CHAPTER 3.IX
Dafne: Ma, chi lung’ e d’Amor?
Tirsi: Chi teme e fugge.
Dafne: E che giova fuggir da lui ch’ ha l’ ali?
Tirsi: AMOR NASCENTE HA CORTE L’ ALI!
“Aminta,” At. ii. Sc. ii.
(Dafne: But, who is far from Love?
Tirsi: He who fears and flies.
Dafne: What use to flee from one who has wings?
Tirsi: The wings of Love, while he yet grows, are short.)
When Glyndon found himself without Viola’s house, Mervale, still loitering at the door, seized his arm. Glyndon shook him off abruptly.
“Thou and thy counsels,” said he, bitterly, “have made me a coward and a wretch. But I will go home,—I will write to her. I will pour out my whole soul; she will forgive me yet.”
Mervale, who was a man of imperturbable temper, arranged his ruffles, which his friend’s angry gesture had a little discomposed, and not till Glyndon had exhausted himself awhile by passionate exclamations and reproaches, did the experienced angler begin to tighten the line. He then drew from Glyndon the explanation of what had passed, and artfully sought not to irritate, but soothe him. Mervale, indeed, was by no means a bad man; he had stronger moral notions than are common amongst the young. He sincerely reproved his friend for harbouring dishonourable intentions with regard to the actress. “Because I would not have her thy wife, I never dreamed that thou shouldst degrade her to thy mistress. Better of the two an imprudent match than an illicit connection. But pause yet, do not act on the impulse of the moment.”
“But there is no time to lose. I have promised to Zanoni to give him my answer by to-morrow night. Later than that time, all option ceases.”
“Ah!” said Mervale, “this seems suspicious. Explain yourself.”
And Glyndon, in the earnestness of his passion, told his friend what had passed between himself and Zanoni,—suppressing only, he scarce knew why, the reference to his ancestor and the mysterious brotherhood.
This recital gave to Mervale all the advantage he could desire. Heavens! with what sound, shrewd common-sense he talked. How evidently some charlatanic coalition between the actress, and perhaps,—who knows?—her clandestine protector, sated with possession! How equivocal the character of one,—the position of the other! What cunning in the question of the actress! How profoundly had Glyndon, at the first suggestion of his sober reason, seen through the snare. What! was he to be thus mystically cajoled and hurried into a rash marriage, because Zanoni, a mere stranger, told him with a grave face that he must decide before the clock struck a certain hour?
“Do this at least,” said Mervale, reasonably enough,—“wait till the time expires; it is but another day. Baffle Zanoni. He tells thee that he will meet thee before midnight to-morrow, and defies thee to avoid him. Pooh! let us quit Naples for some neighbouring place, where, unless he be indeed the Devil, he cannot possibly find us. Show him that you will not be led blindfold even into an act that you meditate yourself. Defer to write to her, or to see her, till after to-morrow. This is all I ask. Then visit her, and decide for yourself.”
Glyndon was staggered. He could not combat the reasonings of his friend; he was not convinced, but he hesitated; and at that moment Nicot passed them. He turned round, and stopped, as he saw Glyndon.
“Well, and do you think still of the Pisani?”
“Yes; and you—”
“Have seen and conversed with her. She shall be Madame Nicot before this day week! I am going to the cafe, in the Toledo; and hark ye, when next you meet your friend Signor Zanoni, tell him that he has twice crossed my path. Jean Nicot, though a painter, is a plain, honest man, and always pays his debts.”
“It is a good doctrine in money matters,” said Mervale; “as to revenge, it is not so moral, and certainly not so wise. But is it in your love that Zanoni has crossed your path? How that, if your suit prosper so well?”
“Ask Viola Pisani that question. Bah! Glyndon, she is a prude only to thee. But I have no prejudices. Once more, farewell.”
“Rouse thyself, man!” said Mervale, slapping Glyndon on the shoulder. “What think you of your fair one now?”
“This man must lie.”
