Corinne or Italy 9780813568249

Table of contents :
Contents
Acknowledgments
Chronology
Introduction
Translator's Note
1. Oswald
2. Corinne at the Capitol
3. Corinne
4. Rome
5. Tombs, Churches, and Palaces
6. Italian Character and Customs
7. Italian Literature
8. Statues and Paintings
9. The Folk Festival and Music
10. Holy Week
11. Naples and the Hermitage of San Salvatore
12. Lord Nelvil's Story
13. Vesuvius and the Campania
14. Corinne's Story
15. Farewell to Rome and Journey to Venice
16. Parting and Absence
17. Corinne in Scotland
18. The Florentine Years
19. Oswald's Return to Italy
20. Conclusion
Explanatory Notes

Citation preview

Corinne

Corinne,

OR ITALY MADAME DE STAËL translated and with an introduction by AVRIEL H. GOLDBERGER

H RUTGERS UNIVERSITY PRESS New Brunswick and London

Title page illustration Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, "A View of M o u n t Soracte f r o m Civita Castellana." Courtesy of t h e Harvard University Fogg Art M u s e u m , bequest of Meta a n d Paul J. Sachs.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Staël, M a d a m e de ( A n n e Louise Germaine), 1 7 6 6 - 1 8 1 7 . Corinne, o r Italy Bibliography: p. I. Goldberger, Avriel H. II. Title. III. Title: Corinne. IV. Title: Italy. PQ2431.C7E5

1987

843'.6

86-13912

ISBN 0 - 8 1 3 5 - 1 2 0 7 - 7 ISBN 0 - 8 1 3 5 - 1 2 0 8 - 5 (pbk.) British Cataloguing-in-Publication Information Available This b o o k h a s b e e n published with the generous support of t h e Pro Helvetia F o u n d a t i o n . Copyright © 1987 by Rutgers, The State University All rights reserved M a n u f a c t u r e d in t h e United States of America

FOR ARNOLD GOLDBERGER who has always believed that Corinne and Lucile should be one

Contents IX xi XV

lv

Acknowledgments Chronology Introduction Notes Selected Bibliography Translator's Note

Corinne, or Italy Book I Book II Book III Book IV Book V Book VI Book VII Book VIII Book IX Book X Book XI Book XII Book XIII Book XIV Book XV Book XVI Book XVII Book XVIII Book XIX Book XX 421

Oswald 3 Corinne at the Capitol 19 Corinne 34 Rome 48 Tombs, Churches, and Palaces 77 Italian Character and Customs 89 Italian Literature III Statues and Paintings 131 The Folk Festival and Music 159 Holy Week 171 Naples and the Hermitage of San Salvatore 192 Lord Nelvil's Story 208 Vesuvius and the Campania 232 Corinne's Story 251 Farewell to Rome and Journey to Venice 273 Parting and Absence 303 Corinne in Scotland 332 The Florentine Years 358 Oswald's Return to Italy 376 Conclusion 401

Explanatory Notes vii

Acknowledgments To the people and institutions that have helped me realize this work, I give my grateful acknowledgment. A publication grant from the Pro Helvetia Foundation in Zurich has helped make this book possible, thus enabling a broader audience to appreciate Switzerland's illustrious daughter, M a d a m e de Staël. M y thanks go to Dean Robert C. Vogt of Hofstra College for his administrative and personal support, and to Hofstra University for a scholarly leave to complete my work. The Commission on the Status of W o m e n gave significant help by recommending my project for publication. Madelyn Gutwirth, dean of Staël scholars in America, inspired my interest in M a d a m e de Staël—through her papers, publications, and conversation, as well as through the example of her scholarship. She has also encouraged and enlightened me at every step of the way. Her willingness to discuss both author and novel and her help with stubborn difficulties in the text have been as generous and precious as has been her abiding confidence in the quality of my work. Everyone w h o works on Staël has a great debt to Simone Balayé, w h o has so vigorously and competently led the w a y to a thorough reevaluation of this author's work in recent years. M y understanding of Corinne owes m u c h to her w o r k , and I am happy to express my admiration and respect as well as my gratitude for her generosity as a person and as a scholar. Edith Finch has m y affectionate thanks for reading the translation with the care and attention that only a cultivated, precise mind and a loving friend can give. For identification of place names and a variety of other matters Italian, I am particularly indebted to my colleague Pelegrino d'Acierno for putting his erudition at my disposal. I am grateful too for the information provided by Frederick Keener, Miriam Tulin, William McBrian, and Reverend Christine Hoffmeyer of Hofstra, by Raymond Erickson of the Aaron Copland School of Music, by David Bevan of

ix

Acknowledgments Acadia University, and for the early and continued support of Marilyn Gaddis Rose, Judith Suther, and Denis-Jacques Jean. I have a special debt to my editors at Rutgers University Press, Leslie Mitchner, Eileen Finan, and Marilyn Campbell as well as to my copy editor Jane Dieckmann. Further I want to thank Elaine Silver at the M L A , the staff at Dragonfly, and Everett Maxwell of Leading Edge for computer assistance. To my daughter Ellen Goldberger Oppenheim, w h o with grace and humor collated four copies of the manuscript in hundreds of pages and read the introduction with a clear eye, my admiring and affectionate thanks. As for my husband, there are not words enough to express my gratitude for his interest in my work and for his unflagging and enthusiastic support of the translation and the translator. Last of all, I should like to express my gratitude to Germaine de Stael. Having lived for quite some time with Corinne—and

thus with

h e r — i n the unique intimacy that is translation, I have understood the fascination she exercised on so many around her, and I have gained much knowledge and experience from her company.

X

Chronology 1766 1774 1775 1777 1784 1786

1787 1788 1789

1790 1792

1793

1794

Anne Louise Germaine Necker is born in Paris on April 22 to Jacques and Suzanne Curchod Necker. Goethe publishes The Sorrows of Young Werther. The American Revolution begins with battles at Lexington and Concord. Jacques Necker is named Director General of Finances to Louis XVI. Necker buys Château de Coppet near Geneva. Germaine Necker marries Baron de Staël-Holstein, Swedish ambassador to France, on January 4. She is presented at court and opens her salon. Goethe publishes Italian Journey. Necker is exiled. Staël's first child is born. Necker is recalled. Staël meets Narbonne. The Letters on the Works and Character of J. -J. Rousseau are published privately. April: Staël's child dies. May: The Estates General is convened. June 17: The National Assembly is created. July: Necker is dismissed and then recalled; the Bastille is stormed on July 14. Auguste de Staël (d.1827) is born. Necker retires from public life to Coppet. Staël saves Narbonne and several other aristocrats and is almost killed in a riot. She immediately leaves for Switzerland. Her second son, Albert, is born. France declares war on Austria. The French Republic is proclaimed. Staël spends J a n u a r y - M a y in England with Narbonne and other émigrés. She writes the "Reflections on the Trial of the Queen" and helps friends under death threat flee France. Louis XVI is tried and executed. The Committee of Public Safety is created and the Reign of Terror begins. Staël publishes her short story Zulma. Her mother dies. She

xi

Chronology

1795

1796 1797 1800

1802

1803

1804

1805

1807 1808 1810 1811

1812

meets Benjamin Constant. The Terror ends with the death of Robespierre. Staël returns to Paris with Constant. She writes the "Essay on Fiction" and "Profession of Republican Faith." Baron de Staël is reappointed ambassador from Sweden. The Directory governs France. Staël publishes "On the Influence of the Passions." Under Napoleon, the French defeat the Austrians, enter Milan. Albertine de Staël is born. Talleyrand is named foreign minister with Staël's help. She meets Napoleon. On Literature is published. Staël is legally separated from the Baron de Staël and meets Madame de Récamier. Napoleon becomes First Consul. Delphine is published. Napoleon exiles Staël from Paris. He becomes First Consul for life. Baron de Staël dies. Chateaubriand publishes René. Staël visits Germany with Constant where she meets Goethe and Schiller. The war between France and England is renewed. March: Staël visits Berlin. April: Necker dies; Staël returns to Coppet with August Wilhelm von Schlegel. December: She departs for Italy with her children and Schlegel; Simonde de Sismondi joins them in Turin. They meet Vincenzo Monti in Milan. Napoleon is crowned Emperor. Napoleon is crowned King of Rome. Staël begins Corinne. Coppet becomes a major intellectual center in Europe. The British defeat the French at Trafalgar. Corinne is published and has an immediate success. Staël's exile from Paris is renewed. Winter is spent in Vienna. Constant secretly marries. On Germany is seized and destroyed except for three copies. Staël is exiled from France. Staël is restricted to Coppet and Geneva. Her liaison with John Rocca begins, followed by a formal secret pledge of marriage. Alphonse Rocca is born in secret. The family escapes with Schlegel to England via Russia and Sweden. Napoleon begins his Russian campaign. xii

Chronology 1813

1814 1815

1816

1817 1818 1820

Staël publishes "Reflections on Suicide." Her son Albert, a Swedish army officer, is killed in a duel. On Germany is published in London in French. January: France is invaded. April: Napoleon abdicates. May: Staël reopens her salon in Paris with great success. The Hundred Days are followed by Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo. Staël supports the Bourbon Restoration without enthusiasm. "The Spirit of Translation" is published in Milan. At Pisa, Staël's daughter marries Victor, duc de Broglie. Staël spends the summer at Coppet, where she sees Byron often. October: She secretly marries John Rocca and plans a trip to the Middle East. Staël dies on July 14 and is buried at Coppet. Rocca dies. The Considerations on the French Revolution are published. The complete works are published, including the unfinished Ten Years of Exile.

Introduction "Tell her that she's not to try blocking the road I choose to take, wherever it leads, for if she does I will break her, I will smash her." Such was the advice First Consul Napoleon Bonaparte offered Germaine Necker de Staël on January 17, 1802, through his brothers Lucien and Joseph. 1 Why did that strong man, soon to be absolute ruler of an empire, so fear and hate any member of a sex he took seriously only in its biological functions, a sex already bound and limited by convention made yet more rigid by a revolution that had promised freedom to m e n only? 2 Why was his fury unabated even on Saint Helena when he knew her to be dead? After meanly and systematically humiliating Staël, he exiled her from Paris in 1802, thus expelling her from what she always took to be Eden. Nevertheless, though neither of them understood it at the time, through an act of anger and vengeance he had given her the greatest of gifts. He offered all of Europe to her insatiably curious eyes and open mind, paving the way to the two eminently important books that could never have been written otherwise: the novel Corinne, or Italy and the treatise On Germany. The irony of the situation is compounded by the meaning and effect of Corinne in the light of Napoleon's view of women. For it was one of the most popular books in the nineteenth century on the Continent, in England, and in America. Further, across the generations, it exercised deep and enduring influence over the women w h o read it, enlightening them on the society they lived in, encouraging them to speak out, to create, and indeed to be full h u m a n beings in their own right. This is not to suggest that it was read by women alone; its influence over male readers was important in a variety of ways as well. Both the novel and the treatise were major forces in helping literature break free of its neoclassical bonds and in launching the Romantic movement in France, even as they gave reason for national pride to peoples under the Napoleonic boot. Insofar as these works undermined the status quo, they had to be perceived as subversive. Further, although their author never consciously intended them as such, they XV

Introduction were political acts. Intended to propitiate the emperor, they intensified his wrath, much to the author's surprise. The truth is that Staël did not know how to be nonpolitical, even when she wanted to be, even when she tried. Almost without exception, her every gesture, thought, and word were a threat to things-as-they-are, beginning with her being unlike other women in what she presumed for herself and for others in connection with herself. Nor could she have been like others given her combination of inherent gifts, her family background, and her singular upbringing.

Family and Early Life Anne Louise Germaine Necker was born in Paris on April 22, 1776, the only child of Swiss Protestant parents.3 She always felt deeply and unequivocally French, but from the beginning her situation was anomalous. Her detractors in France have never forgotten or forgiven her foreign roots, never found it palatable to learn from a non-Catholic foreigner, and a woman at that. The revocation of the Edict of Nantes by Louis XIV in 1685 had meant bitter persecution for French Protestants, who had fled the large urban centers and often the country itself. By the time Jacques Necker arrived penniless in the French capital from Geneva at the age of fifteen in 1747, the presence of Protestants was tacitly accepted, particularly if they were foreign. As a banker he quickly became the wealthiest man in France, and rose to the highest posts in government. Ambitious, talented, and even honest amid the corruption of the Old Regime's last years, he became contrôleur in 1 111 and exercised the powers of minister of finance. The measures he took to save France from bankruptcy failed, but could any strategy have worked by then? Though he was to become pompous and self-satisfied, he married for love, not money or position. His bride, Suzanne Curchod, was educated, intense, intelligent, and lovely. When the death of her father, a Swiss pastor, had left her virtually without funds, she had become a governess, the only professional choice open to a lady. When she was twenty, she and Edward Gibbon had fallen in love, but the great historian-to-be had yielded to strong paternal disapproval of his marriage XVi

Introduction to a "foreigner" (a fact of interest to the reader of Corinne, whose hero faces a similar problem). At twenty-seven, she was rescued from a life of decent poverty by Jacques Necker. Their union was to impress all Europe "as a model of marital virtue and bliss." 4 Thus it seems curious that w h e n the time came to marry off their only daughter, sentimental considerations played no part in the decision. The Neckers' failure to defend the young girl they had so pampered in her childhood is difficult for us to understand now, but it should not be forgotten that marriages at their level of society and wealth tended to be arrangements in which considerations of romantic attachment had no special place. Suzanne Necker's most intense feeling was for her husband. For his sake, this complex w o m a n — w h o s e idol was duty—created and presided over the most dazzling and popular salon of the day. The regular guests read like a literary, philosophical, scientific, and social Who's Who of the era: the Encyclopedists and philosophes Helvetius, Diderot, d'Alembert, the naturalist Buffon, the novelist Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, intellectual w o m e n with salons of their o w n — M a d a m e Geoffrin, the Marquise du Deffand, Julie de Lespinasse—as well as members of the court, the government, and diplomatic circles. The Necker family, with each member apparently standing in rapt adoration of the other two, may have seemed odd and faintly ridiculous to many Parisians, but they were avidly sought after nonetheless. From an early age Germaine came into the salon, sitting rigidly erect on a stool beside her mother's chair. She is described there by an observer at the age of eleven, speaking to the intellectually gifted guests "with ease and grace" like an adult (G 1). How could this precociously intelligent child not conclude that she was central to the universe, entitled to wholehearted admiration? How could she have failed to develop a taste for ideas and for the fine art of conversation that owed nothing to the superficial chitchat of the purely social salon? It is no wonder that the girl, w h o had no companion of her o w n age until she was eleven, absorbed the liberal political ideas of the philosophes which her adored father shared: generous ideas of human perfectability, rationality, and progress which she was ever to retain and live by. Further, her mother planned an education that was strikingly at odds with the social conditions of the time. For Suzanne Necker had

xvii

Introduction the child taught at home according to the pedagogical theories of Jean-Jacques Rousseau. She departed radically from the philosopher's views, however, ignoring his injunctions for the education of women: Germaine was to be brought up like the male Emile, not like the mentally and morally eviscerated Sophie. 5 And so, among other things, the child learned that to think for herself, to follow the light of her own conscience, to be natural and unconstrained were "good," and she was to abide by these values in her life and to instill them in her heroines, as will be seen strikingly in Corinne. Her rigorously duty-bound Protestant mother departed from Rousseau's principles in yet another way by initiating strict religious and moral education as soon as her daughter started to talk (G 32). Her rich program of instruction included English and Latin as well as broad, demanding reading. Yet despite the girl's remarkable progress, her mother never seems to have expressed satisfaction in her development. Once when complimented on Germaine's accomplishments, she replied: "It is nothing, absolutely nothing compared to what I wanted to make of her" (B 15). Inevitably, this unusual upbringing gave her mixed messages on what it meant to be a woman in the world of the late eighteenth century. 6 And though delightfully witty and vital as an adult, Staël is known to have suffered throughout her life from a terror of abandonment and a feeling of emptiness, apparently rooted in her childhood (see G 76-79). The painful strands of her inner and outward experience led to conflict rather than disability, however, and her extraordinarily animated and rich life on the social and creative levels testifies to her strength of will and of mind. To complicate matters further, early on mother and daughter entered into an increasingly bitter and open rivalry over Jacques Necker. Shortly before her death, Staël remarked to her friend Chateaubriand: "I have always been the same, lively and sad. I have loved God, my father and liberty" (B 11). To give some idea of the intensity of her love for Jacques Necker, let it suffice to say that no other man could possibly match him in her eyes, so that her many attempts to find an enduring, satisfying relationship in love were inhibited from the start. Equally important is the sad reality that although he adored her, encouraged her intellectual development, admired her conversation enthusiastically, he never approved of her writing. That xviii

Introduction was man's domain. Indeed until the day he died in 1804 at the age of seventy-two, he mercilessly ridiculed her serious claim to be a writer (G 39-42). As Madelyn Gutwirth points out, not until his death and her travel to Italy and Germany was Stael able to be a writer legitimately in her o w n mind. Indeed she never completely abandoned such makeshift arrangements for work as she devised in her parents' house, where she wrote standing at the mantlepiece so that she could pretend to be doing nothing when Necker came into the room. Only after the immense success of Corinne did she feel entitled even to consider having a desk (G 2 5 9 - 2 6 0 ) .

