctly: its terraces, crowned
with airy yet majestic fabrics, touched, as they now were, with the
splendour of the setting sun, appeared as if they had been called up
from the ocean by the wand of an enchanter, rather than reared by mortal
hands.

The sun, soon after, sinking to the lower world, the shadow of the earth
stole gradually over the waves, and then up the towering sides of the
mountains of Friuli, till it extinguished even the last upward beams
that had lingered on their summits, and the melancholy purple of evening
drew over them, like a thin veil. How deep, how beautiful was the
tranquillity that wrapped the scene! All nature seemed to repose; the
finest emotions of the soul were alone awake. Emily's eyes filled with
tears of admiration and sublime devotion, as she raised them over the
sleeping world to the vast heavens, and heard the notes of solemn
music, that stole over the waters from a distance. She listened in still
rapture, and no person of the party broke the charm by an enquiry. The
sounds seemed to grow on the air; for so smoothly did the barge glide
along, that its motion was not perceivable, and the fairy city appeared
approaching to welcome the strangers. They now distinguished a female
voice, accompanied by a few instruments, singing a soft and mournful
air; and its fine expression, as sometimes it seemed pleading with the
impassioned tenderness of love, and then languishing into the cadence
of hopeless grief, declared, that it flowed from no feigned sensibility.
Ah! thought Emily, as she sighed and remembered Valancourt, those
strains come from the heart!

She looked round, with anxious enquiry; the deep twilight, that had
fallen over the scene, admitted only imperfect images to the eye, but,
at some distance on the sea, she thought she perceived a gondola: a
chorus of voices and instruments now swelled on the air--so sweet, so
solemn! it seemed like the hymn of angels descending through the silence
of night! Now it died away, and fancy almost beheld the holy choir
reascending towards heaven; then again it swelled with the breeze,
trembled awhile, and again died into silence. It brought to Emily's
recollection some lines of her late father, and she repeated in a low
voice,

     Oft I hear,
 Upon the silence of the midnight air,
 Celestial voices swell in holy chorus
 That bears the soul to heaven!

The deep stillness, that succeeded, was as expressive as the strain
that had just ceased. It was uninterrupted for several minutes, till
a general sigh seemed to release the company from their enchantment.
Emily, however, long indulged the pleasing sadness, that had stolen
upon her spirits; but the gay and busy scene that appeared, as the barge
approached St. Mark's Place, at length roused her attention. The rising
moon, which threw a shadowy light upon the terraces, and illumined
the porticos and magnificent arcades that crowned them, discovered the
various company, whose light steps, soft guitars, and softer voices,
echoed through the colonnades.

The music they heard before now passed Montoni's barge, in one of the
gondolas, of which several were seen skimming along the moon-light sea,
full of gay parties, catching the cool breeze. Most of these had music,
made sweeter by the waves over which it floated, and by the measured
sound of oars, as they dashed the sparkling tide. Emily gazed, and
listened, and thought herself in a fairy scene; even Madame Montoni was
pleased; Montoni congratulated himself on his return to Venice, which
he called the first city in the world, and Cavigni was more gay and
animated than ever.

The barge passed on to the grand canal, where Montoni's mansion was
situated. And here, other forms of beauty and of grandeur, such as her
imagination had never painted, were unfolded to Emily in the palaces of
Sansovino and Palladio, as she glided along the waves. The air bore no
sounds, but those of sweetness, echoing along each margin of the canal,
and from gondolas on its surface, while groups of masks were seen
dancing on the moon-light terraces, and seemed almost to realize the
romance of fairyland.

The barge stopped before the portico of a large house, from whence
a servant of Montoni crossed the terrace, and immediately the party
disembarked. From the portico they passed a noble hall to a stair-case
of marble, which led to a saloon, fitted up in a style of magnificence
that surprised Emily. The walls and ceilings were adorned with
historical and allegorical paintings, in fresco; silver tripods,
depending from chains of the same metal, illumined the apartment, the
floor of which was covered with Indian mats painted in a variety of
colours and devices; the couches and drapery of the lattices were of
pale green silk, embroidered and fringed with green and gold. Balcony
lattices opened upon the grand canal, whence rose a confusion of voices
and of musical instruments, and the breeze that gave freshness to the
apartment. Emily, considering the gloomy temper of Montoni, looked upon
the splendid furniture of this house with surprise, and remembered the
report of his being a man of broken fortune, with astonishment. 'Ah!'
said she to herself, 'if Valancourt could but see this mansion, what
peace would it give him! He would then be convinced that the report was
groundless.'