“Will you write to her at once?”
“No; if she be really playing a game, I could renounce her without a sigh. I will watch her closely; and, at all events, Zanoni shall not be the master of my fate. Let us, as you advise, leave Naples at daybreak to-morrow.”
CHAPTER 3.X
O chiunque tu sia, che fuor d’ogni uso
Pieghi Natura ad opre altere e strane,
E, spiando i segreti, entri al piu chiuso
Spazi’ a tua voglia delle menti umane—Deh, Dimmi!
“Gerus. Lib.,” Cant. x. xviii.
(O thou, whoever thou art, who through every use bendest Nature to works foreign and strange; and by spying into her secrets, enterest at thy will into the closest recesses of the human mind,—O speak! O tell me!)
Early the next morning the young Englishmen mounted their horses, and took the road towards Baiae. Glyndon left word at his hotel, that if Signor Zanoni sought him, it was in the neighbourhood of that once celebrated watering-place of the ancients that he should be found.
They passed by Viola’s house, but Glyndon resisted the temptation of pausing there; and after threading the grotto of Posilipo, they wound by a circuitous route back into the suburbs of the city, and took the opposite road, which conducts to Portici and Pompeii. It was late at noon when they arrived at the former of these places. Here they halted to dine; for Mervale had heard much of the excellence of the macaroni at Portici, and Mervale was a bon vivant.
They put up at an inn of very humble pretensions, and dined under an awning. Mervale was more than usually gay; he pressed the lacrima upon his friend, and conversed gayly.
“Well, my dear friend, we have foiled Signor Zanoni in one of his predictions at least. You will have no faith in him hereafter.”
“The ides are come, not gone.”
“Tush! If he be the soothsayer, you are not the Caesar. It is your vanity that makes you credulous. Thank Heaven, I do not think myself of such importance that the operations of Nature should be changed in order to frighten me.”
“But why should the operations of Nature be changed? There may be a deeper philosophy than we dream of,—a philosophy that discovers the secrets of Nature, but does not alter, by penetrating, its courses.”
“Ah, you relapse into your heretical credulity; you seriously suppose Zanoni to be a prophet,—a reader of the future; perhaps an associate of genii and spirits!”
Here the landlord, a little, fat, oily fellow, came up with a fresh bottle of lacrima. He hoped their Excellencies were pleased. He was most touched—touched to the heart, that they liked the macaroni. Were their Excellencies going to Vesuvius? There was a slight eruption; they could not see it where they were, but it was pretty, and would be prettier still after sunset.
“A capital idea!” cried Mervale. “What say you, Glyndon?”
“I have not yet seen an eruption; I should like it much.”
“But is there no danger?” asked the prudent Mervale.
“Oh, not at all; the mountain is very civil at present. It only plays a little, just to amuse their Excellencies the English.”
“Well, order the horses, and bring the bill; we will go before it is dark. Clarence, my friend,—nunc est bibendum; but take care of the pede libero, which will scarce do for walking on lava!”
The bottle was finished, the bill paid; the gentlemen mounted, the landlord bowed, and they bent their way, in the cool of the delightful evening, towards Resina.
The wine, perhaps the excitement of his thoughts, animated Glyndon, whose unequal spirits were, at times, high and brilliant as those of a schoolboy released; and the laughter of the Northern tourists sounded oft and merrily along the melancholy domains of buried cities.
Hesperus had lighted his lamp amidst the rosy skies as they arrived at Resina. Here they quitted their horses, and took mules and a guide. As the sky grew darker and more dark, the mountain fire burned with an intense lustre. In various streaks and streamlets, the fountain of flame rolled down the dark summit, and the Englishmen began to feel increase upon them, as they ascended, that sensation of solemnity and awe which makes the very atmosphere that surrounds the Giant of the Plains of the Antique Hades.