Marriage, Revolution, Love, Writing When it came time for Germaine to marry, a suitable Protestant had to be found, no easy task in the Catholic France of the 1780s. To the Neckers, William Pitt the Younger seemed just right for enhancing Jacques's position in France. Their daughter refused: she did not want to leave Paris for an England whose political system she admired in good philosophe fashion, but where she feared to live. Thus she agreed to marry the Swedish ambassador to the French court, Eric-Magnus, baron de Stael-Holstein, w h o had coveted her hand and fortune since her thirteenth year (B 21). He was a good-looking rakish sort, popular at court, constantly in need of the funds this prize heiress could provide, temperamentally and intellectually unsuited for marriage to the brilliant, ebullient, volatile Germaine, seventeen years his junior. But their marriage, on January 14, 1786, freed his young wife from parental supervision and allowed her to take her own place in Parisian society. A frequently quoted description penned by Guibert who frequented her salon brings her alive for us as she was at that time: Zulme is but twenty, and she is the most celebrated of the priestesses of Apollo. . . . Her large black eyes shone with genius; her ebony hair fell about her shoulders in waving curls; her features were pronounced rather than delicate; one sensed in them something above the destiny of her sex. Thus would one be compelled to depict the Muse of Poetry or Clio or Melopomene. xix

Introduction "Here she is, here she is!" everyone exclaimed when she appeared, and no one dared breathe. I listen to her, I look at her with delight; I discover in her features charms that are above beauty's. What life and variety played upon her face! . . . What perfect accord between thought and expression . . . the temple resounds with applause; her head falls modestly, her long lashes cover fiery eyes and the sun remains veiled from our view (G 46). The passage is interesting for several reasons. Its implications remind us that this woman was not beautiful, although she had beautiful features; that her "ugliness" did not lessen the fascination and attraction she held for many men, although her enemies cruelly taunted her with it. The passage is important too because Germaine herself took it seriously, and twenty years later each of its terms would come to life in her heroine, Corinne. The world of the salon was changing. With the death and departure from the salons of the aging philosophes, what Herold calls "the era of the politicians" had begun. "No sooner had Germaine assumed the status of married woman and ambassadress, than she took over for all practical purposes her mother's salon. . . . By making [it] her own forum, Germaine soon placed herself at the very center of political life" (70). Here, as later during the period of exile at Coppet, one of her great accomplishments would be the creation of an exciting intellectual atmosphere for the development and exchange of ideas. In a sense, all Europe would accept Stael's hospitality, as people of the finest intelligence and scholarship came from many countries to meet, talk, and write in her home. In an intolerant world these intellectuals were astonishingly ecumenical, for Catholics and Protestants came together in open, searching dialogue (B 115). Now spoken of as the Coppet Group, their contribution to the history of ideas in Europe is at last under intensive study. Not everyone was under Stael's spell, however, and along with welcome she met ridicule and enmity when she formally entered society. Many explanations are possible: she was the Neckers' daughter, she was Protestant, she was Swiss (though born in France). She was not beautiful. She was clumsy. She had an "unwomanly" interest in politics. Soon she was to disregard the sexual conventions of her day. XX

Introduction As Herold writes, however, "Her unforgivable sins were her independence, her defiance of public opinion, her ruthless pursuit of happiness, and her conscious superiority. In a woman these were sins only exceptional minds could forgive" (69). How different is this indignation from the smile accorded by contemporaries and by succeeding generations to such men as the untried Stendhal planning to be the new Molière and the young Victor Hugo asserting his genius, or to their open sexual promiscuity! The exciting and productive years for Staël between 1786 and 1791 were heightened by political and personal upheaval. Her first child, born in July 1787, died eighteen months later. In her salon, talk and planning aimed at the achievement of a constitutional monarchy with a two-chamber legislature that would represent the propertied classes and guarantee civil rights. When a monarchy was no longer possible, Staël and her friends were to work for a republic based upon the same principles. Ultimately they were not successful, but they came close enough to provoke unforgiving anger in their opponents. During this period too she knew her first great love: the thirtythree-year-old charming, intelligent, womanizing Louis, vicomte de Narbonne. Their five-year liaison, starting late in 1788, netted the ministry of war for him (Staël effectively pulled the necessary strings) and two sons for her: Auguste, born in 1790, and Albert, in 1792. Her behavior was judged scandalous, not because she was having an affair—that was acceptable and common in the upper levels of society throughout the century—but because it was so open. Naturalness and unconstraint, however, characterized all her relationships with other people, making them warm, even intense. These same qualities also led to stormy scenes and letters frightening in their passionate pleas and threats w h e n her lover started to withdraw. Did they derive in part from her Rousseauistic education? If so, they were indeed an ironic result of her mother's pedagogical liberalism. On July 11, 1789, Jacques Necker was dismissed as minister of finance. On July 14 the Bastille was stormed. When in desperation the king recalled Necker, his wife and adoring daughter were with him to witness his triumph, as hundreds of thousands of French people lined the roads to shout their joy. But several months later, Necker reluctantly retired to Coppet. During this period Staël was also writing a great deal, and in 1787

xxi

Introduction her first publication was issued privately. The Letters on the Works and Character of J.-J. Rousseau mark an important stage in the development of her critical thinking. 7 Here the author first broached the criteria that, developed further in On Literature (1800), would begin to break down the tyranny of rules inherited from seventeenth-century classicism which stifled creativity. Moreover, readers were asked to judge works according to personal response, a radically new approach (B 28). As the fury of the Revolution gathered momentum in 1792, it became dangerous for activist, moderate constitutionalists to remain in Paris, particularly if they were aristocrats. After helping some threatened friends, including Narbonne, escape with their lives, Staël herself was almost killed on September 2 on the Place de Grève. She left for Switzerland the next day. In November she gave birth to her second son, Albert, and two months later energetically set off for England where she spent five months with a group of French émigrés. It was there that she started to write the essay "On the Influence of the Passions" which would be published four years later. Its subject was the happiness of the individual which is made problematic, especially for women, by emotional dependence on others. Certainly this was to be one of the central questions in Corinne. Another was the difficulties faced by the woman who strives for glory like a man and who is therefore resented and ultimately unhappy. On September 18,1794, for good and for ill, Staël met the second most important man in her life, the Swiss Benjamin Constant. Having broken with Narbonne in July, she was still attached to the handsome Swedish exile Ribbing, 8 and was not attracted at first to the physically unprepossessing Constant who had to struggle to be noticed. He was immediately taken with her, however, saying: "She is a being apart, a superior being, such as appears but once in a century, such that those who can come close to h e r . . . must not demand any other happiness" (H 154). When they were together, his keen intelligence came alive, and her conversation became utterly "sparkling" (B 50). Balayé points out too that whatever Constant may have said to the contrary—and he said much!—he was never so happy as when he was at her side (B 50). For however incompatible of temperament, however much their passion cooled, their intellectual accord was remarkable, mutually stimulating, and enduring.

xxii

Introduction With the end of the Reign of Terror, it became safe to be in Paris again and Staël returned there with Constant, only to find the city in a state of near chaos. In 1795, they set to work on creating a base of support in groups of all colors—including liberal royalists—for the republic that was their new dream for France. The moderate position she fervently preached and plotted brought her no favor with the Directory regime; again she was in danger and had to leave Paris for a time. That same year, she published her "Essay on Fiction," which Goethe soon translated into German. It offers precious insight into her developing reflection on the nature and purposes of the novel, and into her growing and accurate conviction that the genre was to be the principal form of fiction in the years to come. The birth of Albertine, her child with Constant, in 1797, was to prove one of the happiest events in her life, since mother and daughter formed a devoted and satisfying relationship for which there had been no model in Staël's experience. Later that year she met the conquering general Napoleon Bonaparte for the first time and, like many people, she admired him for his accomplishments. Moreover she entertained the hope that he would set France in order and carry forward in a republic the ideals of the first phase of the Revolution. She could not have been more wrong, of course, as she soon found out. Further, her efforts to meet him on anything like equal terms were dismissed more and more sharply. He did not like intellecual women, perhaps he even feared them, and he certainly did not approve of their involvement in political life. Through Staël's influence with the abbé Sièyes, Constant was named to the Tribunate (the Roman Empire was ever the model of the dying century and the Napoleonic era).9 Assuming that it really was a forum for parliamentary discussion, he called in his maiden speech of December 1799 for an end to repressive emergency law and power for the Tribunes. "It is then that Bonaparte began to accuse Staël of mounting an opposition whose centers were her salon, the Tribunate and the Institute" (B 78). Much has been written about the author's attempts to ingratiate herself to Napoleon. In that effort she was like the majority of her contemporaries who aspired to any degree of prominence or power under his regime. What makes her different and what is less known are her refusals of obsequious toadying. When the Great Man banished xxiii

Introduction her from Paris, she did not take the steps necessary to have the ban lifted. In a sense she did not k n o w h o w , for she hoped, even expected, that each book she wrote would justify her in his eyes, whereas each one had to make her more odious to him. In another sense she simply refused. W h e n asked to eliminate "offensive" parts of Corinne, for example, she was ready to agree; but she would not add one w o r d in praise of the emperor, and ultimately no changes were made.

On Literature In the first year of the nineteenth century, the year that Napoleon became First Consul, Staël published her first major work, the treatise On Literature Considered in Its Relationships with Institutions. At the same time Bonaparte w a s systematically imposing order in every area of a nation that had been in a state of near anarchy. His strong encouragement of either propagandistic art or reversion to a seventeenthcentury code of neoclassicism in the arts is understandable. For w h e n people are busy looking back, it may be hoped that they will not upset the present by looking to the future. To sense the degree to which this plan w a s carried out, one has only to think of David's outsized canvas portraying Napoleon in a toga and crowned with laurel, and suggesting his will to preside over a n e w Augustan age. From our o w n experience of twentieth-century totalitarian states, w e k n o w that tyrants are not comfortable with ideas that encourage thinking in n e w directions. A n d that is precisely w h a t On Literature did. Napoleon had to dislike it, to see in it a political intention. As Balayé reminds us, " M m e de Staël's opposition to Napoleon has been too often reduced to anecdotes. In reality, this opposition was based on an ideology. . . . [In her eyes] literature has a social and political function. To exercise it the writer must be free." The critic adds that once Staël formulated this view, she did not deviate from it even w h e n she became aware that it w a s very dangerous (93). In her treatise, Staël presented a series of arguments in sharp contrast to established practice: Classical literature invokes a set code of rules; for Staël, rules are sterile if they come from anywhere but within the individual writer.

xxiv

Introduction Classicism turns to Roman and Greek antiquity for its subject matter; Staél urges writers to look instead to their own national pasts, to the Middle Ages. Classicism holds that taste was fixed once and for all; Staél sees taste as relative to the time and milieu of the artist. Here she has the originality to apply to literature principles that Montesquieu used to study social institutions. Thus she contrasts the literatures of the north and the south, calling, as Balayé says, for a literature steeped in melancholy, solitude, reverie, religious feeling, the sense of the infinite beyond our human grasp (8 5). To anyone acquainted with Romantic poetics, all this must seem like a program for Romanticism. It must also be seen as an implicit call to the Romantic phenomenon that was to be known as nationalism. Indeed On Literature, despite its incompleteness and errors—such as the unequivocal preference for the north and the unjust and scanty treatment of Italy—sounded the call for new political and literary attitudes.

From Delphine to Exile At this point, Staël turned to the novel, and in 1802 published her first important work of fiction, Delphine. In her twenties she had written several stories, important chiefly as harbingers of the two major novels to come. They share certain enduring Staëlien themes and points of view. There is an unexceptional lover who betrays the exceptional woman he passionately loves for a sweet homebody who will give him a tranquil domestic life. He makes this choice because he lacks the character and stamina required to brave social convention and live in the shadow of a strong woman. This will be the pattern of love for Staël herself and for her heroines, Delphine and Corinne. But there will be an essential difference between the author and her fiction. Whatever her temptation to despair or suicide at difficult moments, Staël never gave up the exhilarating if painful struggle that is life, and left for her fictional surrogates the romantically aesthetic death that follows on a single and absolute love. Why did Delphine, a superficially nonpolitical tale of tragic love, earn a consular disapproval strong enough to decree exile from Paris for its author? As a novel composed of an exchange of letters, a form XXV

Introduction very popular at the time, the book shows no innovation in structure. Its heroine is the lovable young widow of the elderly M. d'Albémar, w h o has died leaving her wealthy and free as only a widow could be among w o m e n at that time. She has all the feminine graces needed for success in society: charm, wit, beauty, and virtue. Raised to think for herself, to be spontaneous, direct and good, however, she trusts the wrong people and compromises her reputation through generous deeds that are misinterpreted by society. Unfortunately the conventional m a n she loves with abiding passion is bound by the dictates of his rigid mother and the punto de honor of his Spanish lineage. At the end of a highly complex series of events, the beloved Léonce dies and Delphine poisons herself, a properly romantic ending that was to be repeated in many forms throughout the century. While this sketch gives only an idea of this novel, a work that is diffuse and clumsy yet often fascinating, it does suggest the kind of heroine that Staél created and the reasons that led Napoleon to condemn the book as immoral and inimical to the interests of society. Although set in the France of 1790-1792, it took up matters that were pertinent to the First Consul in 1802. Just as he was making the Concordat with the Church of Rome, Staél attacked the narrowness she perceived in Catholicism and had her heroine commit the mortal and antisocial sin of suicide. Further, she raised questions about love and marriage, the individual and society, and through one of her secondary characters, she presented a defense of divorce. Delphine, though not a genius as Corinne would be, thinks and acts with an independence that public opinion will not tolerate. Thus she dies the victim of a pernicious social system. Finally, Staél dedicated her book to "the France of silence." When one considers what such a dedication would have meant—would mean in a totalitarian state of the present century—it is not hard to imagine its resonance at the time. Since the First Consul for life already thought Staél dangerous for a variety of reasons, and since he did not see women apart from their familial role and detested independent thought in a female head, he found this novel to be the proverbial last straw. "Never" he exclaimed, "will Necker's daughter return to Paris!" (B 101). Indeed, except for brief, clandestine visits—including a poignant nocturnal promenade in 1806 which will be echoed in Corinne's farewell to

xxvi

Introduction Rome 10 —and in a great deal of Romantic literature to come—the author did not return until her powerful enemy was exiled on Elba. Except for her trip to England, Stael had not strayed far from Paris and Geneva before this time. She disliked journeys—they were dreadfully uncomfortable as contemporary accounts show, and she was unhappy at first in foreign lands. But always her marvelous interest in people's ways and ideas won out. And so for the rest of her life, she would be an indefatigable and perspicacious visitor in countries where she was indeed welcomed as warmly, and as admiringly, as she could have wished.

Visit to Germany First she turned to Germany, her curiosity having been aroused by German and Swiss friends to the extent that she had begun studying their language in 1802 to read the literature in the original, a process she was to repeat for Italy. In December 1803, Stael set off with two of her children and Constant. Banished by Napoleon, she was feted in Weimar by the grand duke and duchess; she was introduced to Schiller, Wieland, and Fichte. She also met Goethe who is said to have "enjoyed contradicting her to the point where she became desperate, brilliant and charming." 11 Before she left Germany she acquired another essential instrument of her education about Germany and Italy. During her stay in Berlin she met the brilliant August Wilhelm von Schlegel, poet, critic, and translator who, with his brother Friedrich, was a major exponent of German Romanticism. He became her faithful friend and mentor— though, to his distress, not her lover. Except for brief periods, he was not to leave her side until her death thirteen years later. Eventually she would put all her new ideas and awakened sensitivity into the epochal book On Germany. But her first stay in the country was interrupted on April 22, when she received word of her father's death. Time would calm the explosive, shattering grief she felt at the loss, and her guilt at having left him though she'd known he was less than well. But she would never quite recover. Readers of Corinne will recognize her feelings in the unremitting sorrow and guilt experienced by the hero, Oswald. xxvii

Introduction Back at Coppet, with Constant's help, she prepared Necker's manuscripts for publication as a memorial to her father. Under the tutelage of the Schlegel brothers, she read Lessing, Miiller, and Winklemann, concerned for the first time, says Genevieve Gennari, with the aesthetic notion of the "beautiful." Until then she had sought in the arts only the moral quality of the "good" (GG 19-20). With this preparation she was to see painting, sculpture, and architecture in an entirely new way when she went to Italy, and Corinne will defend the author's broadened vision against the "old-fashioned" views of Oswald which had been her own.

