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THE VISIONARY.
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Stay for me there! I
will not
fail
To meet thee in that hollow vale.
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[Exequy
on the
death of his wife, by Henry King,
Bishop of Chichester.]
 ILL-FATED and mysterious man!
Bewildered in the brilliancy of thine own imagination, and fallen in
the
flames of thine own youth! Again in fancy I behold thee! Once more thy
form hath risen before me! — not — oh not as thou art — in the cold
valley
and shadow — but as thou shouldst be — squandering away a life
of
magnificent meditation in that city of dim visions, thine own Venice —
which is a star beloved elysium of the sea, and the wide windows of
whose
Palladian palaces look down with a deep and bitter meaning upon the
secrets
of her silent waters. Yes! I repeat it — as thou shouldst be.
There
are surely other worlds than this — other thoughts than the thoughts of
the multitude — other speculations than the speculations of the
sophist.
Who then shall call thy conduct into question? who blame thee for [page
194:] thy visionary hours, or denounce those occupations as
a wasting away of life, which were but the overflowings of thine
everlasting
energies?
It was at Venice, beneath the covered
archway
there
called the Ponte di Sospiri, that I met for the third or fourth
time the person of whom I speak. It is with a confused recollection
that
I bring to mind the circumstances of that meeting. Yet I remember — ah!
how should I forget? — the deep midnight, the Bridge of Sighs, the
beauty
of woman, and the demon of romance, who stalked up and down the narrow
canal.
It was a night of unusual gloom. The
great clock
of the piazza had sounded the fifth hour of the Italian evening. The
square
of the Campanile lay silent and deserted, and the lights in the old
Ducal
Palace were dying fast away. I was returning home from the Piazetta, by
way of the Grand Canal. But as my gondola arrived opposite the mouth of
the canal San Marco, a female voice from its recesses broke suddenly
upon
the night, in one wild, hysterical and long continued shriek. Startled
at the sound, I sprang upon my feet: while the gondolier, letting slip
his single oar, lost it in the pitchy darkness beyond a chance of
recovery,
and we were consequently left to the guidance of the current which here
sets from the greater into the smaller channel. Like some huge and
sable-feathered
condor, we were slowly drifting down towards the Bridge of Sighs, when
a thousand flambeaux flashing from the windows, and down the staircases
of the Ducal Palace, turned [page 195:] all at
once
that deep gloom into a livid and supernatural day.
A child, slipping from the arms of
its own
mother,
had fallen from an upper window of the lofty structure into the deep
and
dim canal. The quiet waters had closed placidly over their victim; and,
although my own gondola was the only one in sight, many a stout
swimmer,
already in the stream, was seeking in vain upon the surface, the
treasure
which was to be found, alas! only within the abyss. Upon the broad
black
marble flagstones at the entrance of the palace, and a few steps above
the water, stood a figure which none who then saw can have ever since
forgotten.
It was the Marchesa Aphrodite — the adoration of all Venice — the
gayest
of the gay — the most lovely where all were beautiful — but still the
young
wife of the old and intriguing Mentoni — and the mother of that fair
child,
her first and only one, who now deep beneath the murky water, was
thinking
in bitterness of heart upon her sweet caresses, and exhausting its
little
life in struggles to call upon her name.