It was night, when, leaving the mules, they ascended on foot, accompanied by their guide, and a peasant who bore a rude torch. The guide was a conversable, garrulous fellow, like most of his country and his calling; and Mervale, who possessed a sociable temper, loved to amuse or to instruct himself on every incidental occasion.
“Ah, Excellency,” said the guide, “your countrymen have a strong passion for the volcano. Long life to them, they bring us plenty of money! If our fortunes depended on the Neapolitans, we should starve.”
“True, they have no curiosity,” said Mervale. “Do you remember, Glyndon, the contempt with which that old count said to us, ‘You will go to Vesuvius, I suppose? I have never been; why should I go? You have cold, you have hunger, you have fatigue, you have danger, and all for nothing but to see fire, which looks just as well in a brazier as on a mountain.’ Ha! ha! the old fellow was right.”
“But, Excellency,” said the guide, “that is not all: some cavaliers think to ascend the mountain without our help. I am sure they deserve to tumble into the crater.”
“They must be bold fellows to go alone; you don’t often find such.”
“Sometimes among the French, signor. But the other night—I never was so frightened—I had been with an English party, and a lady had left a pocket-book on the mountain, where she had been sketching. She offered me a handsome sum to return for it, and bring it to her at Naples. So I went in the evening. I found it, sure enough, and was about to return, when I saw a figure that seemed to emerge from the crater itself. The air there was so pestiferous that I could not have conceived a human creature could breathe it, and live. I was so astounded that I stood still as a stone, till the figure came over the hot ashes, and stood before me, face to face. Santa Maria, what a head!”
“What! hideous?”
“No; so beautiful, but so terrible. It had nothing human in its aspect.”
“And what said the salamander?”
“Nothing! It did not even seem to perceive me, though I was near as I am to you; but its eyes seemed to emerge prying into the air. It passed by me quickly, and, walking across a stream of burning lava, soon vanished on the other side of the mountain. I was curious and foolhardy, and resolved to see if I could bear the atmosphere which this visitor had left; but though I did not advance within thirty yards of the spot at which he had first appeared, I was driven back by a vapour that wellnigh stifled me. Cospetto! I have spat blood ever since.”
“Now will I lay a wager that you fancy this fire-king must be Zanoni,” whispered Mervale, laughing.
The little party had now arrived nearly at the summit of the mountain; and unspeakably grand was the spectacle on which they gazed. From the crater arose a vapour, intensely dark, that overspread the whole background of the heavens; in the centre whereof rose a flame that assumed a form singularly beautiful. It might have been compared to a crest of gigantic feathers, the diadem of the mountain, high-arched, and drooping downward, with the hues delicately shaded off, and the whole shifting and tremulous as the plumage on a warrior’s helmet.
The glare of the flame spread, luminous and crimson, over the dark and rugged ground on which they stood, and drew an innumerable variety of shadows from crag and hollow. An oppressive and sulphureous exhalation served to increase the gloomy and sublime terror of the place. But on turning from the mountain, and towards the distant and unseen ocean, the contrast was wonderfully great; the heavens serene and blue, the stars still and calm as the eyes of Divine Love. It was as if the realms of the opposing principles of Evil and of Good were brought in one view before the gaze of man! Glyndon—once more the enthusiast, the artist—was enchained and entranced by emotions vague and undefinable, half of delight and half of pain. Leaning on the shoulder of his friend, he gazed around him, and heard with deepening awe the rumbling of the earth below, the wheels and voices of the Ministry of Nature in her darkest and most inscrutable recess. Suddenly, as a bomb from a shell, a huge stone was flung hundreds of yards up from the jaws of the crater, and falling with a mighty crash upon the rock below, split into ten thousand fragments, which bounded down the sides of the mountain, sparkling and groaning as they went. One of these, the largest fragment, struck the narrow space of soil between the Englishmen and the guide, not three feet from the spot where the former stood. Mervale uttered an exclamation of terror, and Glyndon held his breath, and shuddered.
“Diavolo!” cried the guide. “Descend, Excellencies,—descend! we have not a moment to lose; follow me close!”