The Italian Journey and Corinne As winter approached, Stael was ready to travel again and, early in December, set off for Italy with Schlegel and her children. Her friend Simonde de Sismondi was to join them in Turin. He was already preparing his monumental work, History of the Italian Republics in the Middle Ages,12 and would prove an excellent guide to the vestiges of medieval Italy. Like Schlegel he was vainly in love with Stael, and like Schlegel he was to prove a lifelong friend. Thanks to the publication of Simone Balaye's annotated edition of Stael's travel notebooks,13 knowledge replaces what was in the past often inaccurate speculation on the events of her trips and the origins of her important new works. We now know, for example, that it was in Weimar that the writer not only discovered the new German theater, but conceived the idea for Corinne from a performance of The Nymph of the Danube on February 1, 1804 (B 107). The story concerns a knight who chooses life with an ordinary woman rather than with the superior, extraterrestrial ondine whom he loves, a theme that had appeared in various forms in Stael's early fiction. Further, we learn that Stael decided immediately to set her projected novel in an Italy she as yet knew only at second hand through books. We learn too that she would soon decide to explore the scenes of her novel directly. For this thirty-eight-year-old woman, used to all the material amenities that wealth and position could supply, would nevertheless brave discomforts we rarely meet as travelers today. She walked endlessly around an antiquated Rome, climbed the slope of xxviii

Introduction an unquiet Vesuvius on foot, scouted sites for scenes over sometimes rugged terrain, and braved dirty, ill-equipped inns. She generally made her visits in the company of such experts as Schlegel and Sismondi, so that she might understand what she was seeing as fully as possible. In a word, she relentlessly pursued what she deemed necessary for her novel's reality. Crossing the Alps in midwinter proved a harrowing experience, which was to be reflected in Corinne like innumerable other details of the Italian journey. On the far side of the mountains, the heat and sun evoked by so many eighteenth-century travelers and their books, were not immediately present. That disappointment was counterbalanced, however, by the w a r m welcome Stael received everywhere in Italy, not only as Necker's daughter but also as a major thinker and author in her o w n right. She could be happy about her talents there without guilt, a happiness to be shared by her Corinne. And so Staelien Italy, w h i c h w a s to do so m u c h to shape the Romantic myth of that country, began to take form, since it was to be a land where one could be free to be oneself. W h e n the group reached Milan, the poet Vincenzo Monti made up for the winter's chill, at least in Stael's eyes. He along with Schlegel introduced her to a broadened understanding of the Italian literature she had slighted through ignorance in On Literature. He also urged her successfully to learn the Italian language which she came to love for its musicality and expressiveness. Since her father's death, her religious sense had deepened, making her more open to differing religious thought. Certainly the Schlegel brothers had led her to broaden her view of Roman Catholicism during the previous summer. Further, she was sensitive to the charm, intelligence, and cultivation of the cardinals she met in Rome. Remaining a convinced member of the reformed church, she nevertheless developed an appreciation of Catholic ceremonial and of the role of the Virgin Mary, another suffering w o m a n . Even so, considering her Genevan Protestant background and her earlier thinking and writing on the subject, it may well seem astonishing that she made Corinne a practicing Italian Catholic, but her breadth of view had enlarged with experience. Thus Corinne would ably defend her religion as well as her country against the representatives of the north: the Scottish-English Oswald and the French Count d'Erfeuil.

xxix

Introduction As for Staèl's Rome, soon to be Corinne's, Gennari wisely reminds us that just as Paris was still a semi-medieval city at the time, so the papal city still had a countrified look: "All contemporary [visitors] were struck by the contrast between the majesty of the city and the humble presence of all sorts of animals" (63-64). Indeed, the author did not really appreciate the city until her second visit in the spring of 1805, when she came to k n o w its ancient civilization and to achieve a certain peace there. She had found a guide whose appeal to her heart enhanced everything they saw together. The handsome twenty-fiveyear-old half-German and half-Portuguese Don Pedro de Souza e Holstein, Duke of Palmella, was, like her, mourning for his father. Their common melancholy was in harmony with their promenades in the "dead city," enhancing the romance of ruins, that ever so popular romantic theme, just as the entente between Corinne and Oswald was to heighten their Roman tours in the novel. Rome was also the place where Staèl's dear friend Pauline de Beaumont had died. Abandoned by her lover, Chateaubriand, and mortally ill, she had followed him to Rome in 1803, and died in his arms. A line in Staèl's notebook following her visit to the grave proves that her friend's story inspired Corinne's death, for she wrote: "Mme de Beaumont's tomb because she was not loved. Corine [sic]" (C 101, emphasis added). Surely the greatest revelation of the Italian journey came in Naples and the Campania. The brilliance of the southern sun and the luxuriant vegetation of the south brought a grand awakening to a woman who, despite her passion for the writings of Rousseau, had never before been sensitive to nature. Exhilarated, enthusiastic, Staèl wrote in a letter: "I have felt nature here more than anywhere else. There is something potent in the south that speaks to you like a friend, or rouses you like a party." (C 116). As a result, nature was to play an important role for the first time in a Staèlien fiction. In Corinne the still new "Romantic" sensitivity to the natural world is strongly present, and it will touch a generation ready for fresh ways of feeling. If Naples represented the quintessential life-force, nature provided its antithesis in Vesuvius rising threateningly above. The Romantic soul was ready to welcome such absolute contrast. One has only to remember Chateaubriand's René, perched broodingly over the smoldering crater. Making the difficult climb to see it for herself, Stael would XXX

Introduction soon put it to effective use in her own novel, where it is no Romantic cliché, even though it doubtless generated many. And Pompeii, testifying to the volcano's power, helped provoke the reappearance of the Villon ubi sunt, 14 long absent from French writing and soon to be powerful again. Florence gave the author a sense of melancholy, perhaps because she was tired and had seen enough museums (GG 99). Her lassitude will be reflected in the novel, for Corinne chooses to spend her declining years there. The author also was less delighted with Venice that her Romantic successors were to be, finding it rather sad, a feeling Corinne will echo too. 15 But she was fascinated with Venice's social life, largely played out in the cafés around the Piazza San Marco, which provided material for descriptions of the unlikely public salons in her novel. Further, in the novel there are a fair number of what must seem errors of fact to the modern reader. These can be principally explained by the minimal archaeological knowledge of the time, or by the actual location of particular paintings and statues during the time of Staël's visits. Like every work of art, Corinne has its literary antecedents. Staël was not alone in being deeply moved by Chateaubriand's Letter to Fontane on the Roman Campagna of 1802. She had also been attracted by the melancholy of his René, published in the same year, and by Goethe's Werther of 1774, which had enchanted her as a girl. These moody, passive, indecisive, guilt-ridden heroes—along with men of the same character she knew as lovers—greatly contributed to the conception of Oswald. Madelyn Gutwirth gives a concise overview of the author's literary sources, discussing—along with the more obvious ones mentioned above—Karl Victor von Bonstetten's "ponderous" Voyage to the Scene of the Last Six Books of the Aeneid, Goethe's Italian Journey, and Madame de Krudener's novel, Valérie (1803), which also contains an Italian travelogue. Special emphasis is given to Madame de Charrière's Caliste of 1784, which Staël had long admired and which bears important resemblances and crucial differences to Corinne (G 1 6 3 - 1 6 9 ) . By the time the author returned to Coppet in the spring of 1805, she was ready to begin writing her novel; at the end of August she read the initial chapters to the group of friends gathered there. Corinne, or Italy, published in April 1807, was an immediate and imxxxi

Introduction mense success. Now fully recognized throughout Europe as a major writer of her time, Staël thought that, at last, Napoleon would agree to be placated. Of course, he did not. As soon as the book appeared in 1807, he detested it.16 As Gennari argues (223-242), he was doubtless as sensitive to what it omitted and suggested as to what it said. Although the novel takes place between 1794 and 1803, nowhere are the emperor or his victories in Italy mentioned. Nowhere are the French armies seen. Moreover, following on the decisive defeat of the French navy at Trafalgar in 1805, Staël presents a noble Protestant religious service on a British battleship anchored off Naples (C 131). At a time when the nations of Europe are aligning to break the French dominance, the author describes a Hyde Park review of noble British troops about to leave for battle with the French in the Indies. Perhaps Staël did indeed make her hero Scottish to mitigate his possible offensiveness to Napoleon, but he does represent the clearly admired British political system. The heroine Corinne is a woman of independent mind, means, and morals. And in her role as Roman poet, she carries out a prophetic mission to the people of Italy, reminding them of the greatness that was theirs once and would be again were they a free and united people! And how could Bonaparte not feel himself the target of the statement that victories won by Corinne's peaceable genius had not cost a single life? Finally, three characters represent France in the novel: One is a supernoble aristocrat who falls victim to the Revolution. The second is his sister, a product of the Parisian society that has corrupted her ability to be honest. The third is the Count d'Erfeuil, the most important secondary character in the novel. Brave, kind, clever, and generous, he is also a delicious caricature of the chauvinistic, foppish Frenchman who thinks that everyone in the world should speak French, that "of course" Shakespeare can't hold a candle to Racine, that Rome, a dull pile of broken old stones, is vastly overrated—as he plans to inform everyone when he gets back to Paris.

On Germany Thus Paris remained grimly off limits, and Staël began writing the treatise entitled On Germany. "There were two nations out of fashion xxxii

Introduction in Europe," she wrote to a friend, "Italy and Germany. I have undertaken to restore to them their reputation for sincerity and wit" (G 241). Certainly she succeeded beyond her best expectations, and her new book brought the fresh winds of German Romanticism whirling into France. She did not ask that the French imitate their eastern neighbors, only that they search out their own native treasures, rather than limit themselves to stultifying rules (B 161). On Germany was more than a theoretical work; faithful to her principles that translation was an essential instrument for understanding other peoples, Staël included her own renderings of selected passages, which helped considerably to modify the sensitivity of a generation. The multiple implications of this complex book can merely be suggested here; a detailed analysis would call up all the qualities and themes that manuals of literature have since named "Romantic": enthusiasm, melancholy, imagination, the Middle Ages, rationality informed by emotion, radical renewal of tragedy in the theater, and the divinely inspired poet-guide to the human race, for example. Clearly Staël was sounding a call to revolution in literature which Napoleon, demanding order in every domain, was not about to tolerate, particularly at a moment when repression of dissent was increasing. Thus the book, when first printed in 1810, never saw the light of day. On September 24, under high-level orders, the police told the author to hand over all manuscripts and proofs and to leave France within forty-eight hours. They broke up the type at the printer's shop and destroyed all the copies of book and proofs they could lay hands on. Fortunately the author had hidden three. By Napoleonic edict, Staël was to be confined to Geneva and Coppet. The channel ports were closed to her so that she could not reach England. She settled in Geneva for the winter and there met twenty-three-year-old John Rocca. Scion of a patrician Genevan family, he had run off to be an officer in Napoleon's hussars and had been wounded in Spain. Handsome, nonintellectual, athletic, he fell passionately in love with the homely, forty-four-year-old writer. She paid him only the minimum attention required by social custom, but he would not be put off, and in 1811 they exchanged a promise of marriage in secret before a Genevan pastor. Improbable though it sounds, the union was highly successful and brought Staël the unreserved and lasting mutual affection she had never known with a man. xxxiii

Introduction As usual Staël continued to write, starting Ten Years of Exile and completing a play, Sappho. But the emperor's persecution was unrelenting, and friends w h o visited her soon felt his heavy hand. Schlegel urged her to flee. On May 23, 1812, a month and a half after the birth of her last child, hesitant and frightened, her health permanently undermined by the pregnancy, Staël made the choice for freedom. The scenario of the great adventure was highly cinematic. She left Coppet with Rocca and two of her children as if for an afternoon's outing. Just ahead of the Napoleonic armies, in the company of Schlegel w h o soon joined them, they crossed all of Europe and entered Russia on July 14. From there they made their way to Moscow and Saint Petersburg. "Russia received her like the commanding general of an allied power," writes Herold (428). And she did indeed engage in political negotiations which she was to continue in Stockholm, where her party arrived on September 24, and later in England. She met often with the Prince Royal, her old friend Bernadotte, w h o m she would have liked to have seen on the French throne when Napoleon fell. She also began writing Considerations on the French Revolution, the first attempt at a general study of that period and probably the first treatise in political science by a woman. In January of 1813, she published her Reflections on Suicide. On June 18, she arrived in London where she was to stay until May of 1814. There, at last, she published On Germany, having carried the manuscript with her throughout the arduous journey; it proved an immediate success. Following Napoleon's abdication, she returned to Paris at last, fêted and in turn fêting prominent people from many countries. But the past splendor of her salon was not to be recovered, for given the decline of her health, she was unable to regain her old energy. Then came the emperor's return from Elba. Cleverly, he courted his old enemies with promises of liberalism. Constant was willing to cooperate and wrote a constitution, but Staël, though tempted, remained essentially wary. She continued to be involved in politics, turning to the Duke of Orleans after Waterloo as the best candidate for the throne. He refused the idea then, but in 1830 with the help of many of her old comrades, including Constant, he was to become king of the French as Louis Philippe. She was less than pleased to see the Bourbons reign, but they did return the fortune lent them by Necker. As a result Staël had the plea-

xxxiv

Introduction sure of marrying her daughter to the young but poor Victor, duc de Broglie, whose politically liberal father had died under the guillotine, and whose mother was among those Staël had saved. Ambitious, liberal, personable, intelligent, and devoted, he had all the attributes necessary to please his fiancée and his intended mother-in-law. On February 20, 1816, the Catholic and Protestant wedding ceremonies were celebrated in Pisa, Italy, where the family had gone because of Rocca's increasingly poor health due to tuberculosis. Eight months later Staël secretly married Rocca at Coppet. After a paralytic stroke in February 1817, she died on July 14, three months after her fifty-second birthday. On July 28 she was buried beside her parents at Coppet. Six months later John Rocca was also dead. In the years directly following Staël's death, her unfinished Ten Years of Exile and Considerations on the Revolution were published, followed by an edition of her Complete Works in 1820. Her last surviving child, Albertine, died in 1838, but the Broglie descendants have been distinguished in the fields of letters, government service, mathematics, and the physical sciences. Simonde de Sismonde surely spoke for the many people whose lives Germaine de Staël had transformed when he wrote: It is all over then with the place . . . where I was so sure of feeling at home! All over with this vivifying society; this magic lantern of the world, which I first saw light up there and that has taught me so much. . . . There is no one to whom I owe more than to her (H 296).

Analysis of Corinne Corinne, or Italy stands with those shorter, better-known tales, Chateaubriand's René (1802) and Constant's Adolphe (1816), as one of the three most important novels of early French Romanticism. While novels had, of course, been written before the turn of the century, it is at this moment that the genre takes center stage. It became widely popular, both reflecting and influencing society. In this light, Corinne had far greater impact on literature, society, and the history of thought during the nineteenth century than did either René or Adol-

XXXV

Introduction phe, although the latter two have had greater appeal for twentiethcentury readers. Further, this novel's importance to the development of the genre deserves attention, for Corinne, though retaining elements of seventeenth* and eighteenth-century models, points the way to the narrative forms that were to evolve in subsequent years. Clearly Staël does not forget the example of books she has admired: among them, Madame de Lafayette's classically bare The Princesse of Clèves with its analysis of the feelings and psyche, Rousseau's didactic, philosophical, and lyrical epistolary novel The New Héloïse. Delphine, after all, had been a novel of letters. But the epistolary model would have been a straitjacket for Corinne whose inner and outer landscapes needed far greater latitude, though it occasionally finds the exchange of letters useful in moving the narrative along—as will be true in The Red and the Black of Stendhal (1830). Corinne's and Oswald's autobiographical tales recall the first-person retrospective narrative, typified by Manon Lescault and continued by both René and Adolphe.17 Staël introduces the third-person, omniscient narrator, however, who was to become typical of the Romantic novel. At first Corinne, serving as Oswald's guide to Italy, speaks at length. Gradually, all indications of direct discourse disappear, and the reader becomes aware that the voice of the author is increasingly dominant, until in the last sentence of the novel Staël speaks to us in the first person. Thus it may be said that Corinne is in a real sense thefirstnineteenth-century novel. In her Essay on Fiction of 1895, Staël had defended the genre, saying that mediocre practitioners, an exclusive devotion to the passion of love for its subject matter, and the graphic depiction of vice (was she thinking of Laclos?) were the source of its low reputation.18 She designates the works of the English Richardson and Fielding as pointing to the novel's future. Tom Jones in particular is cited for its solid grounding in experience, its moral seriousness, its feelings "so much in keeping with nature."19 Staël was convinced that the best novels are morally useful, for, as Gutwirth writes, they "expand our understanding of the emotions. The art in the novel she sees as essential to its power to act upon us, to improve us . . ." 20 Thus she calls for writing that moves us and in which "everything is invented and imitated . . . nothing is real. . . but everything seems real" (EF 67). This multifaceted work, which is Staël's major novel, has many imxxxvi

Introduction portant connections with the author's personal experience. Like her creator, Corinne will face the obstacles and penalties a patriarchal society sets against a talented w o m a n w h o chooses to exercise her gifts. She will have the independent mind, the spontaneity and directness of character, the brilliant conversation, the love of literature and ideas that made Staël at once charismatic and maddening to her contemporaries. She will k n o w the terror of abandonment and emptiness her creator experienced. She will be torn between independence and the strictures of society, and she will suffer from emotional dependence on another person, a dependence brought about by love. The passion Staël felt for her father and the unyielding sense of guilt after his death are relived by her hero, Oswald. Likewise the nourishing but stifling paternal love is reflected—and harshly j u d g e d — i n the persons of Lord Edgermond and Lord Nelvil senior. Staël's mother is surely to be perceived in the portrayal of the cold Lady Edgermond, the heroine's stepmother w h o lives and dies as much a victim as a proponent of her rigid sense of Protestant duty. Certainly the strong if implicit castigation of arranged marriages and the plea for freedom in the relations of men and w o m e n were born of painful experience, just as the salon derives from experiences of joy and fulfillment. A n d the novel takes on the colors of Staël's exile, whether it be Corinne's English adolescence, or her allusions to Dante and earlier Roman victims of tyranny. Corinne w a s not written in a single burst of romantic enthusiasm with few if any subsequent changes, as earlier critics often supposed. Simone Balayé's research reveals three complete revisions of an original manuscript that survives only in fragments. W h e n scholars study the modifications, they will be able to show h o w Staël worked and h o w her original ideas for the novel took shape or changed. 21 Corinne is an unprecedented character, just as her creator was an unprecedented w o m a n . She is the first female genius to be portrayed in a novel, though not, of course, the first remarkable w o m a n . Furthermore, by setting precedents for fictional heroines and real lives, she has at least indirectly touched us in the present time. Corinne is a multitalented w o m a n with an exceptional mind w h o has the courage to break with her past, live a life independent of the usual social norms, and become what she has the ability to be: poetimprovisatrice, prophet and guide to her people. Born in Italy to an Ital-

xxxvii

Introduction ian mother and a British father, knowing both heritages intimately, she has consciously sought to combine in herself the best qualities of each country, but to live in the more accepting world of the south. Further she uses only a first name. While she has discarded her rightful patronymic for unselfish reasons, she has taken no other in its stead. Perhaps implicitly this has to do with her will to be identified only as herself, rather than as "daughter of," or later as "wife of." Like Oswald, we see her first when she is crowned at Rome's Capitol like Tasso and Petrarch before her. She is dressed "like Domenechino's Sibyl," and—shades of Guibert's description of ZulmeGermaine—she suggests the priestess of Apollo.22 At the same time, she remains a paragon of womankind: charming, feminine, beautiful, kind, generous, good, religious. Further she has the specifically "Italian" qualities—we would call them Romantic—of naturalness, spontaneity, enthusiasm, and imagination. Throughout the novel, she acknowledges her need for the "sustaining strength" of a male "protector" and regards domestic tranquility with admiration and longing, if also with distrust. She is both fully cognizant of her own superiority and shyly modest. Thus when crowned at the Capitol to the acclaim of the populace, though she was "visibly pleased to be admired . . . her joy was suffused with a [woman's] timidity that seemed to beg indulgence for her triumph" (II.i). Yet in the act of performance, she becomes "an inspired priestess, joyously devoting herself to the cult of genius" (II.iv). Why then does the trajectory of her life show a plunge into agonized suffering, despair, rage, and death rather than propulsion to even greater heights of the glory and happiness she has fought to attain and prizes so dearly? Given Stael's Racinian view of passion this course was no doubt inevitable. 23 Certainly Corinne harbors an urge to self-destruction which was to be peculiarly common in life as in fiction during the Romantic period, and which was shared by all Staelien heroines. For Corinne, it is closely tied to belief in the redeeming value of suffering, expressed in the urge to sacrifice herself nobly for the good of her lover Nelvil and her half sister Lucile, an urge she can scarcely understand herself once it is too late.24 A second answer is to be found in Stael's essay On the Influence of the Passions of 1893: the destructive force of emotional dependence on another person. As soon as Corinne falls in love with Oswald, it is xxxviii