She stood alone. Her small, bare, and
silvery
feet
gleamed in the black mirror of marble beneath her. Her hair, not as yet
more than half loosened for the night from its ball-room array,
clustered
amid a shower of diamonds, round and round her classical head, in curls
like the young hyacinth. A snowy-white and gauze-like drapery seemed to
be nearly the sole covering to her delicate form — but the mid-summer [page
196:] and midnight air was hot, sullen, and still, and no
motion
— no shadow of motion in the statue-like form itself, stirred even the
folds
of that raiment of very vapor which hung around it as the heavy marble
hangs around the Niobe. Yet — strange to say! — her large lustrous eyes
were not turned downwards upon that grave wherein her brightest hope
lay
buried — but riveted in a widely different direction! The prison of the
Old Republic is, I think, the stateliest building in all Venice — but
how
could that lady gaze so fixedly upon it, when beneath her lay stifling
her only child? Yon dark, gloomy niche, too, yawns right opposite her
chamber
window — what, then, could there be in its shadows — in its
architecture
— in its ivy-wreathed and solemn cornices that the Marchesa di Mentoni
had not wondered at a thousand times before? Nonsense! Who does not
remember
that, at such a time as this, the eye, like a shattered mirror,
multiplies
the images of its sorrow, and sees in innumerable far off places, the
wo
which is close at hand.
Many steps above the Marchesa, and
within the
arch
of the water-gate, stood in full dress, the Satyr-like figure of
Mentoni
himself. He was occasionally occupied in thrumming a guitar, and seemed
ennuied to the very death, as at intervals he gave
directions for the
recovery
of his child. Stupified and aghast, I had myself no power to move from
the upright position I had assumed upon first hearing the shriek, and
must
have presented to the eyes of the agitated [page 197:]
group, a spectral and ominous appearance, as, with pale countenance and
rigid limbs, I floated down among them in that funereal gondola.
All efforts proved in vain. Many of
the most
energetic
in the search were relaxing their exertions, and yielding to a gloomy
sorrow.
There seemed but little hope for the child — but now, from the interior
of that dark niche which has been already mentioned as forming a part
of
the Old Republican prison, and as fronting the lattice of the Marchesa,
a figure, muffled in a cloak, stepped out within reach of the light,
and,
pausing a moment upon the verge of the giddy descent, plunged headlong
into the canal. As, in an instant afterwards, he stood with the still
living
and breathing child within his grasp, upon the marble flagstones by the
side of the Marchesa, his cloak, heavy with the drenching water, became
unfastened, and, falling in folds about his feet, discovered to the
wonder-stricken
spectators, the graceful person of a very young man, with the sound of
whose name the greater part of Europe was then ringing.
No word spoke the deliverer. But the
Marchesa!
She
will now receive her child — she will press it to her heart — she will
cling to its little form, and smother it with her caresses. Alas! another's
arms have taken it from the stranger — another's arms have
taken
it away, and borne it afar off, unnoticed, into the palace! And the
Marchesa!
Her lip — her beautiful lip trembles: tears are gathering in her eyes —
those eyes which, like Pliny's own Acanthus, are "soft and almost
liquid."
Yes! tears are gathering [page 198:] in those eyes
— and see! the entire woman thrills throughout the soul, and the statue
has started into life! The pallor of the marble countenance, the
swelling
of the marble bosom, the very purity of the marble feet, we behold
suddenly
flushed over with a tide of ungovernable crimson; and a slight shudder
quivers about her delicate frame, as a gentle air at Napoli about the
rich
silver lilies in the grass. Why should that lady blush? To this
demand there is no answer — except that, having left in the eager haste
and terror of a mother's heart, the privacy of her own boudoir,
she has neglected to enthral her tiny feet in their slippers, and
utterly
forgotten to throw over her Venitian shoulders that drapery which is
their
due. What other possible reason could there have been for her so
blushing?
— for the glance of those wild appealing eyes? — for the unusual tumult
of that throbbing bosom? — for the convulsive pressure of that
trembling
hand? — that hand which fell, as Mentoni turned into the palace,
accidentally,
upon the hand of the stranger. What reason could there have been for
the
low — the singularly low tone of those unmeaning words which the lady
uttered
hurriedly in bidding him adieu? "Thou hast conquered" — she said, or
the
murmurs of the water deceived me — "thou hast conquered — one hour
after
sunrise — we shall meet — so let it be."
The tumult had subsided, the lights
had died away [page 199:] within the palace, and
the
stranger,
whom
I now recognised, stood alone upon the flags. He shook with
inconceivable
agitation, and his eye glanced around in search of a gondola. I could
not
do less than offer him the service of my own; and he accepted the
civility.