So saying, the guide and the peasant fled with as much swiftness as they were able to bring to bear. Mervale, ever more prompt and ready than his friend, imitated their example; and Glyndon, more confused than alarmed, followed close. But they had not gone many yards, before, with a rushing and sudden blast, came from the crater an enormous volume of vapour. It pursued,—it overtook, it overspread them. It swept the light from the heavens. All was abrupt and utter darkness; and through the gloom was heard the shout of the guide, already distant, and lost in an instant amidst the sound of the rushing gust and the groans of the earth beneath. Glyndon paused. He was separated from his friend, from the guide. He was alone,—with the Darkness and the Terror. The vapour rolled sullenly away; the form of the plumed fire was again dimly visible, and its struggling and perturbed reflection again shed a glow over the horrors of the path. Glyndon recovered himself, and sped onward. Below, he heard the voice of Mervale calling on him, though he no longer saw his form. The sound served as a guide. Dizzy and breathless, he bounded forward; when—hark!—a sullen, slow rolling sounded in his ear! He halted,—and turned back to gaze. The fire had overflowed its course; it had opened itself a channel amidst the furrows of the mountain. The stream pursued him fast—fast; and the hot breath of the chasing and preternatural foe came closer and closer upon his cheek! He turned aside; he climbed desperately with hands and feet upon a crag that, to the right, broke the scathed and blasted level of the soil. The stream rolled beside and beneath him, and then taking a sudden wind round the spot on which he stood, interposed its liquid fire,—a broad and impassable barrier between his resting-place and escape. There he stood, cut off from descent, and with no alternative but to retrace his steps towards the crater, and thence seek, without guide or clew, some other pathway.
For a moment his courage left him; he cried in despair, and in that overstrained pitch of voice which is never heard afar off, to the guide, to Mervale, to return to aid him.
No answer came; and the Englishman, thus abandoned solely to his own resources, felt his spirit and energy rise against the danger. He turned back, and ventured as far towards the crater as the noxious exhalation would permit; then, gazing below, carefully and deliberately he chalked out for himself a path by which he trusted to shun the direction the fire-stream had taken, and trod firmly and quickly over the crumbling and heated strata.
He had proceeded about fifty yards, when he halted abruptly; an unspeakable and unaccountable horror, not hitherto experienced amidst all his peril, came over him. He shook in every limb; his muscles refused his will,—he felt, as it were, palsied and death-stricken. The horror, I say, was unaccountable, for the path seemed clear and safe. The fire, above and behind, burned clear and far; and beyond, the stars lent him their cheering guidance. No obstacle was visible,—no danger seemed at hand. As thus, spell-bound, and panic-stricken, he stood chained to the soil,—his breast heaving, large drops rolling down his brow, and his eyes starting wildly from their sockets,—he saw before him, at some distance, gradually shaping itself more and more distinctly to his gaze, a colossal shadow; a shadow that seemed partially borrowed from the human shape, but immeasurably above the human stature; vague, dark, almost formless; and differing, he could not tell where or why, not only from the proportions, but also from the limbs and outline of man.
The glare of the volcano, that seemed to shrink and collapse from this gigantic and appalling apparition, nevertheless threw its light, redly and steadily, upon another shape that stood beside, quiet and motionless; and it was, perhaps, the contrast of these two things—the Being and the Shadow—that impressed the beholder with the difference between them,—the Man and the Superhuman. It was but for a moment—nay, for the tenth part of a moment—that this sight was permitted to the wanderer. A second eddy of sulphureous vapours from the volcano, yet more rapidly, yet more densely than its predecessor, rolled over the mountain; and either the nature of the exhalation, or the excess of his own dread, was such, that Glyndon, after one wild gasp for breath, fell senseless on the earth.
CHAPTER 3.XI
Was hab’ich,
Wenn ich nicht Alles habe?—sprach der Jungling.
“Das Verschleierte Bild zu Sais.”