Introduction as if her fate is sealed; she who has been so strong is helplessly caught. Marriage and the exercise of her talents are mutually exclusive as she perceives when she abjectly begs Oswald to take her back to England as his "slave." Her only hope of salvation will be his willingness and ability to return her passion freely and faithfully. Ultimately, however, as Albertine Necker de Saussure has written: Corinne "is at odds with the nature of things." 25 What she sought was revolutionary in 1807. It remains revolutionary today, because through Corinne, Staél suggests living arrangements and attitudes that neither men nor women are fully prepared to adopt as yet. Corinne asks to be accepted for what she is. She asks to live a full life as a woman without the mutilation resulting from the sacrifice of her God-given talents. She asks that a man with gifts inferior to her own live happily in her shadow. Just as revolutionary is Corinne's insistence that love be freely given and exchanged, imposing no bonds outside itself on either party. Thus she does not want to marry Oswald— at least not until it is too late—although she asks that he never leave her. Her repeated refusal to hold Oswald by deception, guilt, or the force of social constraint is perhaps the most important explanation of her failure to make the most of many opportunities that could bind him to her through his own moral code. Curiously the heroine Corinne prefigures the ambitious Romantic heroes of a later day, while Oswald does so only in his public persona. An excellent officer, beloved of his troops, he is shown to be energetic and decisive, bold and brave. This gives the reader some idea of what Corinne sees in him, for in the personal domain, it is hard to share, much less understand, Corinne's passion, and the only possible explanation seems to be conveyed through the cliché "love is blind." In short, although radically unlike the typical early Romantic hero in his capacity for physical courage and adventure, Oswald shares the flaws of Werther, René, and Adolphe. He is essentially passive, incapable of making up his mind, irretrievably and nobly melancholy, dragging his Weltschmerz through life, and bringing grief to anyone so unfortunate as to love him and be loved in return. Like them too, he is consumed with guilt. Nonetheless, while theirs has no source discemable to the most careful reader, Oswald's, however exaggerated, is based on what he sees as a betrayal of his father made irredeemable by death. xxxix

Introduction Yet another aspect of Oswald's patterns of thought and feeling is peculiar to the dynamics of this novel. He is destructive to Corinne not just because he is indecisive by nature, but because his hesitation is based on w h a t social convention and socially determined sex roles do and do not allow. For all his sensitivity, he has been raised to a noble and stern Protestant faith, and has learned to repress or dissemble his feelings (though they always seem to spill over). Further he has been educated to seek utility in everything including art, to consider duty and moral rectitude supremely important. He has, of course, also been raised to a stiff British sense of respect for the paternal authority represented by the father and the father's land. Like Vesuvius with Pompeii, the paternal hand lays waste to w h a t it touches. Corinne's father w a s too w e a k to protect her; Oswald's stands for all that is sterilizing in an aristocratic moral code w h e n applied without understanding or h u m a n kindness. Lady Edgermond, Corinne's stepmother and mother to Lucile, the "other w o m a n " in the novel, has completely "bought" the patriarchal system. Repressing all emotion save love for her daughter, she views the female role as absolute observance of duty to husband, home, religion, children, unrelieved by compassion or laughter. 26 Given Oswald's upbringing and his obsession with atonement for sin against his father, it is clear that all of Corinne's loveliness and gifts will be hard put to hold him once he returns to England. Further, public o p i n i o n — w h a t the French so aptly call the qu'en dira-t-on (what will people say?)—is very important to him, pushing him often unconsciously in a direction his conscious mind would generously prefer to reject: an antithetical pull that underlies m u c h of his hesitancy. If in the end he is unable and unwilling to cast his lot with Corinne, it is because along with its powerful caveats, his o w n world offers him its ideal of w o m a n h o o d in the appealing form of Lucile Edgermond, Corinne's half sister. Thus is introduced a theme that, scarcely n e w to literature, will assume special importance throughout the Romantic period: the dark w o m a n and the fair lady. The antithetical implications are obvious: on the one hand, creativity, danger, suffering, the powers of darkness; on the other, safety, goodness, tranquillity, all the powers of beneficent light. At this point, modern readers might well be inclined to pull back like George Eliot's Maggie Tulliver,

xl

Introduction who says: "I'm determined to read no more books where blondehaired women carry away all the happiness." 27 But Maggie was wrong on several counts. Had she persisted, she would probably have liked Lucile and felt sympathy for her. For Stael does not present her through Oswald's eyes: a perfect mid-teen innocent, clothed in mystery as in beauty, who will bring her man peaceful undemanding love, and allow him to mold her to his own design. It does occur to him momentarily that behind Lucile's blushing silence there may be none of Corinne's treasures that brought him new life—but not peace—when he was sunk in despair. The reader, however, understands what he cannot and will not see: that she is an intelligent person of strong character, capable of independent reflection, but constrained by the circumstances of family life in provincial Northumberland to live entirely within herself. She is narrow only by an education that has cut off her perspectives on the larger world. What is more, she is burdened with impossible responsibility imposed through the prayer she recites aloud every day, asking God: that the girl of this house may live and die with her soul unstained by a single thought, by a single feeling that does not conform to her duties; . . . that her mother who must soon return to Thee obtain pardon for her own sins in the name of the virtues of her only child. (XVI.v) Lucile does get the man, but not the happiness she had every reason and right to expect when she married her handsome Scottish lord. For when she learns something of his story soon after the wedding, she is not merely jealous, she is thoroughly dismayed that her husband could have treated a woman so badly. Indeed, when the sisters meet again near the end of the novel, they will form a startling alliance ostensibly to make Oswald happy when Corinne is gone; but it may well be read as revenge against the man who has betrayed them both.28 When Corinne asks Oswald, "What have you done with so much love?" she is speaking of herself. But we as readers might well ask the question in terms of both women in the triangle. For with a unique opportunity to live two idylls, Oswald has botched each in turn. To understand more fully the way in which Stael means us to see xli

Introduction the two women, we need to follow the repeated visual cues in the novel. They are the paintings that symbolize Corinne and Lucile: Domenichino's Sibyl and Correggio's Madonna della Scala. Examining them closely, we cannot help being struck by the entirely different beauty of the self-contained clear-sighted seer and the lovely virginmother of downcast eye. One would be tempted to see them as opposites, but given the entente the sisters reach in the end, given the author's own lifelong struggle for equilibrium, one finds Madelyn Gutwirth's argument eminently persuasive: "[they] represent. . . the divided parts of what ought to be a unity" (G 241). As the curtain falls on Romeo and Juliet, or Verdi's La Traviata, as we read the last lines of The Red and the Black, we sigh or weep for the dead lovers, and we feel the aesthetic and moral satisfaction that tragedy normally affords. Stael, on the other hand, does not let us go home "free." The end of Corinne is meant to make the reader uneasy. Throughout the book, in good Romantic fashion, the author tells us clearly and often what we are to think about everything. Nineteen sections of the book are titled to show something of their intent, but the twentieth is called only "Conclusion," not, be it noted, "Conclusions." For Stael leaves those up to us. Her style, which has varied from the classic, to the Romantic, to the vague, to the overblown, is suddenly chillingly, arrestingly, bare. Without a superfluous word in the single paragraph following Corinne's slow death, Oswald's subsequent life is evoked in six brief sentences. Three concise and telling questions call u p o n us to render judgment, for the author, intervening directly for almost the first time, says simply: "I do not know, and on this score I wish neither to blame him nor to grant him absolution." Those three questions are meant to haunt us, and they go straight to the book's theme discussed above: h o w men and women live and could live in society. Further, this ending should strike the reader as cruelly ambiguous and, in that sense, unexpectedly modern. In the concluding section of the novel Corinne says, "I forgive him for breaking my heart. Men do not know what they do." But does she really forgive him? Are not all her dying efforts with Lucile and the Nelvils' daughter Juliette gestures of defiance and revenge? Is not the child meant to carry on her work to new levels of triumph? Dead or alive, Corinne will be at the Nelvils' side so long as they live. The parents will see her in their child. Oswald will see her in Lucile as

xlii

Introduction well. And if he can never forget her, can he ever dull the pain of his guilt—or of his loss? Indeed should he be allowed any respite? Gutwirth is right: this is an angry "novel of revolt," and "the unregenerately rebellious heart of Corinne . . . is [its] final symbol . . ." (G 257). Staél ultimately called her book Corinne, or Italy. The conjunction joining the two nouns immediately suggests the importance of the second term. The travel book was an independent literary form at the time, and Staél had read a number of them, including Goethe's Italian Journey, according to her o w n footnotes. Further, during the Romantic period the genre was to flourish in the hands of writers of the caliber of Stendhal, although rarely as part of a novel. There is little in Staél's travel notebooks, however, to suggest that she originally planned to use the country as much more than a backdrop to her tale of tragic love. The change in intention, writes Balayé, came about in the following way: When she sought to understand Italians so that she might explain them, she discovered that everyone thinks they understand them and that no one does. Thus she will do for Italy what she was already preparing to do for Germany: she will lead others to discover them. (C 115) The complex travelogue worked into and around the novel's story shows yet another intention, however, one fundamental to our understanding of the novel and of the Romantic period itself. From the time that Staél applied Montesquieu's sociopolitical understanding of the influence of milieu and climate to art in On Literature, she was evolving for herself a concept of a classical pagan south, and a Romantic Christian north. This same question was central to others at the time, particularly to Wilhelm and Friedrich Schlegel, who were important catalysts to her thinking. Thus Corinne can also be read as a formulation of the opposition—in the novel it is juxtaposition as well—of the terms of a fundamental Romantic myth. The travelogue takes us to many places ancient and modem, to museums, ruins, and natural sites, to the salon and the ballroom; it takes up questions of character, feelings, reactions, religion, and aesthetics associated with Italy. It is presented in several different ways: by Coxliii

Introduction rinne as she guides Oswald in Italy, through their ongoing dialogue, through conversation in Corinne's salon, through letters exchanged by the lovers, and by the author in her own narrative voice. Corinne, as the daughter of the sun, shows her Italy to Oswald the child of the northern cold and the mists: opposing climates, opposing temperaments, opposing civilizations. Each will be defended against the other. As we have said, Corinne takes up the argument of On Literature and to a large extent reverses it. As recent Staelien critics point out, the views of the "old" Stael are represented by Oswald and d'Erfeuil and the " n e w " by the heroine. They point out too that certain ideas which have not changed are defended against the south eloquently by Oswald, or with comic verve by the French count (GG 160, 1 7 0 - 1 7 5 , 206; C 165). Corinne does not represent only the south, however. She is also her English father's child. She knows England's literature intimately, and her understanding of Shakespeare, Young, Ossian, for example, is illuminated by love. 29 She loves northern melancholy and hears the Christian call to suffering and sacrifice because they, too, are her birthright. Indeed in her own person she attempts the synthesis, the reconciliation, of north and south which could conceivably save a faltering Western civilization. But the northern Oswald and the unredeemably masculine world from which he comes do not appreciate the need or the attempt, and so Corinne must fail. Oswald's reactions to the peninsula's charms engage Corinne in an ongoing dialogue through which their relationship is developed; at the same time unbridgeable differences are revealed. She invites him to her salon where all the guests take part in a lively discussion of Italian literature, but later the two of them exchange letters in which the one bitterly attacks and the other defends "Italian Character and Customs." The occasion for all the talk is Corinne's conviction, then hope, that she can bind Oswald to her by the "charms of her mind" (V.i); and so she not only welcomes him into her home but also takes him around Rome and its environs. Rome is the central locus of the book, for here Christian and pagan traditions meet and, in Corinne's eyes, complement each other exquisitely. Oswald is tempted by the complimentarity she reveals; his spirit even finds it healing—so long as he does not leave either Corinne or the Eternal City. Lest such a technique seem totally unreal, it should be remem-

xliv

Introduction bered that for lovers to talk of anything, is essentially to talk of love. For Stael herself, intellectual exchange was an essential component of love. It helped keep her and Constant together w h e n every other element of passion w a s long since dead; even young John Rocca was immediately set to studying and encouraged to write w h e n he became part of her life. Another representative of the north, the French Count d'Erfeuil, is an irretrievably supercilious Old Regime aristocrat and narrow neoclassicist of the kind for w h o m the author showed scant sympathy. With the opposition he meets in Corinne, the Italians, and Oswald, Stael points the w a y to Romantic revolt in the theater by expressing opposition to Racine and Shakespeare nineteen years before Stendhal and Hugo did. 30 The count also suffers from the vanity, amour-propre, and reliance on public opinion that characterize the worst in French society for Stael, as it will for Stendhal w h o , like his predecessor, will see Italy as the happy antithesis of France. In addition, d'Erfeuil brings to Italy an ignorance tinged with scorn, even lack of interest, w h i c h had once been the author's. A n d his lassitude at seeing one more museum, one more remnant of a statue or building, reflects feelings glimpsed in Stael's notebooks and letters; the difference between the author and her fictional character is the real interest she developed and the retrospective glow shed over Italy by memory once she had returned to Coppet. The beautiful churches of Italy serve as the point of departure for the consideration of religion. Oswald is shocked by the superstitious and ceremonial nature of Italian Catholicism, as well as the ornate surroundings of public worship. Corinne defends her Church admirably, pointing to the moral and religious inspiration to be derived from great religious art. A n d the haunting evocation of the miserere sung on Good Friday in the fading light of the Sistine Chapel under Michelangelo's ceiling gives weight to her argument. But Oswald, in his rounds of churches as he attempts to hear meaningful sermons, is sadly disappointed; surely the satiric accounts of Rome's preachers reflect the author's o w n exasperation even as they reveal her comic adeptness. Further w h e n Corinne joins her friend at a Protestant service aboard a British warship, she is as moved by its noble simplicity as he had been at the ornate majesty of the Easter worship in Rome. The case for neither religion is absolute; the case for religion is

Xlv

Introduction strong. Thus w h e n Oswald and Corinne attend the urbi et orbi on Easter Sunday, where the Pope gives his blessing from the balcony of Saint Peter's: "Through the emotion they felt at that moment, [they] sensed that all forms of worship are alike. Religious feeling binds men close w h e n pride and fanaticism do not make it an object of jealousy or hate" (X.v). This liberal vision, still so tragically rare, echoes through the novel. It is first offered early in the book through the description of Ancona, with its mixed Greek, Catholic, and Jewish population. Different though they be, "the same feelings rise up to heaven through their different rituals, the same cry of pain, the same need for sustaining strength" (I.iv). It is a tribute to the author's breadth of understanding that she includes J e w s — a n d more than o n c e — i n the hum a n universe. Anti-semitism was endemic in her world, witness the supposedly enlightened Voltaire and Stendhal. But Stael, w h o had read Lessing's Nathan the Wise, had obviously done her o w n thinking as well. Yet for all the importance attributed to faith, it is of precious little help to the struggling h u m a n beings in the novel. Only Lucile seems to derive strength from prayer at times of need. Oswald, for all his stern Protestantism, and invoking of heaven and the deity, hardly seems to rely on them w h e n it is time to make responsible moral choices in his personal life. Religion brings Corinne comfort and tranquillity only up to the point w h e n she desperately needs solace, and then, as with all of her other spiritual mainstays—her talents, the arts, friendship—its p o w e r to support and console vanishes. Or almost: it is up to each reader to decide whether faith allows her to die reconciled. Contrasting views on art are presented through the disagreements of the lovers. The debate over the function and meaning of the arts is particularly interesting w h e n w e recall that it w a s through her German contacts, particularly Schlegel, that Stael took interest in more than literature and music. Despite the clear evidence of Corinne, critics have generally underplayed the scope and importance of the fine arts for Stael's sensibility and thinking, as well as their importance to the meaning of the novel. First of all, the use of Domenichino's Sibyl and Correggio's Madonna della Scala to represent the t w o w o m e n is, in its w a y , a symbolism as important to this novel as Botticelli's Jethro's Daughter will be to Marcel Proust's Swan in Love. The painting of the

xlvi

Introduction Ossianic bard in Conine's home at Tivoli is the image of the Scottish melancholy accompanying Oswald. The repeated evocation of a painting of Dido's shade turning away from the unfaithful Aeneas as he is guided by Virgil through Hell is another visual echo of the story and its meaning: a prefiguring and then a representation of Corinne's eternal sorrow. Such too is the statue of Naiobe turning her despairing gaze to the unresponsive heavens. As for the theoretical discussions, most important perhaps are those that for the first time ask the French to question outworn concepts of the nature and purpose of art and the function of the artist in society; those that point to the the artist as serving humanity by creating beauty, the only h u m a n being with the power to understand and transmit the ideal world. Thus almost fifty years before Baudelaire, Stael sketches the notion of "correspondences." Further, her vision of the artist-genius as misunderstood and suffering is expressed through the example and words of Corinne, and is yet another contribution to a new vision of art and the artist. At times the travelogue can seem clumsy, or didactic. It can also be obscure: the argument over subjects in painting concerns what to us are nonissues. The travelogue slows the progress of the plot through the first half of the book, occasionally threatening to take it over altogether. Yet even though it is voluminous, it is not simply tacked on, and the dramatic shift of pace when it fades is remarkably effective in capturing our total attention for the relentless rhythm of the last sections which swell to almost epic proportions. Moreover, the travelogue makes the Italian landscape inseparable from the way we think about the lovers. It gives the novel its melancholy hues; the ruins romantically recall h u m a n grandeur and our ultimate fate despite all our activity. In the south, the luxuriance of nature enhances the life it cannot make immortal, indifferently making gardens lovely, or invading the ruins—shades of the twentieth-century Romantic, Camus! And side by side with this life force is nature's destructive power: Vesuvius threatening the Campania and the cativa aria (pestilential air) menacing the Roman Campagna and the Pontine Marshes. Thus we indeed "cannot separate our memory of the couple from that of the stones and art of Italy" (GG 189), or from the natural setting, and we are set to dreaming of Italian journeys of our own.