Having obtained an oar at the water-gate, we proceeded together to his
residence, while he rapidly recovered his self-possession, and spoke of
our former slight acquaintance in terms of great apparent cordiality.
There are some subjects upon which I
take
pleasure
in being minute. The person of the stranger — let me call him by this
title,
who to all the world was still a stranger — the person of the stranger
is one of these subjects. In height he might have been below rather
than
above the medium size: although there were moments of intense passion
when
his frame actually expanded and belied the assertion. The
light,
almost slender symmetry of his figure, promised more of that ready
activity
which he evinced at the Bridge of Sighs, than of that Herculean
strength
which he has been known to wield without an effort, upon occasions of
more
dangerous emergency. With the mouth and chin of a deity — singular,
wild,
full, liquid eyes, whose shadows varied from pure hazel to intense and
brilliant jet — and a profusion of glossy, black hair, from which a
forehead,
rather low than otherwise, gleamed forth at intervals all light and
ivory
— his were features than which I have seen none more classically
regular,
except, perhaps, the marble ones of the Emperor [page 200:]
Commodus. Yet his countenance was, nevertheless, one of those which all
men have seen at some period of their lives, and have never afterwards
seen again. It had no peculiar — I wish to be perfectly understood — it
had no settled predominant expression to be fastened upon the
memory;
a countenance seen and instantly forgotten — but forgotten with a vague
and never-ceasing desire of recalling it to mind. Not that the spirit
of
each rapid passion failed, at any time, to throw its own distinct image
upon the mirror of that face — but that the mirror, mirror-like,
retained
no vestige of the passion, when the passion had departed.
Upon leaving him on the night of our
adventure,
he
solicited me, in what I thought an urgent manner, to call upon him very
early the next morning. Shortly after sunrise, I found myself
accordingly
at his Palazzo, one of those huge piles of gloomy, yet fantastic
grandeur,
which tower above the waters of the Grand Canal in the vicinity of the
Rialto. I was shown up a broad winding staircase of mosaics, into an
apartment
whose unparalleled splendor burst through the opening door with an
actual
glare, making me sick and dizzy with luxuriousness.
I knew my acquaintance to be wealthy.
Report had
spoken of his possessions in terms which I had even ventured to call
terms
of ridiculous exaggeration. But as I gazed about me, I could not bring
myself to believe that the wealth of any subject in Europe could have
supplied
the far more than imperial magnificence which burned and blazed around.
[page 201:]
Although, as I say, the sun had
arisen, yet the
room
was still brilliantly lighted up. I judged from this circumstance, as
well
as from an air of exhaustion in the countenance of my friend, that he
had
not retired to bed during the whole of the preceding night. In the
architecture
and embellishments of the chamber, the evident design had been to
dazzle
and astound. Little attention had been paid to the decora of
what
is technically called keeping, or to the proprieties of
nationality.
The eye wandered from object to object, and rested upon none — neither
the grotesques of the Greek painters — nor the sculptures of
the
best Italian days — nor the huge carvings of untutored Egypt. Rich
draperies
in every part of the room trembled to the vibration of low, melancholy
music, whose unseen origin undoubtedly lay in the recesses of the
crimson
trelliss work which tapestried the ceiling. The senses were oppressed
by
mingled and conflicting perfumes, reeking up from strange convolute
censers,
which seemed actually endued with a monstrous vitality, as their
particolored
fires writhed up and down, and around about their extravagant
proportions.
The rays of the newly risen sun poured in upon the whole, through
windows
formed each of a single pane of crimson-tinted glass. Glancing to and
fro,
in a thousand reflections, from curtains which rolled from their
cornices
like cataracts of molten silver, the beams of natural glory mingled at
length fitfully with the artificial light, and lay weltering in subdued
masses upon a carpet of rich, liquid looking [page 202:]
cloth of Chili gold. Here then had the hand of genius been at work. A
chaos
— a wilderness of beauty lay before me. A sense of dreamy and
incoherent
grandeur took possession of my soul, and I remained within the door-way
speechless.