Madame Montoni seemed to assume the air of a princess; but Montoni was
restless and discontented, and did not even observe the civility of
bidding her welcome to her home.

Soon after his arrival, he ordered his gondola, and, with Cavigni, went
out to mingle in the scenes of the evening. Madame then became serious
and thoughtful. Emily, who was charmed with every thing she saw,
endeavoured to enliven her; but reflection had not, with Madame Montoni,
subdued caprice and ill-humour, and her answers discovered so much of
both, that Emily gave up the attempt of diverting her, and withdrew to
a lattice, to amuse herself with the scene without, so new and so
enchanting.

The first object that attracted her notice was a group of dancers on the
terrace below, led by a guitar and some other instruments. The girl, who
struck the guitar, and another, who flourished a tambourine, passed
on in a dancing step, and with a light grace and gaiety of heart, that
would have subdued the goddess of spleen in her worst humour. After
these came a group of fantastic figures, some dressed as gondolieri,
others as minstrels, while others seemed to defy all description. They
sung in parts, their voices accompanied by a few soft instruments. At a
little distance from the portico they stopped, and Emily distinguished
the verses of Ariosto. They sung of the wars of the Moors against
Charlemagne, and then of the woes of Orlando: afterwards the measure
changed, and the melancholy sweetness of Petrarch succeeded. The
magic of his grief was assisted by all that Italian music and Italian
expression, heightened by the enchantments of Venetian moonlight, could
give.

Emily, as she listened, caught the pensive enthusiasm; her tears flowed
silently, while her fancy bore her far away to France and to Valancourt.
Each succeeding sonnet, more full of charming sadness than the last,
seemed to bind the spell of melancholy: with extreme regret she saw the
musicians move on, and her attention followed the strain till the
last faint warble died in air. She then remained sunk in that pensive
tranquillity which soft music leaves on the mind--a state like that
produced by the view of a beautiful landscape by moon-light, or by the
recollection of scenes marked with the tenderness of friends lost for
ever, and with sorrows, which time has mellowed into mild regret. Such
scenes are indeed, to the mind, like 'those faint traces which the
memory bears of music that is past'.

Other sounds soon awakened her attention: it was the solemn harmony of
horns, that swelled from a distance; and, observing the gondolas arrange
themselves along the margin of the terraces, she threw on her veil, and,
stepping into the balcony, discerned, in the distant perspective of the
canal, something like a procession, floating on the light surface of
the water: as it approached, the horns and other instruments mingled
sweetly, and soon after the fabled deities of the city seemed to have
arisen from the ocean; for Neptune, with Venice personified as
his queen, came on the undulating waves, surrounded by tritons and
sea-nymphs. The fantastic splendour of this spectacle, together with the
grandeur of the surrounding palaces, appeared like the vision of a poet
suddenly embodied, and the fanciful images, which it awakened in Emily's
mind, lingered there long after the procession had passed away. She
indulged herself in imagining what might be the manners and delights of
a sea-nymph, till she almost wished to throw off the habit of mortality,
and plunge into the green wave to participate them.

'How delightful,' said she, 'to live amidst the coral bowers and crystal
caverns of the ocean, with my sister nymphs, and listen to the sounding
waters above, and to the soft shells of the tritons! and then, after
sun-set, to skim on the surface of the waves round wild rocks and along
sequestered shores, where, perhaps, some pensive wanderer comes to weep!
Then would I soothe his sorrows with my sweet music, and offer him from
a shell some of the delicious fruit that hangs round Neptune's palace.'

She was recalled from her reverie to a mere mortal supper, and could
not forbear smiling at the fancies she had been indulging, and at her
conviction of the serious displeasure, which Madame Montoni would have
expressed, could she have been made acquainted with them.

After supper, her aunt sat late, but Montoni did not return, and she
at length retired to rest. If Emily had admired the magnificence of the
saloon, she was not less surprised, on observing the half-furnished
and forlorn appearance of the apartments she passed in the way to her
chamber, whither she went through long suites of noble rooms, that
seemed, from their desolate aspect, to have been unoccupied for many
years. On the walls of some were the faded remains of tapestry; from
others, painted in fresco, the damps had almost withdrawn both colours
and design. At length she reached her own chamber, spacious, desolate,
and lofty, like the rest, with high lattices that opened towards the
Adriatic. It brought gloomy images to her mind, but the view of the
Adriatic soon gave her others more airy, among which was that of the
sea-nymph, whose delights she had before amused herself with picturing;
and, anxious to escape from serious reflections, she now endeavoured
to throw her fanciful ideas into a train, and concluded the hour with
composing the following lines:

     THE SEA-NYMPH

 Down, down a thousand fathom deep,
 Among the sounding seas I go;
 Play round the foot of ev'ry steep
 Whose cliffs above the ocean grow.