xlvii

Introduction Staël's ambivalent biographer Herold called Corinne "the worst great novel ever written" (312), a curious statement worthy of reflection. There are indeed problems in the style and construction of this remarkable book. As has been said, the travelogue and discussion of ideas, however interesting in themselves, slow the progress of the story. When their tone is didactic, it jars with the tone of the rest of the book. And yet they are interesting to reread—once we know how the story turns out—and they permanently color our vision of Italy. Moreover, Staël was unwise to give us Corinne's improvisations instead of merely suggesting them. For not being a great poet, the author could only fail in attempts to demonstrate her heroine's genius. The improvisations, while elevated in tone and poetic in spirit, do not suggest the quality of a Wordsworth or a Hugo. As a result, Corinne may at times seem more pretentious than great, and even too good to be true. Staël does not always find the language she needs to convey the intensity of feeling behind the words; and in true Romantic fashion, she is too fond of apostrophes, antitheses, and such vague terms as "indescribable" and "inexpressible." There also are an improbable number of coincidences: yet what Romantic fiction is free of them? Tales of absolute and tragic love are never in the realm of the likely or the commonplace. Tristan and Isolde, Romeo and Juliet, Oswald and Corinne, Julien Sorel and Madame de Rénal do not often turn up in the everyday world. But we do not quibble at their improbability, and our psychic life seems to need them badly so that we can relive their destinies imaginatively, while avoiding their terrible fate. On the other hand, given directly or through Corinne, Staël's reflections on the meaning of experiences, on being a woman, on love, on the relations of the individual and society, are always illuminating. In addition, she shows exceptional narrative skills in books XII and XIV when Oswald and Corinne tell each other about their past lives, and also throughout the last half of the novel when travelogue recedes into the background, and we are carried along, unexpectedly breathless, to the end. We are gripped, for example, by the tales of Corinne's girlhood and liberation and of the sterile years she spent in England, which are rendered with a marvelous satiric bite that enhances the heroine's anguish. Here the author does indeed convince

xlviii

Introduction us of her Corinne's unique qualities, and puts us unequivocally on her side. The influence of Corinne, or Italy on the thought and lives of women is without parallel in the nineteenth century on both sides of the Atlantic, and its magnitude can only be suggested here. That it affected men as well is demonstrated by such books as Sir Walter Scott's Waverly Novels, Nathaniel Hawthorne's Marble Faun, Stendhal's Charterhouse of Parma. But it was w o m e n w h o followed her most avidly. Jane Austen and Mary Godwin Shelley were among her early readers. Later there were those w h o tried to be Corinne, such as Delphine Gay in the Paris of the 1820s and, to a lesser extent, the American Margaret Fuller. The person of Corinne and the problems raised in the novel are reflected repeatedly in the creative work of women readers w h o were also writers. Ellen Moers ably delineates the filiation in Literary Women.11 Examples are Charlotte Bronte, and Fanny Kemble, as well as George Sand, whose Consuelo is the tale of a w o m a n artist who chooses to exercise her influence in a more private sphere. George Eliot reflects on Corinne in The Mill on the Floss, and in Middlemarch. Elizabeth Barrett Browning's narrative poem Aurora Leigh (1857) pays homage to her model by its imitation, presenting a girl of genius with a Florentine mother and an English father, obliged to leave the southern sun . . . Ellen Moers argues that Browning's wish to settle in Italy was influenced as much by Stael's vision of that country as nurturing to the w o m a n genius as by questions of health and money. Mediated by this poem, the American Elizabeth Stuart Phelps's Story of Avis (1877) continues the Corinne tradition by presenting a young w o m a n w h o wants to be an artist but cannot fulfill the promise of her talent. It is almost startling to see h o w much influence Stael and her novel exercised in the United States. As adolescents, Margaret Fuller and her friend, Lydia Maria Child, began to read Stael in 1826: "They found her an important model, a woman w h o had actually forced the male literary world to acknowledge her as an e q u a l . . ,"32 Child would go on to write a biography of her model. Fuller was to become a writer concerned with the position of the talented woman, and even to live and work in Italy. 33 Indeed, Emerson called her the "Yan-

xlix

Introduction kee Corinna," a term that, when taken up by others, was not always intended as praise. Harriet Beecher Stowe was moved to "intense sympathy" for Corinne, and in her own writing chose to emphasize the social criticism rather than the personal aspect (EM 206). Willa Cather's Thea Kronberg in The Song of the Lark recalls the performing side of Corinne. On the other hand, Sarah O m e Jewett appeared to see in Corinne a warning to w o m e n against being too clever for their own good (EM 177). While Anna Jameson's novel Diary of an Ennuyée is clearly influenced by Corinne, so too is her life, for in a world that offered no employment for w o m e n scholars, Jameson became an art historian and published the two-volume Sacred and Legendary Art in 1848. By 1857 a third edition was published, with a revised edition put out in 1895 by Houghton, Mifflin. The enduring importance of Staél and her novel Corinne, or Italy derives from their pivotal position in the history of ideas and the history of literature. Many problems they raise have even yet not found satisfactory solutions, with both sexes suffering as a consequence. Certainly Staél did much to create the Romantic myth of Italy and Italians that colors our thinking still; she urged the cause of Italian independence with eloquence and effectiveness, and she gave to us the myth of Corinne. She and her heroine confront us with dilemmas that are not dated: w h e n will w o m e n feel free within themselves, and indeed be free of stated and unstated constraints so that they may become what they aspire to be? When will everyone effectively call into question the values that exalt the male and lethal genius of military leaders, the generous but often deadly physical courage of the world's Oswalds, and summon in their place the life-giving, the life-enhancing feminine values that Corinne proposes and represents? The tragedy of the novel is, after all, not Corinne's alone; it also concerns her vision of human life. The hope of the novel lies in the fragile hands of a child w h o has heard her message and her call. Thus its multiple meanings, its "sweep", go far beyond the destiny of the individual characters to encompass and to challenge us all. Is it not ironic that Napoleon on Saint Helena, in a fit of postimperial annoyance, should pay tribute to the lasting and haunting power of novelist and novel whose stature he had inadvertently acknowledged by pursuing them with such passion: "I can see her, I

1

Introduction can hear her, I can sense her, I want to run away, I throw down the book. . . . However I shall persist; I want to see how it ends, for I still think it is an interesting work" (H 344).

Notes 1. Simone Balayé, Madame de Staël: Lumières et liberté (Paris: Klincksieck, 1979) 88. Ail translations from this book are my own. Subsequent references will be in the text as B. 2. The Napoleonic Code promulgated in 1804 classed w o m e n with children, criminals, and the insane in terms of their civil rights before the law. 3. Unless otherwise noted, biographical information on members of the Necker family are from Balayé's book cited above, and from Madelyn Gutwirth, Madame de Staël, Novelist: The Emergence of the Artist as Woman (Urbana: U. of Illinois P, 1978). Subsequent references in the text: G. This is the only full-length study of Corinne in English, as well as the most reliable and thought provoking. 4. See J. Christopher Herold, Mistress to an Age: A Life of Madame de Staël (New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1958) 1 3 - 1 4 , 2 1 . Subsequent references in the text: H. 5. See G 31. Further, Rousseau's Emile, 1762, is a treatise on education. Its principles grow out of the author's belief, similar to one reappearing in the America of the 1960s, that since society corrupts, w e should get back to nature. Thus the male, Emile, lives in the country, is nursed by his o w n mother, and his earliest education stresses leaming-by-doing, that is, learning from the consequences of actions. Formal lessons, advice, and the exercise of adult authority are precluded, for he learns from observation of the natural world around him. Later, moral lessons come through reading ancient history and great lives. Physical exercise keeps him healthy. Religion is not discussed until his reason is mature, and then it is a "natural" religion, a form of deism, not Christianity. On the other hand, the education of the female, Sophie, is designed solely to provide the male with comfort, affection, and consolation. She is trained to be docile and submissive, and her mind is not cultivated. 6. Madelyn Gutwirth provides a concise picture of woman's place in the society of eighteenth-century France in the prologue of her book ( 1 - 2 3 ) . 7. Balayé points out that Staël is the only w o m a n writer of her time to reflect on the art of writing (51). 8. Count Adolph Ribbing was in exile for his participation in the successful plot to assassinate King Gustavus III of Sweden. 9. The abbé Sieyès, an important politician during the French Revolution, was allied with Napoleon in implementing the coup d'état of 1799 in which the Directory was overthrown and the Consulate was set u p as a provisional government. 10. Geneviève Gennari, Le Premier voyage de Madame de Staël en Italie et la genèse de Co-

li

Introduction rinne (Paris: Boivin, 1947) 108. Subsequent references in text: GG. All translations are my own. 11. Morroe Berger, Introduction to Madame de Staël on Politics, Literature and National Character (London: Sidgwick and Jackson, 1964) 17. 12. "Without Germaine's encouragement and criticism, he might well have abandoned the enterprise soon after starting it, for his task was nearly insuperable, and n o one has attempted it since" (H 296). 13. Simone Balayé, Les Carnets de voyage de Madame de Staël: Contribution à la genèse de ses oeuvres (Geneva: Droz, 1971), henceforth designated in the text as C. Balayé points out that in the Italian notebooks, Staël rarely speaks of people she has met, except for her guides. "She takes precise notes on the ancient city and on modern Rome, especially that of the Renaissance; she was indifferent to the baroque. One senses at their source the historical and poetic antitheses that abound in the novel" ( 109). All translations are my own. 14. Literally, "where are they n o w ? " or Villon's "Where are the snows of yesteryear?" This is a commentary on the transitory nature of all life. 15. Venice was about to be gobbled up by the French at that time. 16. "Bonaparte himself, according to Villemain, attacked the work in the Moniteur, stressing the unpatriotic treatment of the Frenchman Erfeuil." See Abel François Villemain, Cours de la littérature française; tableau de la littérature au XVIlIe siècle, 4 vols. (Paris: Pétrin, 1891) 4 : 3 5 6 - 3 5 7 ; qtd. in G 154, 154nl. Herold writes: "The official press reacted as was to be expected, denouncing the book as antiFrench, . . . Napoleon leafed through it and called it junk" (344). 17. Abbé Prévost, Manon Lescault, 1731. Although Staël never alludes to this novel, it was highly popular in her day and is a clear example of its type. 18. Madame de Staël, Essai sur les fictions (Geneva: Slatkine, 1961; rpt. Paris 1861 éd.), 6 2 , 6 8 . Subsequent references in the text: EF. All translations are my own. 19. EF 68. Like seventeenth-century neoclassicists, Staël uses the word to mean human nature alone until her Italian journey. 20. Madelyn Gutwirth, "Forging a Vocation: Germaine de Staël on Fiction, Power, and Passion," Bulletin of Research in the Humanities 86. 3 ( I 9 8 3 - 1 9 8 5 ) : 2 4 9 . 21. Madame Balayé was kind enough to show m e these manuscripts in J u n e 1986. That Germaine de Staël worked to put a distance between her own life and the world of her novel may be seen in the changes made in the original account of Oswald's learning about the circumstances of his father's death and his reaction to them. The first version is her o w n experience of Jacques Necker's death, scarcely transposed. While there are autobiographical echoes in the final version, the story becomes Oswald's own, and the circumstances are appropriate to the novel. 22. Bk. II. Chap. i. The emphasis is added. The reader might well reread the description of Zulmé before starting the novel. Subsequent references to Corinne will be given in the text by book and chapter. 23. See Madelyn Gutwirth, "Madame de Staël's Debt to Phèdre: Corinne, " Studies in Romanticism 3.3 (1983-1985). 24. Staël held the view of suffering as useful and redemptive increasingly as she grew older.

lii

Introduction 25. G155. Madame Necker de Saussure, Staël's cousin, was her earliest biographer as well as a loved and admired friend w h o spent much time at Coppet. 26. Staël's o w n broad humanity kept her from making caricatures of these people. Even for representatives of an order she opposes, she shows understanding, compassion, and—curiously—a certain admiration. 27. George Eliot, The Mill on the Floss (New York: Heritage, 1963) 5.4. 28. While Corinne is not generally viewed as an angry book, my own reading convinces me that Gutwirth's analysis of its anger and will to vengence is entirely correct (G 2 5 0 - 2 5 7 ) . The subject will be discussed below. 29. James Macpherson, Scottish writer, published in 1762-1763 lengthy epic poems presented as translations from newly discovered works by the Scottish warriorbard of legend, Ossian. Although later shown to be Macpherson's o w n work, they were highly popular in England and in France, where they were influential preRomantic writings, and illustrate Staël's theory of northern versus southern literatures. Edward Young (1683-1765). His Nights (1742-1745), like Macpherson's Ossian, proved immensely popular in France (translated 1769) among early Romantics, impressing them with the poetry's pervasive melancholy. 30. Stendhal published Racine and Shakespeare in 1826. A year later Victor Hugo brought out the preface to his play Cromwell. These manifestos of the Romantic theater doubtless o w e m u c h to Staël's thinking. 31. Ellen Moers, "Performing Heroinism: The Myth of Corinne," in Literary Women: The Great Writers (Garden City: Doubleday, 1976.) Subsequent references are in the text as EM. A pioneering book in the field of women's studies in literature, Literary Women brilliantly focuses attention on wholly or partly forgotten writers, and illustrates lost filiations. The chapter on Corinne shows unusual insight along with negative judgments with regard to Staël and the novel. The attempt of this critic to establish with the reader a collusion of superiority was frequent in the past. Just such a n attitude mars J. Christopher Herold's well-researched and widely read biography, Mistress to an Age. 32. Paula Blanchard, "Corinne and the 'Yankee Corinne' " in Woman as Mediatrix, ed. Avriel Goldberger (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1987). 33. See Margaret Fuller, Woman in the Nineteenth Century (New York: Norton, 1971).

Selected Bibliography Balayé, Simone. Les Carnets de voyage de Madame de Staël: Contribution à la genèse de ses oeuvres. Geneva: Droz, 1971. (C) . Madame de Staël: Lumières et liberté. Paris: Klincksieck, 1979. (B) Blanchard, Paula. "Corinne and the 'Yankee Corinne': Madame de Staël and Margaret Fuller." Woman as Mediatrix: Nineteenth-Century Women Writers. Ed. Avriel Goldberger. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1987. Gennari, Geneviève. Le Premier voyage de Madame de Staël en Italie et la genèse de Corinne. Paris: Boivin, 1947. (GG)

liii

Introduction Gutwirth, Madelyn. "Forging a Vocation: Germaine de Staël on Fiction, Power, and Passion." Bulletin of Research in the Humanities. 86.3 (1983-1985). . Madame de Staël, Novelist: The Emergence of the Artist as Woman. Urbana: U. of Illinois, 1978. (G) . "Madame de Staël, Rousseau, and the Woman Question." PMLA 86.1 (Jan. 1971): 100-109. . "Madame de Staël's Debt to Phèdre: Corinne." Studies in Romanticism. 3.3 (Spring 1964): 161-176. . "Woman as Mediatrix: From Jean-Jacques Rousseau to Germaine de Staël." Woman as Mediatrix: Nineteenth-Century Women Writers. Ed. Avriel Goldberger. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1987 Herold, J. Christopher. Mistress to an Age: A Life of Madame de Staël. New York: BobbsMerrill, 1958. (H) Hogsett, Charlotte. The Noise of Words and the Voice of Conscience: Germaine de Staël's Literary Existence. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1987. Moers, Ellen. "Performing Heroinism: The Myth of Corinne," in Literary Women. The Great Writers. Garden City: Doubleday, 1976. (EM) Peterson, Carla L. The Determined Reader, Gender and Culture in the Novel from Napoleon to Victoria. New Brunswick: Rutgers UP, 1986. Introduction and 37-81. Posgate, Helen B. Madame de Staël. New York: Twayne, 1968. Staël, Madame de. Essai sur les fictions (Geneva: Slatkine, 1961: rpt. Paris: 1861 ed.). (.EF) . On Politics, Literature and National Character. Trans., ed. Morroe Berger. London: Sidgwick and Jackson, 1964. . Ten Years of Exile. Trans. Doris Beik. Intro. Peter Gay. New York: Saturday Review Press, 1972. . The Unpublished Correspondence of Madame de Staël and the Duke of Wellington. Ed. Victor de Pange. Trans. Harold Kurtz. Foreword by Comtesse Jean de Pange. New York: Humanities, 1966. Sourian, Eve. "Germaine de Staël and the Position of Women in France, England, and Germany." Woman as Mediatrix: Nineteenth-Century European Women Writers. Ed. Avriel Goldberger. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1987.

liv

Translator's Note The French text u p o n which this translation is based is the 1967 Slotkine reprint of the 1861 edition of Staël's Oeuvres complètes, a reissue of the 1836 edition, standard for scholarship until Simone Balayé published her definitive edition in 1985. In those few instances where there was a difference, the Balayé reading was used. There were several nineteenth-century translations. Without exception they are so dated to the modern ear that the reader quickly loses interest. Mainly written in the Victorian period, they subvert the text by imposing upon it a set of values that were not the author's. Thus the decision was made to do an entirely new translation. To achieve the elevated tone of the original, I sought to evoke the rhythms of Staël's text, maintaining both the classically bare style used for psychological analysis, narration, and generalization or maxims and the Romantic passionate language that suffuses much of the novel. As with every translation this one posed its own special problems. For "country" Staël uses four different words that are not precisely interchangeable. The most significant is patrie, since it derives from the Latin patria, literally "land of the father." Given the importance of the patriarchal system in the novel, this connotation could not be ignored. However, "fatherland" was not yet a current word when nationalism was in its cradle. Thus I have used principally "native land" and, rarely, "land of his or her fathers" or "fatherland." Pays is rendered as "country," nation as "nation," and contrée as "land." Since the distinction is made between an improvisatrice of genius and an improviseur lacking in talent, I have used the French feminine form in this text. A note announces the first time Oswald uses the familiar French pronoun tu in speaking to Corinne. Unfortunately it would encumber the text to render the alternation between the familiar and the formal which marks his unconscious hesitation, and I have not done so. French punctuation is different from ours even today, and confuslv

Translator's Note ing to the reader of English. Therefore I have adapted it, always with a view, however, to preserving the cadences and complexities of the French language. There are three kinds of notes: the footnotes and endnotes Madame de Stael wrote for her novel and the translator's endnotes. The author's footnotes are indicated by an asterisk. Her endnotes (which have been renumbered) are combined with those of the translator. The latter are followed by the designation Translator's note. W h e n an explanation of Stael's note is necessary, it is enclosed in brackets.

lvi

Corinne

Udrallo il bel paese, Ch' Apennin parte el mar circonda; et l'Alpe. PETRARCH, CANZONIERE, CXLVI It (the name of the beloved, Laura] shall resound in the lovely country That the Apennines divide and the sea and the Alps surround.