(“What have I, if I possess not All?” said the youth.)
Mervale and the Italians arrived in safety at the spot where they had left the mules; and not till they had recovered their own alarm and breath did they think of Glyndon. But then, as the minutes passed, and he appeared not, Mervale, whose heart was as good at least as human hearts are in general, grew seriously alarmed. He insisted on returning to search for his friend; and by dint of prodigal promises prevailed at last on the guide to accompany him. The lower part of the mountain lay calm and white in the starlight; and the guide’s practised eye could discern all objects on the surface at a considerable distance. They had not, however, gone very far, before they perceived two forms slowly approaching them.
As they came near, Mervale recognised the form of his friend. “Thank Heaven, he is safe!” he cried, turning to the guide.
“Holy angels befriend us!” said the Italian, trembling,—“behold the very being that crossed me last Friday night. It is he, but his face is human now!”
“Signor Inglese,” said the voice of Zanoni, as Glyndon—pale, wan, and silent—returned passively the joyous greeting of Mervale,—“Signor Inglese, I told your friend that we should meet to-night. You see you have NOT foiled my prediction.”
“But how?—but where?” stammered Mervale, in great confusion and surprise.
“I found your friend stretched on the ground, overpowered by the mephitic exhalation of the crater. I bore him to a purer atmosphere; and as I know the mountain well, I have conducted him safely to you. This is all our history. You see, sir, that were it not for that prophecy which you desired to frustrate, your friend would ere this time have been a corpse; one minute more, and the vapour had done its work. Adieu; goodnight, and pleasant dreams.”
“But, my preserver, you will not leave us?” said Glyndon, anxiously, and speaking for the first time. “Will you not return with us?”
Zanoni paused, and drew Glyndon aside. “Young man,” said he, gravely, “it is necessary that we should again meet to-night. It is necessary that you should, ere the first hour of morning, decide on your own fate. I know that you have insulted her whom you profess to love. It is not too late to repent. Consult not your friend: he is sensible and wise; but not now is his wisdom needed. There are times in life when, from the imagination, and not the reason, should wisdom come,—this, for you, is one of them. I ask not your answer now. Collect your thoughts,—recover your jaded and scattered spirits. It wants two hours of midnight. Before midnight I will be with you.”
“Incomprehensible being!” replied the Englishman, “I would leave the life you have preserved in your own hands; but what I have seen this night has swept even Viola from my thoughts. A fiercer desire than that of love burns in my veins,—the desire not to resemble but to surpass my kind; the desire to penetrate and to share the secret of your own existence—the desire of a preternatural knowledge and unearthly power. I make my choice. In my ancestor’s name, I adjure and remind thee of thy pledge. Instruct me; school me; make me thine; and I surrender to thee at once, and without a murmur, the woman whom, till I saw thee, I would have defied a world to obtain.”
“I bid thee consider well: on the one hand, Viola, a tranquil home, a happy and serene life; on the other hand, all is darkness,—darkness, that even these eyes cannot penetrate.”
“But thou hast told me, that if I wed Viola, I must be contented with the common existence,—if I refuse, it is to aspire to thy knowledge and thy power.”
“Vain man, knowledge and power are not happiness.”
“But they are better than happiness. Say!—if I marry Viola, wilt thou be my master,—my guide? Say this, and I am resolved.
“It were impossible.”
“Then I renounce her? I renounce love. I renounce happiness. Welcome solitude,—welcome despair; if they are the entrances to thy dark and sublime secret.”
“I will not take thy answer now. Before the last hour of night thou shalt give it in one word,—ay or no! Farewell till then.”
Zanoni waved his hand, and, descending rapidly, was seen no more.
Glyndon rejoined his impatient and wondering friend; but Mervale, gazing on his face, saw that a great change had passed there. The flexile and dubious expression of youth was forever gone. The features were locked, rigid, and stern; and so faded was the natural bloom, that an hour seemed to have done the work of years.