Ha! ha! ha! — ha! ha! ha! — laughed
the proprietor,
motioning me to a seat, and throwing himself back at full length upon
an
ottoman. "I see," said he, perceiving that I could not immediately
reconcile
myself to the bienseance of so singular a welcome — "I see you
are
astonished at my apartment — at my statues — my pictures — my
originality
of conception in architecture and upholstery — absolutely drunk, eh?
with
my magnificence. But pardon me, my dear sir, (here his tone of voice
dropped
to the very spirit of cordiality,) pardon me, my dear sir, for my
uncharitable
laughter. You appeared so utterly astonished. Besides, some
things
are so completely ludicrous that a man must laugh or die. To
die
laughing must be the most glorious of all glorious deaths! Sir Thomas
More
— a very fine man was Sir Thomas More — Sir Thomas More died laughing,
you remember. Also there is a long list of characters who came to the
same
magnificent end, in the Absurdities of Ravisius Textor. Do you
know,
however," continued he musingly — "that at Sparta (which is now
Palæochori),
at Sparta, I say, to the west of the citadel, among a chaos of scarcely
visible ruins, is a kind of socle upon which are still legible
the
letters [[Greek text:]] ΛΑΣΜ [[:Greek text]].
They are undoubtedly part of [[Greek text:]] ΓΕΛΑΣΜΑ [[:Greek text]].
Now at Sparta were a thousand temples and shrines to a [page
203:] thousand different divinities. How exceedingly strange
that the altar of Laughter should have survived all the others! But in
the present instance" — he resumed, with a singular alteration of voice
and manner — "in the present instance I have no right to be merry at
your
expense. You might well have been amazed. Europe cannot produce
anything
so fine as this, my little regal cabinet. My other apartments are by no
means of the same order — mere ultras of fashionable
insipidity.
This is better than fashion — is it not? Yet this has but to be seen to
become the rage — that is with those who could afford it at the cost of
their entire patrimony. I have guarded, however, against any such
profanation.
With one exception you are the only human being besides myself, who has
been admitted within the mysteries of these imperial precincts."
I bowed in acknowledgment: for the
overpowering
sense
of splendor and perfume, and music, together with the unexpected
eccentricity
of his address and manner, prevented me from expressing in words my
appreciation
of what I might have construed into a compliment.
"Here" — he resumed, arising and
leaning on my
arm
as he sauntered around the apartment — "here are paintings from the
Greeks
to Cimabué, and from Cimabué to the present hour. Many
are
chosen, as you see, with little deference to the opinions of
Virtû.
They are all, however, fitting tapestry for a chamber such as this.
Here
too, are some chéf d'œuvres of [page 204:]
the unknown great — and here unfinished designs by men, celebrated in
their
day, whose very names the perspicacity of the academies has left to
silence
and to me. What think you" — said he, turning abruptly as he spoke —
"what
think you of this Madonna della Pietà?
"It is Guido's own!" I said, with all
the
enthusiasm
of my nature, for I had been poring intently over its surpassing
loveliness.
"It is Guido's own! — how could you have obtained it? — she is
undoubtedly
in painting what the Venus is in sculpture."