Book I OSWALD

I Oswald Lord Nelvil, a Scottish peer, left Edinburgh for Italy during the winter of 1794-1795. Noble and handsome, he had a good mind, an important name, independent means; but his health was impaired by a deep sense of affliction, and fearing his lungs might be affected, the doctors prescribed southern air. Though he had little interest in prolonging his life, he followed their advice, hoping at least to find some diversion in the many different things he would see. The most personal of all griefs, the loss of a father, had provoked his illness; harsh circumstances, remorse aroused by a meticulous conscience, embittered his sorrow still more, and imagination added its own haunting shadows. When people suffer, they are readily persuaded of their guilt, and violent sorrow unsettles conscience itself. At twenty-five, he had wearied of life; his mind prejudged everything, and his wounded sensibility no longer had any taste for the illusions of the heart. No one could prove more available and devoted to his friends whenever he could be of help; yet nothing brought him pleasure, not even good deeds. Time and again he effortlessly sacrificed his own preferences to those of others, but generosity alone could not explain such completely disinterested abnegation; people were often inclined to ascribe it to the kind of sadness that kept him

3

Book I from taking further interest in his o w n fate. Those w h o were not close to him enjoyed his disposition, finding it full of grace and charm, but those w h o loved him sensed that he looked after the happiness of others like a man w h o foresaw none for himself, and they were distressed at receiving happiness from him and never being able to give it in return. Yet his was a restless nature, sensitive and passionate, combining all the qualities that might sweep others along, and himself as well; but unhappiness and remorse had left him hesitant to confront fate, w h o m he thought to mollify by demanding nothing of her. Through a cheerless devotion to every duty, and renunciation of all intense pleasure, he hoped to ward off the anguish that rends the soul; his suffering had so frightened him that nothing on earth seemed worth risking it again. Yet to a person capable of feeling such pain, what manner of life can offer refuge? Lord Nelvil imagined that he might leave Scotland without regret since he could not stay there with pleasure; but the funereal imaginings of sensitive souls are not so easily contained. He was unaware of the bonds tying him to the very place that disturbed him most—his father's house. In this house were certain rooms, certain other places too, he could not approach without trembling, and yet when he made up his mind to leave them, he felt still more alone. Something sterile had invaded his heart; he could no longer bring back to life those small, homey events that used to touch him deeply; his memories were lifeless, no longer in touch with the objects around him. He did not think of the one he mourned any less often, but it proved harder to recall his presence. Sometimes he reproached himself for leaving the place where his father had lived: " W h o can say," he would wonder, "whether the shades of the dead can follow their loved ones everywhere? Perhaps they are free to wander only where their ashes repose! Perhaps at this very moment my father also pines for me, powerless to summon me from afar! Alas! While he was still alive, did not an incredible set of circumstances convince him that I had betrayed his affection, that I had rebelled against my country, against his will, against everything sacred on earth?" These memories were so unbearable, that Nelvil could not bring himself to confide them to anyone: indeed he was

4

Oswald afraid to ponder them more deeply, for it is so easy to do oneself irreparable harm through private reflection! It is much more painful to leave the land of your fathers behind if you must cross the sea; when the ocean marks the first stages of a journey, everything about it is solemn. It seems as if an abyss has opened up behind you, as if it might become forever impossible to return. Moreover the sight of the sea always makes a profound impression: it is the image of that infinity which ceaselessly draws our thought, and into which thought is ceaselessly sucked down. Bent over the helm, his gaze fixed upon the waves, Oswald was outwardly calm, for his pride combined with shyness rarely allowed him to show his feelings even to his friends; however, painful emotions stirred within him. He recalled his youthful days when the sight of the sea had quickened his spirit with the urge to plough through the waves, to test his strength against them. "Why," he reflected bitterly, "why do I keep on giving way to my thoughts? There is so much pleasure in the active life, in the strenuous exercise that makes us feel the power of existence! Then death itself would seem but one more event, albeit glorious— sudden at least, and not preceded by decline. But this death that comes unsought by courage; the shadow death that steals by night all that you hold dearest, that mocks your sorrow, thrusts your embrace aside, and mercilessly pits you against the eternal laws of time and nature—this death inspires a kind of scorn for human destiny, for the impotence of grief, for the vanity of all our efforts that dash themselves to pieces against the inexorable." Such were the feelings tormenting Oswald; and what distinguished his misfortune was that it combined the liveliness of youth with the thoughts of another stage of life. Making his own the ideas that must have filled his father's thoughts in the last days of his life, he brought all the fervor of his twenty-five years to bear on the melancholy reflections of old age. Weary of everything,-he still mourned his lost happiness as if he still believed it were possible. This contradiction, entirely opposed to the will of nature which decrees consonance and gradual change as the natural order of things, threw the depths of Oswald's soul into disarray; yet his demeanor unfailingly showed gentleness and harmony, and his melancholy, far from putting him out of sorts, inspired still more sympathy and goodwill toward others.

5

Book I In the passage from Harwich to Embden, heavy seas threatened t w o or three times. Lord Nelvil advised the sailors, calmed the passengers; and w h e n he handled the ship himself, taking over from the pilot for a while, there w a s a skill and strength in everything he did that could not be ascribed to his lithe and nimble body alone, for the soul enters into everything w e do. W h e n it came time to disembark, the w h o l e crew gathered around Oswald to wish him goodbye. They all thanked him for the myriad services done during the crossing and already forgotten: once he had taken care of a child for quite a while; more often it was an old m a n — helping him keep his balance as the wind tossed the ship. It may be that they had never encountered such absence of the sense of self; for he let the days go by without reserving a moment for himself, giving his time over to others out of melancholy and goodness. As they left him, the sailors cried out almost in one voice: Kind sir, may you be happier one day! Yet Oswald had not once expressed his grief, and those men of the upper classes w h o had traveled with him had never said a word about it. But the c o m m o n people, in w h o m their superiors rarely confide, are accustomed to discern feelings without the help of speech. They have compassion for your suffering although they do not k n o w the cause of your sorrow, and their spontaneous pity is untainted by blame or advice.

II Travel, whatever else m a y be said of it, is one of the saddest pleasures in life. W h e n y o u feel comfortable in a foreign city, it is because y o u have begun to m a k e it your home; but passing through u n k n o w n countries, hearing a language you scarcely understand, seeing h u m a n faces unconnected with your past or future, is to k n o w a solitude and isolation without respite and without dignity. For that eagerness, that haste to arrive w h e r e n o one awaits you, that restlessness provoked by curiosity alone, inspire little self-respect until such time as n e w objects become a bit w o r n , creating around y o u a f e w gentle bonds of feeling and habit. Thus Oswald became doubly sad as he crossed Germany on his

6

Oswald way to Italy. At that time travelers had to stay away from France and its environs because of the war; they also had to keep their distance from the armies making the roads impassable. 1 The need to attend to the material details of the journey, to make fresh decisions every day, and almost every moment, was utterly unbearable for Lord Nelvil. Far from improving, his health often forced him to stop over when he might have preferred to hasten his arrival at one place or, at least, his departure from another. He was spitting blood, yet he looked after himself as little as possible, for believing himself guilty, he was excessively severe in his self-judgment. Only to defend his country did he wish to go on living. "Does not our native land have paternal claims on us?" he would think to himself. "But we must be able to serve her usefully; I must not offer her the feeble existence I am dragging out as I look to the sun for a source of life to help me fight my ills. None but a father would consent to welcome us in such condition, and love us all the more for being the more forsaken by nature or destiny." Lord Nelvil had imagined that constant change of surroundings would distract his imagination somewhat from its customary thoughts, but at first he was far from experiencing that happy effect. After a great misfortune, you must be reacquainted with everything around you, become reaccustomed to the faces you see again, to the house where you live, the everyday habits you must take up again. Each of these efforts is a painful jolt, and nothing so multiplies them as travel. Nelvil's sole pleasure lay in making his way across the Tyrolean mountains on the Scottish horse he had brought with him and who scaled the heights at a gallop just like the horses of the Tyrol. He avoided the main roads in favor of the steepest paths. Seeing him on the edge of an abyss the astonished peasants at first cried out in terror; then, admiring his skill, his nimbleness, his courage, they applauded. Oswald rather enjoyed the feeling of danger; it lifts the weight of sorrow; for a moment it reconciles us with the life we have won back and that we can so easily lose.

7

Book I

III In the town of Innsbruck, Oswald was staying with a merchant for a while before going on to Italy, and one day he overheard the story of a French emigré. Count d'Erfeuil. His sympathetic interest was aroused, for the man had borne the loss of a considerable fortune with perfect equanimity. Through his musical talents, he had provided for himself and an elderly uncle whom he had cared for until the old man's death. He had steadfastly refused the financial help people offered eagerly; and during the war he had shown the most splendid valor—French valor, as well as the most unfailing high spirits in the face of misfortune. Planning to go to Rome in search of a relative who was to leave him a legacy, he wanted to find a traveling companion, or rather a friend, to make the journey pleasanter. Lord Nelvil's most painful memories were associated with France; still he was free of the prejudices separating the two nations, since he once had a close friend there who admirably combined all the spiritual qualities. So he spoke to the merchant who had told him the Count's story, offering to escort that noble and unfortunate young man to Italy. Within a hour's time, the merchant informed Nelvil that his offer was gratefully accepted. Oswald was happy to do a good turn, but it cost him dearly to give up his solitude; and being shy, he was dismayed at suddenly finding himself in a familiar relationship with a man he did not know. Count d'Erfeuil paid Lord Nelvil a visit to express his thanks. His manners were elegant, his courtesy effortlessly tasteful; from the start he was perfectly at ease. Seeing him, people were amazed at all he had suffered because he spoke of his misfortunes with an admirable lightness of tone—a tone admittedly less admirable when extended to other subjects. "I am much in your debt, my Lord," said the Count, "for rescuing me from Germany, since I was getting bored to death." "And yet you are widely loved and respected here," Nelvil answered. "I have friends I will sincerely miss, for one meets only the finest people on earth in this country. But I do not know one word of German, and you will agree that learning it would be rather time consum-

8

Oswald ing and tiring. Since the unfortunate loss of my uncle, I have not known how to spend my time. When I had him to care for, my day was full, but each twenty-four hours weighs heavily on me now." "Still the consideration you showed your uncle has earned you the highest regard." "It was simply my duty. The poor man showered me with gifts when I was a child. I would never have left him, had he lived a hundred years! But he is lucky to be dead. I would be too," the Count added laughing, "because I have no great hope in this world. I did my best to get killed in the war, but since fate has spared me, I must live as best I can." "I shall pride myself on coming here," answered Nelvil, "if you are content in Rome, and if. . ." "Good heavens," interrupted d'Erfeuil, "I shall be fine wherever I go! When one is young and cheerful, everything takes care of itself. I did not come by my philosophy through books or reflection, but through experience of the world and adversity. You do see, my Lord, that I am right to count on fortune since it has won me the chance to travel with you." At that, he bowed to Nelvil with the most exquisite grace, agreed on a time to set off and took his leave. Count d'Erfeuil and Lord Nelvil left the next day. After uttering a few polite commonplaces, Oswald said nothing for several hours; but noticing that silence weighed on his companion, he asked if he was looking forward to Italy. "Heavens! I do not expect to enjoy myself at all. A friend of mine who spent six months in Italy told me that there is not one French province without better or more congenial society than Rome. But in that former capital of the world, I will surely find a few French people to talk to, and that is all I want." "You were not tempted to learn Italian?" Oswald interrupted. "No, not at all. That was not part of my program of study." And the Count looked so grave as he said these words that one might have thought it was a resolve based on serious motives. "To tell the truth," he continued, "the only nations I care for are England and France; one must be proud like them or brilliant like us—everything else is imitation." Oswald fell silent. In a little while the Count took up their interchange again with pleasant flashes of wit and gaiety. He played on language skillfully but he did not discuss either the physical world

9

Book I or personal feelings. His conversation came neither from the heart nor from the outside, so to speak; it fell between reflection and imagination, and took for its subject social relationships alone. He named twenty people, both French and English, to see whether Nelvil knew them, and told lively stories about them with charming turns of phrase. To hear him, you would have thought that the only suitable conversation for a man of taste was what might be called gossip in good company. For a while, Nelvil thought about d'Erfeuil's character: his strange mixture of courage and frivolousness, his scorn of misfortune—so admirable had it cost greater effort, and so heroic had it not come from the very source that disables one from deep feeling. "In his situation," he mused, "an Englishman would be overcome with grief. Where does that Frenchman get his strength, and his instability too? Does he truly know the art of living? Is it simply illness to believe myself superior? Is his superficial existence better suited than my own to the fleetingness of life? And must one avoid reflection like an enemy instead of giving it all one's soul?" It would have been useless for Oswald to resolve his misgivings; no one can quit the intellectual realm allotted him, and strengths are more ungovernable than defects. Paying no heed to the Italian countryside, the Count made it almost impossible for Nelvil to give it his attention, constantly distracting him from the frame of mind that allows us to admire a beautiful country and feel its picturesque charm. Oswald listened to the noise of the wind, the murmur of the waves as much as he could; for all the voices of nature did his soul more good than small talk exchanged at the foot of the Alps, amid the ruins, and along the shores of the sea. Probably the sorrow gnawing at him interfered less with the pleasures he might taste through Italy than did the Count's liveliness. The griefs of a sensitive soul can harmonize with the contemplation of nature and enjoyment of the arts; but frivolousness, under whatever guise, strips observation of energy, thought of originality, feeling of depth. One curious effect of that frivolousness was to make Oswald quite shy in his relations with the Count: the more serious-minded person is almost always the one who feels awkward. Spiritual frivolity weighs heavily on the meditative cast of mind, and the person who claims to be happy seems wiser than the one who suffers. D'Erfeuil was kind, considerate, easygoing in everything, serious

10

Oswald only about his pride, and worthy of being loved as he loved others: that is to say, as a good comrade in pleasure and peril. But he had not the slightest intention of responding to sorrow. Oswald's melancholy bored him and he would have liked to dispel it as much from kindness as from personal taste. "What is missing in your life?" he would ask frequently. "Are you not young, wealthy, and—if only you wanted—healthy? You are ill simply because you are unhappy. I am the one who has lost fortune and future. I do not know what will become of me. Even so I enjoy life as if I owned all the riches of the earth." "Your courage is as rare as it is honorable," answered Nelvil, "but the misfortunes you have suffered do less harm than the sorrows of the heart." "Oh! Indeed they are the cruelest of all. . . But . . . but . . . still one must find consolation, for a sensible man must drive from his soul whatever can serve neither others nor himself. Are we not here first to be useful and then to be happy? My dear Nelvil, let us be satisfied with that." In the ordinary sense, d'Erfeuil's words were reasonable because in many respects he had what is called "a good head." The lighthearted character is much less prone to madness than the impassioned; but far from exciting confidence, his way of feeling life made Nelvil long to assure him that he was the happiest of men simply to avoid the pain inflicted by the Count's compassion. All the same, d'Erfeuil was very attached to Lord Nelvil: he could only respect his resignation and simplicity, his modesty and pride. Darting about Oswald's calm exterior, he searched his brain for the most solemn pronouncements of aged relatives heard in childhood to try them out on his friend. Completely astounded at not breaking through his apparent coldness, he thought: "But am I not generous, frank, courageous? And likeable too? Then why is it impossible for me to reach this man? Can it be that there is some misunderstanding between us, perhaps because his French is not good enough?"