 There, within their secret cares,
 I hear the mighty rivers roar;
 And guide their streams through Neptune's waves
 To bless the green earth's inmost shore:

 And bid the freshen'd waters glide,
 For fern-crown'd nymphs of lake, or brook,
 Through winding woods and pastures wide,
 And many a wild, romantic nook.

 For this the nymphs, at fall of eave,
 Oft dance upon the flow'ry banks,
 And sing my name, and garlands weave
 To bear beneath the wave their thanks.

 In coral bow'rs I love to lie,
 And hear the surges roll above,
 And through the waters view on high
 The proud ships sail, and gay clouds move.

 And oft at midnight's stillest hour,
 When summer seas the vessel lave,
 I love to prove my charmful pow'r
 While floating on the moon-light wave.

 And when deep sleep the crew has bound,
 And the sad lover musing leans
 O'er the ship's side, I breathe around
 Such strains as speak no mortal means!

 O'er the dim waves his searching eye
 Sees but the vessel's lengthen'd shade;
 Above--the moon and azure sky;
 Entranc'd he hears, and half afraid!

 Sometimes, a single note I swell,
 That, softly sweet, at distance dies;
 Then wake the magic of my shell,
 And choral voices round me rise!

 The trembling youth, charm'd by my strain,
 Calls up the crew, who, silent, bend
 O'er the high deck, but list in vain;
 My song is hush'd, my wonders end!

 Within the mountain's woody bay,
 Where the tall bark at anchor rides,
 At twilight hour, with tritons gay,
 I dance upon the lapsing tides:

 And with my sister-nymphs I sport,
 Till the broad sun looks o'er the floods;
 Then, swift we seek our crystal court,
 Deep in the wave, 'mid Neptune's woods.

 In cool arcades and glassy halls
 We pass the sultry hours of noon,
 Beyond wherever sun-beam falls,
 Weaving sea-flowers in gay festoon.

 The while we chant our ditties sweet
 To some soft shell that warbles near;
 Join'd by the murmuring currents, fleet,
 That glide along our halls so clear.

 There, the pale pearl and sapphire blue,
 And ruby red, and em'rald green,
 Dart from the domes a changing hue,
 And sparry columns deck the scene.

 When the dark storm scowls o'er the deep,
 And long, long peals of thunder sound,
 On some high cliff my watch I keep
 O'er all the restless seas around:

 Till on the ridgy wave afar
 Comes the lone vessel, labouring slow,
 Spreading the white foam in the air,
 With sail and top-mast bending low.

 Then, plunge I 'mid the ocean's roar,
 My way by quiv'ring lightnings shewn,
 To guide the bark to peaceful shore,
 And hush the sailor's fearful groan.

 And if too late I reach its side
 To save it from the 'whelming surge,
 I call my dolphins o'er the tide,
 To bear the crew where isles emerge.

 Their mournful spirits soon I cheer,
 While round the desert coast I go,
 With warbled songs they faintly hear,
 Oft as the stormy gust sinks low.

 My music leads to lofty groves,
 That wild upon the sea-bank wave;
 Where sweet fruits bloom, and fresh spring roves,
 And closing boughs the tempest brave.

 Then, from the air spirits obey
 My potent voice they love so well,
 And, on the clouds, paint visions gay,
 While strains more sweet at distance swell.

 And thus the lonely hours I cheat,
 Soothing the ship-wreck'd sailor's heart,
 Till from the waves the storms retreat,
 And o'er the east the day-beams dart.

 Neptune for this oft binds me fast
 To rocks below, with coral chain,
 Till all the tempest's over-past,
 And drowning seamen cry in vain.

 Whoe'er ye are that love my lay,
 Come, when red sun-set tints the wave,
 To the still sands, where fairies play;
 There, in cool seas, I love to lave.

 The Montonis and Emily are plowing through this journey. The group stops briefly in Turin, but Montoni won't let them rest long. Emily notices signs of war everywhere in Milan. Not a pretty sight. After leaving Milan, the group spots a band of soldiers. Looks like they're buddies of Montoni's. These aren't just any soldiers: they're headed up by the famous captain Utaldo, a.k.a. Montoni's buddy. Utaldo and Montoni chat for a bit before the group heads on. Finally, the group gets to Venice. Montoni has a barge that they take along the water to his mansion. It's party time in Venice: at Montoni's gorgeous mansion, dancers and musicians frolic about. That's right, Emily's going to write another poem to commemorate it. She's nothing if not predictable.

