The Bravo Part 27

"There are, truly, signs of decay in his system. He is a worthy prince, and we shall lose a father when called to weep for his loss!"

"Most true, Signore: but the horned bonnet is not an invulnerable s.h.i.+eld against the arrows of death. Age and infirmities are more potent than our wishes."

"Thou art moody to-night, Signor Gradenigo. Thou art not used to be so silent with thy friends."

"I am not the less grateful, Signore, for their favors. If I have a loaded countenance, I bear a lightened heart. One who hath a daughter of his own so happily bestowed in wedlock as thine, may judge of the relief I feel by this disposition of my ward. Joy affects the exterior, frequently, like sorrow; aye, even to tears."

His two companions looked at the speaker with much obvious sympathy in their manners. They then left the chamber of doom together. The menials entered and extinguished the lights, leaving all behind them in an obscurity that was no bad type of the gloomy mysteries of the place.

CHAPTER XIV.

"Then methought, A serenade broke silence, breathing hope Through walls of stone."

ITALY.

Notwithstanding the lateness of the hour, the melody of music was rife on the water. Gondolas continued to glide along the shadowed ca.n.a.ls, while the laugh or the song was echoed among the arches of the palaces.

The piazza and piazzetta were yet brilliant with lights, and gay with their mult.i.tudes of unwearied revellers.

The habitation of Donna Violetta was far from the scene of general amus.e.m.e.nt. Though so remote, the hum of the moving throng, and the higher strains of the wind-instruments, came, from time to time, to the ears of its inmates, mellowed and thrilling by distance.

The position of the moon cast the whole of the narrow pa.s.sage which flowed beneath the windows of her private apartments into shadow. In a balcony which overhung the water, stood the youthful and ardent girl, listening with a charmed ear and a tearful eye to one of those soft strains, in which Venetian voices answered to each other from different points on the ca.n.a.ls, in the songs of the gondoliers. Her constant companion and Mentor was near, while the ghostly father of them both stood deeper in the room.

"There may be pleasanter towns on the main, and capitals of more revelry," said the charmed Violetta, withdrawing her person from its leaning att.i.tude, as the voices ceased; "but in such a night and at this witching hour, what city may compare with Venice?"

"Providence has been less partial in the distribution of its earthly favors than is apparent to a vulgar eye," returned the attentive Carmelite. "If we have our peculiar enjoyments and our moments of divine contemplation, other towns have advantages of their own; Genoa and Pisa, Firenze, Ancona, Roma, Palermo, and, chiefest of all, Napoli--"

"Napoli, father!"

"Daughter, Napoli. Of all the towns of sunny Italy, 'tis the fairest and the most blessed in natural gifts. Of every region I have visited, during a life of wandering and penitence, that is the country on which the touch of the Creator hath been the most G.o.d-like!"

"Thou art imaginative to-night, good Father Anselmo. The land must be fair indeed, that can thus warm the fancy of a Carmelite."

"The rebuke is just. I have spoken more under the influence of recollections that came from days of idleness and levity, than with the chastened spirit of one who should see the hand of the Maker in the most simple and least lovely of all his wondrous works."

"You reproach yourself causelessly, holy father," observed the mild Donna Florinda, raising her eyes towards the pale countenance of the monk; "to admire the beauties of nature, is to wors.h.i.+p Him who gave them being."

At that moment a burst of music rose on the air, proceeding from the water beneath the balcony. Donna Violetta started back, abashed; and as she held her breath in wonder, and haply with that delight which open admiration is apt to excite in a youthful female bosom, the color mounted to her temples.

"There pa.s.seth a band," calmly observed the Donna Florinda.

"No, it is a cavalier! There are gondoliers, servitors in his colors."

"This is as hardy as it may be gallant," returned the monk, who listened to the air with an evident and grave displeasure.

There was no longer any doubt but that a serenade was meant. Though the custom was of much use, it was the first time that a similar honor had been paid beneath the window of Donna Violetta. The studied privacy of her life, her known destiny, and the jealousy of the despotic state, and perhaps the deep respect which encircled a maiden of her tender years and high condition, had, until that moment, kept the aspiring, the vain, and the interested, equally in awe.

"It is for me!" whispered the trembling, the distressed, the delighted Violetta.

"It is for one of us, indeed," answered the cautious friend.

"Be it for whom it may, it is bold," rejoined the monk.

Donna Violetta shrank from observation behind the drapery of the window, but she raised a hand in pleasure as the rich strains rolled through the wide apartments.

"What a taste rules the band!" she half-whispered, afraid to trust her voice lest a sound should escape her ears. "They touch an air of Petrarch's sonatas! How indiscreet, and yet how n.o.ble!"

"More n.o.ble than wise," said the Donna Florinda, who entered the balcony and looked intently on the water beneath.

"Here are musicians in the color of a n.o.ble in one gondola," she continued, "and a single cavalier in another."

"Hath he no servitor? Doth he ply the oar himself?"

"Truly that decency hath not been overlooked; one in a flowered jacket guides the boat."

"Speak, then, dearest Florinda, I pray thee."

"Would it be seemly?"

"Indeed I think it. Speak them fair. Say that I am the Senate's--that it is not discreet to urge a daughter of the state thus--say what thou wilt--but speak them fair."

"Ha! it is Don Camillo Monforte! I know him by his n.o.ble stature and the gallant wave of his hand."

"This temerity will undo him! His claim will be refused--himself banished. Is it not near the hour when the gondola of the police pa.s.ses?

Admonish him to depart, good Florinda--and yet can we use this rudeness to a Signor of his rank!"

"Father, counsel us; you know the hazards of this rash gallantry in the Neapolitan--aid us with thy wisdom, for there is not a moment to lose."

The Carmelite had been an attentive and an indulgent observer of the emotion which sensations so novel had awakened in the ardent but unpractised breast of the fair Venetian. Pity, sorrow, and sympathy, were painted on his mortified face, as he witnessed the mastery of feeling over a mind so guileless, and a heart so warm; but the look was rather that of one who knew the dangers of the pa.s.sions, than of one who condemned them without thought of their origin or power. At the appeal of the governess he turned away and silently quitted the room. Donna Florinda left the balcony and drew near her charge. There was no explanation, nor any audible or visible means of making their sentiments known to each other. Violetta threw herself into the arms of her more experienced friend, and struggled to conceal her face in her bosom. At this moment the music suddenly ceased, and the plash of oars falling into the water succeeded.

"He is gone!" exclaimed the young creature who had been the object of the serenade, and whose faculties, spite of her confusion, had lost none of their acuteness. "The gondolas are moving away, and we have not made even the customary acknowledgments for their civility!"

"It is not needed--or rather it might increase a hazard that is already too weighty. Remember thy high destiny, my child, and let them depart."

"And yet methinks one of my station should not fail in courtesy. The compliment may mean no more than any other idle usage, and they should not quit us unthanked."

"Rest you within. I will watch the movement of the boats, for it surpa.s.seth female endurance not to note their aspect."

"Thanks, dearest Florinda! hasten, lest they enter the other ca.n.a.l ere thou seest them."

The governess was quickly in the balcony. Active as was her movement, her eyes were scarcely cast upon the shadow beneath, before a hurried question demanded what she beheld.

"Both gondolas are gone," was the answer; "that with the musicians is already entering the great ca.n.a.l, but that of the cavalier hath unaccountably disappeared!"

"Nay, look again; he cannot be in such haste to quit us."

"I had not sought him in the right direction. Here is his gondola, by the bridge of our own ca.n.a.l."