11

Book I

IV An unexpected event greatly heightened the respect Count d'Erfeuil already felt almost unconsciously for his traveling companion. Lord Nelvil's health had compelled him to stop over in Ancona for a few days.2 Ensconced between the mountains and the sea, the city is beautiful by its very location. The throng of Greeks seated oriental style at work in the shop fronts and the variegated Middle Eastern clothing of the Levantines in the streets give the city an original and interesting look. The art of civilization tends to make all men seem alike and almost be alike in reality. But our mind and imagination enjoy characteristic differences among nations: men are the same only in their insincerity and selfishness, diversity is the sign of everything natural. Variety of dress, then, is a modest pleasure for the eye at least, seeming to promise a new way of feeling and of forming judgments. The Greek, Catholic, and Jewish religions exist peacefully side by side in Ancona. They are strikingly dissimilar in their ceremonies, but the same feelings rise up to heaven through their different rituals, the same cry of pain, the same need for sustaining strength. The Catholic church on the mountaintop looks precipitously down on the sea. The sound of the waves often intermingles with the chanting of the priests. Inside, the church is overloaded with a host of rather tasteless ornamentation, but stopping a moment under the portico of this sanctuary, one takes pleasure in associating religion—the purest of the soul's feelings—with the spectacle of that splendid ocean upon which man may never fix his mark. He may work the land, cut his roads through the mountains, lock rivers into canals to carry his wares. Yet though his ships furrow the waters, the billows come swiftly to erase this slight trace of servitude, leaving the sea once more as she was on the first day of creation. Lord Nelvil had planned to leave for Rome on the following day, but during the night he heard dreadful cries from the town. He rushed from the inn to find out what was happening and saw a fire spreading from the harbor and climbing from house to house to the heights of the town. The flames were mirrored afar in the sea. The wind, quickening their brilliance, disturbed the image in the waters, and the swell-

12

Oswald ing of the waves reflected in a thousand shapes the blood-red flashes of a deep hued fire. With no pumps in working order, the people of Ancona rushed to lend the strength of their arms. 3 Through the cries could be heard the chains of the galley slaves working to save the town that was their prison. Terror was expressed in the stunned gaze of people from diverse nations of the Near East, attracted to Ancona by trade. Merchants lost all presence of mind at the sight of their flaming shops. Concern for their wealth unsettles the common run of men as much as fear of death, and fails to inspire the spiritual power and enthusiasm that make us resourceful. The sailor's cry is always somehow doleful and lingering; terror made it far more frightening still. The seamen along the Adriatic coast wear strikingly odd watchcoats of red and brown. From the center of these garments emerged expressive Italian faces portraying fear in a thousand shapes. The townspeople, lying prostrate on the streets, covered their heads with their coats, as if the only thing left was to avoid seeing their calamity; others threw themselves into the flames without the slightest hope of escape. Fury and blind resignation were displayed in turn, but nowhere to be found was the level-headedness that doubles possibilities and strength. Oswald remembered that two British ships lay in the harbor, ships carrying well-constructed pumps. Townspeople, seeing him get into the launch, shouted: You foreigners are a fine lot, leaving our unfortunate town! "We are coming back," said Oswald. They did not believe him. Yet he did return to set up one of the pumps in front of the house ablaze right at the harbor, and the other, opposite the one burning in the middle of the block. Count d'Erfeuil was risking his life with careless unconcern and gaiety; the English sailors and Nelvil's servants came to his aid, for the people of Ancona remained motionless, scarcely understanding what these foreigners were trying to do, and totally dubious of their success. Bells were ringing on all sides, priests led processions, women wept, falling on their knees before pictures of saints at street corners, but no one gave any thought to the natural help God gives man to protect himself. Yet w h e n the townspeople noticed the happy results of Oswald's diligence, w h e n they saw that the flames were dying out

13

Book I and that their houses w o u l d be saved, they went from amazement to enthusiasm. They crowded around Lord Nelvil, and they kissed his hands so eagerly that he had to feign anger to fend off anything that might delay the rapid sequence of orders and moves essential to the town's survival. Everyone fell in line under his leadership, because from the m o m e n t danger arises courage assumes its rightful place in small things as well as in great; from the moment men are afraid, they cease being jealous. Meanwhile, through the confused uproar, Oswald discerned screams from the other end of t o w n more horrible than all the rest. He asked where they were coming from and was told they originated in the Jewish Quarter: the police officer made a practice of closing the gates to the quarter at night, and since the fire was making headway in that direction, the Jews could not escape. 4 Oswald shuddered at the idea and asked that the gates be opened at once. But several w o m e n of the people threw themselves at his feet, entreating him to do nothing of the kind: But surely you see, dear good angel! The Jews have just got to be at the bottom of this fire. They're the ones who bring us bad luck, and if you set them free, all the water in the ocean will not put out the flames. A n d with as m u c h eloquence and sweetness as if they were seeking an act of mercy, they begged Oswald to let the Jews burn. They were in no w a y evil; rather their superstitious imaginations had been sharply struck by a great misfortune. Yet Oswald barely managed to control his indignation w h e n he heard their strange entreaties. He sent four English sailors with axes to break d o w n the gates that held those unfortunate people in check, and they immediately scattered about the town, running amid the flames to the goods in their shops with that appetite for wealth so disquieting w h e n it leads to risking death. In the present state of society, man may be said to have little appreciation of the simple gift of life. But in the highest part of the t o w n one building remained, so completely surrounded by flames that it w a s impossible to put them out, and even more impossible to go through them. The people of Ancona had s h o w n so little concern, that thinking no one lived there, the English sailors had taken their pumps back toward the harbor. Oswald himself, distracted by cries for help all around him, had paid it no

14

Oswald heed. Spreading late in that direction, the fire had made serious inroads already. Lord Nelvil asked so imperatively what building it was that a man finally told him it was the madhouse. He was stunned to the core of his being. Turning back, he found not a single sailor nearby. Count d'Erfeuil was not to be seen either, and it would have been useless to appeal to the people of Ancona: practically everyone was busy saving his o w n goods or getting others to save them, and everyone thought it nonsense to risk death for men w h o were incurably mad one and all: It's a blessing from heaven, both for them and their families, if they die and it's nobody's fault. While these things were being said around him, Oswald strode rapidly to the hospital, and the very crowd that reproached him followed with a sense of involuntary and confused enthusiasm. When he came near the house, Oswald saw madmen at the only window not encircled by flames, watching the progress of the blaze and laughing in the heart-rending w a y that implies either ignorance of all the ills of life or so much pain in the depths of the soul that no aspect of death can inspire fear any longer. At that sight an indescribable shudder seized Oswald. In the most ghastly moment of his grief he had felt his reason waver, and ever since that time he had k n o w n the most agonizing pity at the sight of madness. Seizing hold of a ladder standing nearby, he leaned it against the wall, climbed up amid the flames, and through the w i n d o w entered a bedroom where the poor wretches still left in the hospital were gathered together. Their madness was so harmless that all except one were allowed to move within the building at will; that one was chained in the very room where the blaze was becoming visible at the door but had not yet eaten through the floor. Coming without warning among those wretched creatures debased by illness and suffering, Oswald produced such surprise and delight that he was obeyed without protest at first. He ordered the inmates to climb down the ladder ahead of him, one by one, since the flames could devour it momentarily. The first two of these poor wretches, completely subjugated by Lord Nelvil's tone and countenance, obeyed wordlessly. The third tried to resist, having no idea of the risk he ran by each moment's delay, thoughtless of the danger he caused Oswald by holding him back. Meanwhile, the people, fully sensing the horror of the situation, shouted to Nelvil

15

Book I to come d o w n , to let those madmen get out as best they could, but the deliverer listened to nothing until he had accomplished his generous undertaking. Of the six poor wretches in the madhouse, five were already saved. Only the sixth remained and he was in chains. Oswald unfastened his irons and tried to get him to use the same means of escape as his comrades, but the unfortunate youth, completely bereft of reason, darted about the room with extravagant joy w h e n , after t w o years in chains, he found he w a s free. The joy turned to rage w h e n Onwald tried to make him leave through the w i n d o w . Seeing that the flames were spreading even further through the house and that there was no w a y to make the madman save himself, Nelvil seized him bodily and carried him off despite the efforts of the poor devil, w h o was struggling against his benefactor. The smoke was so thick that Oswald could not see where to place his feet. He leaped blindly d o w n the last rungs and entrusted the still furious madman to several bystanders, making them promise to take care of him. Exhilarated by the risk he had just run, hair disheveled, gaze proud yet gentle, Oswald inspired the watching crowd with admiration—almost idolatry. The w o m e n in particular conveyed their feelings with that quality of imagination w h i c h is an almost universal gift in Italy and often lends nobility to the speech of common people. They threw themselves on their knees before him, exclaiming: You are surely Saint Michael, patron of our city. Spread your wings, but do not leave us: fly up there, atop the cathedral's steeple so that the whole town may see you and pray to you. My child is sick, said one of them. Cure him. A n d another: Tell me where my husband is; he's been gone for six years. As Oswald looked around for a w a y to escape, Count d'Erfeuil approached and shook his head saying: "Dear Nelvil, y o u must certainly share something with your friends; it is not right to keep all the risks for yourself." " D o get m e out of here," murmured Oswald. They took advantage of a moment of darkness to escape, rushing off to get horses at the post. At first Lord Nelvil enjoyed the quiet pleasure that follows a good deed, but w h o m could he share it with n o w that his best friend was

16

Oswald no longer alive? How terrible to be an orphan! Both the happy events of life and its sorrow make him feel the loneliness of his heart. Indeed how is it ever possible to replace that affection born along with us, the natural empathy of blood relations, the friendship that heaven compounds to unite a child and his father? Love may come again, but the bliss of entrusting one's soul to another can never be found again.

V Leaving Ancona, Oswald crossed the Marches and the Papal States as far as Rome without noticing anything, without taking interest in anything. The explanation lay in his melancholy soul as well as in a natural indolence that only strong passions could tear away. Having lived only in France where society is all-important, and in London where political concerns absorb almost all others, he did not yet delight in the wonders of nature nor in great works of art. Count d'Erfeuil went through each town with his traveler's guidebook in hand. He had the pleasure of simultaneously killing time by seeing everything and contending that once you knew France, there was nothing left to admire. His boredom depressed Oswald who was prejudiced against Italians and Italy from the start, since he had not yet seen into the nation's mystery, or the region's—a mystery that must be understood through imagination rather than through the critical judgment that is particularly developed by the English system of education. Italians are far more remarkable for what they once were and what they could be than for what they are at present. The barren ground surrounding the city of Rome is weary of glory and seems disdainful of yielding crops; for those who judge exclusively in terms of usefulness, it is nothing but untilled and neglected countryside. Accustomed from childhood to love of order and a prosperous society, Oswald's first impression was unfavorable as he crossed the abandoned plains heralding the approach of the city that had once ruled the world as queen: he held responsible the laziness of the people and their leaders. Lord Nelvil judged Italy as an enlightened administrator, Count d'Erfeuil as a man of the world; and so reason led one and 17

Book I shallowness the other to miss the effect produced by the Roman Campagna on an imagination steeped in the memories and sorrows, the natural beauty and noteworthy misfortunes that suffuse the countryside with an indefinable charm. Count d'Erfeuil wailed comically over the Roman landscape: "What! no country houses, no carriages, nothing to suggest the presence of a great city nearby! Good heavens, how dismal!" As they drew near Rome, the postilions burst out rapturously: "Look, look, there's the dome of Saint Peter's!" In the same way, Neapolitans point out Vesuvius, and people living along the coast take pride in the sea. "You would think we were looking at the dome of the Invalides," exclaimed the Count. More patriotic than exact, the comparison destroyed any effect the sight of this wondrous human creation might have had on Oswald. They entered Rome, not on a beautiful day or night, but on the kind of dark and foggy evening the dulls every object and makes it indistinguishable. Crossing that Tiber without noticing it, they came into Rome through the Gate of the People which leads into the Corso, the largest street in the modern city, which is the least original section since it looks more like other cities of Europe. The streets were crowded with people walking about; groups formed around puppet shows and hucksters on the square where the column of Antoninus Pius rises up. Oswald's attention was glued to the things closest at hand. The name of Rome did not yet echo in his soul; he felt only the profound isolation that grips the heart when you come to a foreign city and see a multitude of people who do not even know you exist, and who share none of your interests. Sad for every man, these thoughts are harder still on the English, who are accustomed to living among themselves and do not easily adapt to the ways of other people. In the vast stopping place that is Rome, everything is foreign—even the Romans, who seem to live there not as owners "but as pilgrims w h o rest beside the ruins." 5 Burdened with painful feelings, Oswald shut himself into his lodgings and did not go out to visit the city. He was far from thinking that the country he came to with such feelings of dejection and sorrow would presently be the source of so many ideas and pleasures.

18

Bookn CORINNE AT THE CAPITOL

I Oswald a w o k e in Rome. He opened his eyes to a dazzling sun, an Italian sun, and his soul w a s filled with loving gratitude to a heaven that seemed revealed in its radiant beams. He heard bells ringing out from the city's m a n y churches; he heard canons firing at intervals to announce some important ceremony. W h e n he asked for the reason, he was told that this very morning the most celebrated w o m a n in Italy was to be crowned at the Capitol: Corinne—poet, writer, improvisatrice,1 and one of the most beautiful w o m e n in Rome. All that he heard about the ceremony consecrated by the names of Petrarch and Tasso keenly excited his curiosity. Nothing could have been more opposed to an Englishman's customs and opinions than focusing the public eye on a w o m a n ' s fortunes. But, for a time at least, foreigners are caught up in the Italian enthusiasm for all the gifts of the imagination; and living among a people w h o so vividly express feeling, they forget the prejudices of their o w n countries. The c o m m o n people of Rome are familiar with the arts, and s h o w their taste in arguing over statues. Indeed paintings, monuments, and all the art of classical antiquity, as well as a certain level of literary achievment, are a national preoccupation. Oswald w e n t out, making his w a y toward the public square where

19

Book II he overheard people talking about Corinne, her gifts and her genius. He saw that they had decorated the streets she would pass through. As a rule, the common people gather only in the wake of power and wealth, but here they were, almost clamoring to see a person superior by her mind alone. In their present situation Italians are allowed but one glory: the fine arts. Their vivid sense of this form of genius should give rise to many great men, yet mere acclaim is not enough to bring them forth; only intense life, lofty concerns, and an independent existence can nourish thought. As Oswald strolled through the streets of Rome, waiting for Corinne to arrive, he heard her name on everyone's lips, as people all around told of some new sign heralding the union of all those gifts that captivate the imagination. One person said that she had the most moving voice in Italy; another, that no one in Italy could play tragedy as she did; still another, that she danced like a nymph and that her drawing was as charming as it was original. It was universally agreed that never before had anyone written or improvised such beautiful poetry, and that in ordinary conversation, her eloquence and grace captivated her listeners' minds. They debated over what Italian city had given her birth, but the Romans stoutly maintained that you had to be b o m in Rome to speak such pure Italian. Her last name was not known; her first work had come out five years earlier signed only Corinne. No one k n e w where she had lived before or what kind of person she had been. N o w she was about twenty-six. To Lord Nelvil, the combination of mystery and public notice—this woman everyone discussed without even knowing her real name—seemed one of the wonders of the singular country he had come to visit. In England he would have judged such a w o m a n severely, but he did not apply any social conventions to Italy. He looked forward to Corinne's coronation with the same expectation he would have brought to one of Ariosto's tales of adventure. Thrilling music sounded before the triumphal procession came into view. No matter what the event, it will stir the emotions if heralded by music. Many Roman noblemen and a few foreigners led the way for the chariot bearing Corinne. There goes her troop of admirers, said one Roman. Yes, responded another, she accepts everyone's praise, but she gives no one special preference. She's rich and independent; they even think she's

20

Corinne at the Capitol well born—and she certainly looks it—but she doesn't want her identity known. Say what you will, continued a third, she is a goddess amid the clouds. Oswald looked at the m a n w h o was speaking: everything about him suggested the humblest level of society; but in the south, people use such naturally poetic language that it seems to be snatched out of the air and inspired by the sun. At last four white horses drawing Corinne's chariot made their way into the midst of the throng. Corinne sat on the chariot built in the ancient style, and white-clad girls walked alongside. Wherever she passed, perfumes were lavishly flung into the air. Everyone came forward to see her from their windows which were decorated with potted plants and scarlet hangings. Everyone shouted: Long live Corinne! Long live genius! Long live beauty! There was universal emotion, but Lord Nelvil did not yet share it in the slightest. Even though he had already decided that English reserve and French banter had to be set aside if he were to form an opinion on all this, he was still keeping emotion tightly in check when, at last, he caught sight of Corinne. She was dressed like Domenichino's Sibyl, an Indian turban wound round her head, intertwined with hair of the most beautiful black. 2 She wore a white tunic with a blue drapery fastened beneath her breast. While colorful, her dress did not so diverge from accepted practice as to seem affected. Her bearing as she rode by was noble and modest: she was visibly pleased to be admired, but her joy was suffused with a timidity that seemed to beg indulgence for her triumph. Her expression, her eyes, her smile spoke in her favor, and one look made Lord Nelvil her friend even before any stronger feeling brought him into subjection. Her arms were ravishingly beautiful; her tall full figure, reminiscent of Greek statuary, vigorously conveyed youth and happiness. In her expression there was something inspired. Her way of greeting people, of thanking them for their applause, revealed a kind of naturalness in her that enhanced the splendor of her extraordinary position. She seemed at once a priestess of Apollo making her way toward the Temple of the Sun, and a woman perfectly simple in the ordinary relationships of life. Indeed in her every gesture there was a charm that aroused interest and curiosity, astonishment and affection. The closer she came to the Capitol, a place so rich in memories, the

21

Book II stronger the people's admiration grew. The splendor of the sky, the enthusiastic Romans, and above all, Corinne, electrified Oswald's imagination. In his own country he had often seen statesmen borne in triumph by the people, but here, for the first time, he was witness to such homage paid a woman, a woman renowned only for the gifts of genius. Her triumphal chariot had cost not a single tear to anyone; and neither remorse nor fear checked admiration for those most beautiful gifts of nature: imagination, feeling, and thought. Oswald was so absorbed in his thoughts, so engrossed in new ideas, that he took no notice whatever of the ancient places traversed by Corinne's chariot. When it came to a halt at the foot of a stairway leading to the Capitol, all Corinne's friends rushed to help her down. To everyone's delight, she chose among them Prince Castel-Forte, the Roman lord most respected for his wit and character. She went up the stairway of the Capitol whose imposing majesty seemed to greet a woman's light footsteps with kindly welcome. A fresh burst of music was heard as Corinne arrived; the canon roared, and the triumphant Sibyl entered the palace that had been made ready to receive her. At the far end of the reception hall stood the conservators of the Senate and the senator w h o was to crown her. On one side were all the cardinals and the most eminent women of the land; on the other, the men of letters of the Roman Academy. The opposite end of the room was filled with part of the immense throng that had followed Corinne. The chair meant for her was set on the step below the senator's. As custom decreed, before sitting down she bent her knee on the first step, in full view of the august assembly. Her manner in doing so was so noble and modest, so sweet and dignified, that Lord Nelvil felt tears well up in his eyes. He was astonished at his own emotion; but it seemed to him that in the very midst of all the splendor and all her success, Corinne's eyes pleaded for the protection of a friend, a protection no woman can ever do without, however superior she may be. And he felt that it would be gratifying to be the sustaining strength of a person whose sensibility alone made sustenance necessary. As soon as Corinne took her seat, the poets of Rome began to read the sonnets and odes they had written in her honor. All of them exalted her to the skies, but the terms of their praise might have described any other woman of genius just as well. There was a pleasant

22

Corinne at the Capitol mixture of images and mythological allusions which could have been addressed over the centuries to any woman renowned for her literary talent, from Sappho's day to her own. Such praise of Corinne distressed Lord Nelvil, for already he thought that just by looking at her he could have done a portrait more accurate, true, and detailed, a portrait that would fit no one but Corinne.