"Ha!" said he thoughtfully, "the
Venus? — the
beautiful
Venus? — the Venus of the Medici? — she of the gilded hair? Part of the
left arm (here his voice dropped so as to be heard with difficulty),
and
all the right are restorations, and in the coquetry of that right arm
lies,
I think, the quintessence of all affectation. The Apollo, too! — is a
copy
— there can be no doubt of it — blind fool that I am, who cannot behold
the boasted inspiration of the Apollo! I cannot help — pity me! — I
cannot
help preferring the Antinous. Was it not Socrates who said that the
statuary found his statue in the block of marble? Then
Michæl
Angelo
was by no means original in his couplet —
'Non ha l'ottimo artista alcun
concetto
Chè un marmo solo in se non
circunscriva.' "
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[page 205:]
It has been, or should be remarked,
that, in the
manner of the true gentleman, we are always aware of a difference from
the bearing of the vulgar, without being at once precisely able to
determine
in what such difference consists. Allowing the remark to have applied
in
its full force to the outward demeanor of my acquaintance, I felt it,
on
that eventful morning, still more fully applicable to his moral
temperament
and character. Nor can I better define that peculiarity of spirit which
seemed to place him so esentially apart from all other human beings,
than
by calling it a habit of intense and continual thought,
pervading
even his most trivial actions — intruding upon his moments of dalliance
— and interweaving itself with his very flashes of merriment — like
adders
which writhe from out the eyes of the grinning masks in the cornices
around
the temples of Persepolis.
I could not help, however, repeatedly
observing,
through the mingled tone of levity and solemnity with which he rapidly
descanted upon matters of little importance, a certain air of
trepidation
— a degree of nervous unction in action and in speech — an
unquiet
excitability of manner which appeared to me at all times unaccountable,
and upon some occasions even filled me with alarm. Frequently, too,
pausing
in the middle of a sentence whose commencement he had apparently
forgotten,
he seemed to be listening in the deepest attention, as if either in
momentary
expectation of a visiter, or to sounds which must have had existence in
his imagination alone. [page 206:]
It was during one of these reveries
or pauses of
apparent abstraction, that, in turning over a page of the poet and
scholar
Politian's beautiful tragedy "The Orfeo," (the first native Italian
tragedy,)
which lay near me upon an ottoman, I discovered a passage underlined in
pencil. It was a passage towards the end of the third act — a passage
of
the most heart-stirring excitement — a passage which, although tainted
with impurity, no man shall read without a thrill of novel emotion — no
woman without a sigh. The whole page was blotted with fresh tears, and,
upon the opposite interleaf, were the following lines, written in a
hand
so very different from the peculiar characters of my acquaintance, that
I had some difficulty in recognising it as his own.
Thou wast
that all
to
me, love,
For which my soul did
pine —
A green isle in the sea, love,
A fountain and a
shrine,
All wreathed around about with flowers;
And the flowers — they
all were
mine.
But the dream — it could not last;
And the star of Hope
did rise
But to be overcast.
A voice from out the
Future cries
"Onward!" — while o'er the Past
(Dim gulf!) my spirit
hovering
lies,
Mute, motionless, aghast! [page 207:]
For alas! — alas! — with me
Ambition — all — is
o'er.
"No more — no more — no more,"
(Such language holds the solemn sea
To the sands upon the
shore,)
Shall bloom the thunder-blasted tree,
Or the stricken eagle
soar!
And all my hours are trances;
And all my nightly
dreams
Are where thy dark eye glances,
And where thy footstep
gleams,
In what ethereal dances,
By what Italian
streams.
Alas! for that accursed time
They bore thee o'er
the billow,
From Love to titled age and crime,
And an unholy pillow —
From me, and from our misty clime,
Where weeps the silver
willow.
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That these lines were written in English — a
language
with which I had not believed their author acquainted — afforded me
little
matter for surprise. I was too well aware of the extent of his
acquirements,
and of the singular pleasure he took in concealing them from
observation,
to be astonished at any similar discovery; but the place of date, I
must
confess, occasioned me no little amazement. It had been originally
written London, and afterwards carefully overscored — but
not, however,
so effectually, as to conceal the word from a scrutinizing eye. I say
this
occasioned me no little amazement; for I well [page 208:]
remember that, in a former conversation with my friend, I particularly
inquired if he had at any time met in London the Marchesa di Mentoni,
(who
for some years previous to her marriage had resided in that city,) when
his answer, if I mistake not, gave me to understand that he had never
visited
the metropolis of Great Britain. I might as well here mention, that I
have
more than once heard, (without of course giving credit to a report
involving
so many improbabilities,) that the person of whom I speak was not only
by birth, but in education an Englishman.
