Zanoni

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?”