"There is one painting," said he,
without being
aware
of my notice of the tragedy — "there is still one painting which you
have
not seen." And throwing aside a drapery, he discovered a full length
portrait
of the Marchesa Aphrodite.
Human art could have done no more in
the
delineation
of her superhuman beauty. The same ethereal figure which stood before
me
the preceding night upon the steps of the Ducal Palace, stood before me
once again. But in the expression of the countenance, which was beaming
all over with smiles, there still lurked (incomprehensible anomaly!)
that
fitful stain of melancholy which will ever be found inseparable from
the
perfection of the beautiful. Her right arm lay folded over her bosom.
With
her left she pointed downwards to a curiously fashioned vase. One
small,
fairy foot, alone visible, barely touched the earth — [page
209:]
and, scarcely discernible in the brilliant atmosphere which seemed to
encircle
and enshrine her loveliness, floated a pair of the most delicately
imagined
wings. My glance fell from the painting to the figure of my friend, and
the vigorous words of Chapman's Bussy D'Ambois quivered
instinctively
upon my lips —
"He is up
There like a Roman statue! He will
stand
Till Death hath made him marble!"
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"Come!" he said at length, turning towards a table
of
richly enamelled and massive silver, upon which were a few goblets
fantastically
stained, together with two large Etruscan vases, fashioned in the same
extraordinary
model as that in the foreground of the portrait, and filled with what I
suposed to be Johannisberger. "Come!" he said abruptly, "let us drink!
It is early — but let us drink — It is indeed early," he
continued
thoughtfully as a cherub with a heavy golden hammer, made the apartment
ring with the first hour after sunrise — "It is indeed early,
but
what matters it? let us drink! Let us pour out an offering to the
solemn
sun, which these gaudy lamps and censers are so eager to subdue!" And,
having made me pledge him in a bumper, he swallowed in rapid sucession
several goblets of the wine.
"To dream," he continued, resuming
the tone of
his
desultory conversation, as he held up to the rich [page 210:]
light of a censer one of the magnificent vases — "to dream has been the
business of my life. I have therefore framed for myself, as you see, a
bower of dreams. In the heart of Venice could I have erected a better?
You behold around you, it is true, a medley of architectural
embellishments.
The chastity of Ionia is offended by antediluvian devices, and the
sphynxes
of Egypt are stretching upon carpets of gold. Yet the effect is
incongruous
to the timid alone. Proprieties of place, and especially of time, are
the
bugbears which terrify mankind from the contemplation of the
magnificent. Once I was myself a decorist: but that
sublimation of
folly
has palled upon my soul. All this is now the fitter for my purpose.
Like
these arabesque censers, my spirit is writhing in fire, and the
delirium
of this scene is fashioning me for the wilder visions of that land of
real
dreams whither I am now rapidly departing." Thus saying, he confessed
the
power of the wine, and threw himself at full length upon an ottoman.
A quick step was now heard upon the staircase,
and
a loud knock at the door rapidly succeeded. I was hastening to
anticipate
a second disturbance, when a page of Mentoni's household burst into the
room, and faltered out, in a voice choking with emotion, the incoherent
words, "My mistress! — my mistress! — poisoned! — poisoned! Oh
beautiful
— Oh beautiful Aphrodite!"
Bewildered, I flew to the ottoman, and
endeavored
to arouse the sleeper to a sense of the startling intelligence. [page
211:] But his limbs were rigid — his lips were livid — his
lately
beaming eyes were riveted in death. I staggered back towards
the
table — my hand fell upon a cracked and blackened goblet — and a
conciousness
of the entire and terrible truth flashed suddenly over my soul. |
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