II Prince Castel-Forte started to speak, and what he said about Corinne caught the attention of everyone gathered at the Capitol. A man of fifty, his language and bearing were marked by moderation and dignity. His age and Lord Nelvil's understanding that he was nothing more than a friend to Corinne, inspired unalloyed interest in the portrait he drew. Without these reasons to feel secure, Oswald would have been capable already of an inchoate impulse to jealousy. The Prince read a few unpretentious pages of prose which nonetheless were singularly apt for introducing Corinne. First he pointed out the special merit of her works. He said that this merit consisted partly of her serious study of foreign literatures: she knew how to combine to the fullest imagination, painting, and the dazzling life of the south with that knowledge of the human heart which is seemingly granted to countries where the outer world excites less interest. He paid tribute to Corinne's grace and gaiety, a gaiety with no trace of mockery, owed only to a lively mind and radiant imagination. He tried to praise her sensibility, but it was easy to see that his words were tinged with some private grief. He protested against the difficulty met by a superior woman in finding the one who corresponds to the ideal image she has formed, an image adorned with all the talent that genius and heart might wish for. Even so, he took pleasure in describing the impassioned sensibility inspiring Corinne's poetry, and her gift for grasping the relationships that so move us between nature's beauties and the soul's most private feelings. He called attention to the originality of Corinne's language, language so entirely born of her character and her way of feeling that no trace of af23

Book II fectation could ever alter a charm not only natural but involuntary as well. He described her eloquence as an all-powerful force; the more truly sensitive and intelligent her listeners, the more likely they would be carried off by it. "There is no doubt that Corinne is our country's most famous woman," he said, "and yet her friends alone can describe her; for the soul's qualities must always be divined when they are genuine; if some empathy does not win us insight, fame's glitter can prevent this recognition just as surely as obscurity." He dwelt on her talent for improvisation that in no way resembled what went by this name in Italy. "It may be ascribed not only to her inventive mind, but also to the depth of emotion that excites all generous thoughts in her: every one of her words calling them to mind is inspired by enthusiasm, that inexhaustible well of feelings and ideas." The Prince made his audience aware of the grace in a style that was always pure, always harmonious. "Corinne's poetry is an intellectual melody, that by itself can express the charm of the most fleeting and most delicate impressions." When he extolled Corinne's conversation, one sensed that he had tasted its delights. "Imagination and simplicity, sound judgment and rapturous emotion, strength and gentleness combine in a single person, varying the pleasures of the mind from one moment to the next so that this charming line from Petrarch suits her well: II parlar che nell'anima si sente;* and in my view, she has something of that much vaunted grace, that oriental charm ascribed by the ancients to Cleopatra." "The universe of my imagination," added the Prince, "is composed of the palaces I have visited with her, the music we have heard together, the paintings she has shown me, the books she has brought me to understand. In all these objects there is a spark of her life, and if I had to live far away from her, I would want at least to surround myself with them, sure that nowhere else would I find that trace of fire, that trace of herself, as it were, which she had left in them. Yes," he continued, his gaze happening to fall on Oswald just then, "look on *The language sensed in the depths of the soul.

24

Corinne at the Capitol Corinne if you can spend your life with her, if the double existence she will give you can go on for a long time. But if you are condemned to leave her, then do not look upon her: so long as you lived, you would seek in vain the creative soul that shared and multiplied your feelings and your thoughts, for you would never find it again." Startled at these words, Oswald fixed his eyes on Corinne who was listening with emotions bom not of pride but of more attractive, more poignant feelings. Prince Castel-Forte was so moved that for a moment he could not go on; resuming, he spoke of Corinne's gift for painting, music, dramatic recitation, dance: he said that in all her talents, free of any compulsion to follow this style or that rule, Corinne was always herself, giving varied expression to the same power of imagination, the same magic of the arts in their various forms. "I am under no delusion," he concluded, "that I have adequately portrayed someone you can have no real idea of until you have heard her. But for us in Rome, her presence is like a gift of our dazzling sky, of our felicitous nature. Corinne is the common bond shared by her friends; she is the impulse, the interest of our life; we depend on her goodness; we are proud of her genius. To foreigners we say: 'Gaze on her, for she is the image of our beautiful Italy; she is what we would be except for the ignorance, envy, discord and indolence to which our fate has condemned us.' It gives us pleasure to behold in her an admirable product of our climate and our arts, an offspring of the past, prophet of the future. And when foreigners belittle this country that gave rise to the brilliant minds that have enlightened Europe, when they have no compassion for the faults born of our misfortunes, we say to them: 'Behold Corinne.' Yes, we would follow in her path; we would be men as she is a woman, if like women, men could create a world in their own hearts, and if our genius—obliged to depend on social relationships and circumstances outside of the self—could catch fire at the touch of poetry alone." As the Prince finished speaking, the whole assembly broke into applause, and even though his conclusion indirectly took to task the present state of Italians, all the noted men of state approved, so real in Italy is the kind of generosity that does not get institutions changed but leads superior minds to forgive quiet opposition to current modes of thought. Prince Castel-Forte was highly regarded in Rome. He spoke with

25

Book II uncommon wisdom, a remarkable gift in a country where more wit goes into behavior than into speech. He lacked the skill for business that so often distinguishes Italians, but he enjoyed thought and was not afraid of the strain of reflection. The fortunate people of the south sometimes resist this strain, thinking they will guess everything with the help of imagination, just as their fertile uncultivated earth bears fruit with no other help than nature's kindness.

Ill Corinne rose w h e n Prince Castel-Forte finished speaking. She acknowledged her thanks by a nod of the head so noble and so sweet that it reflected both her modesty and her very natural joy at being praised to her heart's desire. According to custom, the poet crowned at the Capitol would improvise or recite a short poem before the laurel wreath was placed upon the head. Corinne had them bring her favorite instrument—a lyre; closely resembling a harp, its form was nevertheless more ancient and its sound simpler. As she tuned it, she felt exceedingly shy at first, and her voice trembled as she asked what subject had been set for her. The Glory and Bliss of Italy! cried those around her in one voice. "Well, yes," she said, already seized, already sustained by her talent, "The Glory and Bliss of Italy!" And quickened by love for her country, she spoke verses full of a delight that prose can but imperfectly render.

Corinne's Improvisation at the Capitol "Italy, thou empire of the Sun; Italy, to w h o m the world stands subject; Italy, cradle of learning, I salute thee. How many times the human race has fallen under thy sway, dependent on thy arms, thy arts, and thy skies! " A god came d o w n from Olympus to take refuge in Ausonia; the sight of this country led to dreams of the Golden Age and its virtues, of a time w h e n man seemed too happy there to be thought guilty. 3

26

Corinne at the Capitol "The genius of Rome conquered the universe, and liberty made her queen. Roman character left its mark upon the world; and by destroying Italy, the barbarian invasion cast a shadow over the whole universe. "Italy came forth anew through the divine treasure the fugitive Greeks brought back into her bosom: heaven revealed its laws unto her. 4 The daring of her children discovered a new hemisphere. She was queen, too, by her scepter of thought, but this laureled scepter made nothing but ingrates. "Imagination restored the universe she had lost. Artists, poets, gave birth to a world for her, an Olympus, a hell and heavens. And no Prometheus came forth from Europe to ravish the fire of her vital force, better guarded by her genius than by the god of the pagans. "Why am I here at the Capitol? Why is my humble forehead to receive the crown that Petrarch wore, that is left hanging from Tasso's funereal cypress tree? Why . . . my fellow citizens, if you love not glory enough to reward with an even hand those who worship her and those who have attained her! "So, if you do love glory, who so often picks her victims from among the victors she has crowned, then take pride in the centuries that saw the renaissance of the arts. Dante—the Homer of modern times, sacred poet of our religious mysteries, hero of thought— plunged into the Styx to reach down to hell, and his soul was deep like the unfathomable depths he described. "In Dante, Italy came back to life in all her power. Inspired by the spirit of the Republic, the warrior as well as the poet kindled the flame of action among the dead, and his shadow people are more intensely alive than those living today. "Earthly memories pursue them still, their aimless passions tear furiously at their hearts, they writhe over the past that still seems less irrevocable than their eternal future. "It is as if banished from his country, Dante had transported into the realm of the imagination the anguish eating away at him. The shades constantly ask news of the world of the living, just as the poet himself inquires about his homeland. And for him, hell wears the colors of exile. "In his eyes, everything wears Florentine dress. The dead of antiquity whom he portrays seem reborn as Tuscan as he; yet it is the 27

Book II power of his soul, not the narrowness of his mind, which brings the universe within the circle of his thought. "A mystical chain of circles and spheres leads him from hell to purgatory, from purgatory to paradise. Faithful chronicler of his vision, he floods the dimmest regions with light, and the world he creates in his three-part poem is complete in itself, alive and dazzling like some new planet glimpsed in the firmament. "At his voice the whole world turns into poetry; objects, ideas, laws, phenomena seem a new Olympus of new gods. But at the sight of paradise, of that ocean of light sparkling with beams and stars, virtues and love, this imaginative mythology disappears, like paganism, into nothingness. "The magical words of our greatest poet are the prism of the universe, reflecting, breaking up, recombining all of its marvels. Sounds imitate colors, colors melt into harmonies; sonorous or strange, brief or lingering, his rhyme is inspired by poetic divination, that supreme beauty of art, that triumph of genius which discerns in nature all secrets bearing on the human heart. "Dante hoped his poem would bring his exile to an end. He counted on the mediating power of renown, but he died too soon to triumph in his native land. Often the ephemeral life of man wears away in misfortune. And if glory wins out, if a happier shore is reached at last, the tomb opens up behind the harbor: destiny of the thousand shapes often heralds the end of life with the return of good fortune. "This was the unhappy fate of Tasso whom your homage, Romans, was to console for so much injustice. Handsome, sensitive, knightly, dreaming great exploits, living the love he sang, he approached these walls with respect and gratitude, like his heroes in Jerusalem. But on the eve of his coronation, death claimed him for her terrible celebration: heaven is jealous of earth and calls her favorites away from the treacherous shores of time. "In a prouder and freer age than Tasso's, Petrarch, like Dante, was the poet of Italian independence. In other lands, nothing is known of him but his love. Here, more austere memories honor his name forever, and his country inspired him better than Laura herself. "Working far into the night, he called antiquity back to life. And far from hindering the most profound study, the creative power of his imagination revealed the secrets of ages past by making the future his 28

Corinne at the Capitol dominion. Knowledge serves the imagination well, he found, since he was to share in the power of eternity to witness all of time. "Our serene air, our smiling climate inspired Ariosto. He was a rainbow coming among us after the long wars—brilliant and manycolored. Like this harbinger of good weather, he seems to frolic intimately with life, and his lighthearted gaiety is nature's smile, not man's irony. "Michelangelo, Raphael, Pergolesi, Galileo, and you—bold explorers, hungry for new lands though nature could offer you none lovelier than you own: let your glory be one with the glory of the poets! Artists, scholars, philosophers: you are, like them, children of the sun which in turn broadens the imagination, quickens thought, excites courage, lulls into happiness, and seems either to promise everything or to force it into oblivion. "Do you know this land where orange trees bloom, lovingly made fruitful by heaven's light?5 Have you heard the melodious sounds that celebrate the sweetness of the night? Have you breathed this land's perfumes, a luxury in air already so freshly pure? Answer, you from other places, is nature in your countries so beautiful and benign? "Elsewhere, when social upheaval afflicts a land, the people doubtless feel abandoned by the divine powers. But here, we always feel the protection of heaven, we see that it cares about man, consenting to treat him as a noble being. "Here nature is not adorned with vine branches and sheaves of wheat alone; but as at some monarch's feast, she strews man's path with flowers and plants: meant only for beauty, they disdain to be of use. "The subtle pleasures tended by nature are relished by a nation worthy of appreciating them. The simplest dishes satisfy its people. They do not drink to intoxication from the fountains of wine at hand in a land of plenty. They love their sun, their monuments, their country at once ancient and young as springtime. The refined pleasures of a sophisticated society, the vulgar pleasures of a greedy people are not for them. "Here sense impressions blend with ideas, all life draws from the same wellspring, and the soul—like the air—fills space to the outer limits of heaven and earth. Genius feels at home because revery is so sweet here, calming his restlessness, bestowing a thousand golden 29

Book II dreams should he mourn some unattained goal. Should men harass him, nature is there with her welcome. "And so she always brings redress, and all wounds are cured by her helping hand. Here even the heart's anguish is consoled by wonder at a God of goodness and by insight into the secret of His love. The passing misfortunes of our transitory life are dispersed into the fertile and majectic bosom of the immortal universe." Impassioned applause interrupted Corinne for some moments. Oswald alone failed to join in the rapturous clamor around him. He had bowed his head on his hand as Corinne said: "even the heart's anguish is consoled," and from that moment on he had not looked up. Corinne noticed and quickly realized he was English from his features, the color of his hair, his clothing, his height, his whole bearing. She was struck by his air of sadness, and his mourning clothes. Then his gaze, fixed on her, seemed to chide her gently. Divining the thoughts going through his mind, she was impelled to meet his need by talking of happiness with less certainty, by devoting a few verses to death in the midst of celebration. With this idea, she took up her lyre again; the lingering moving sounds she summoned from it completely quieted the audience and once more she spoke. "And yet there is an anguish that our consoling skies can never efface; but in what other dwelling place could sorrow bring the soul a more nobly gentle sensation! "Elsewhere there is scarcely room for the rapid race and passionate desires of the living. Here the ruins, the barren ground, the empty palaces, leave vast spaces for the ghosts to walk. Is Rome not now the land of tombs! "Gathered here are the Colosseum, the obelisks, all the wonders from deepest Egypt and from Greece, from the furthest ages, from Romulus to Leo X, as if one splendor attracted another so that a single place might contain all that man could shelter from time. All these wonders are monuments to the dead. Our idle life is scarcely noticed; the silence of the living is a tribute to the dead: they endure and we pass on. "It is they alone who are honored, they alone who are famous still. The obscurity of our fate heightens the splendor of our ancestors. Our present existence leaves only the past standing, making no stir

30

Corinne at the Capitol around memories. All our masterpieces are the work of those who are no more, and genius itself is numbered among the illustrious dead. "Perhaps one of the Rome's secret charms is that she reconciles the imagination to the long sleep of the dead. Here is resignation for the self and less pain for those one loves. The southern peoples picture death in less somber colors than those who dwell in the north. Like glory, the sun warms even the tomb. "Under this beautiful sky, frightened spirits are less hounded by the chill and solitude of the grave along with so many funeral urns. It seems as if a crowd of ghosts awaits us; and from our lonely city to the city underground, the transition seems rather gentle. "Thus the sharp edge of pain is dulled, not that the heart is indifferent, not that the soul is arid, but a more perfect harmony, a more fragrant air pervade existence. One surrenders less fearfully to nature, of whom the Creator has said: 'Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: and yet I say unto you, that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed as one of these.' " These final stanzas so enchanted Oswald that he expressed the liveliest admiration. And this time the raptures of the Italians themselves did not equal his. Indeed, it was to him, more than to the Romans, that Corinne's second improvisation was addressed. Most Italians read verse in a monotonous tone called cantilena that destroys all feeling.6 It makes no difference that the words vary; the effect is the same since the tone of voice—more telling than the words—scarcely changes. But Corinne used a variety of tones that did not destroy the sustained charm of the harmony. The effect was of different airs, all played on a celestial instrument. Corinne gave movingly sensitive voice to the stately and resonant Italian language, producing an entirely new effect on Oswald. English prosody is regular and veiled, its natural beauties all melancholy; the clouds have shaped its hues, and the sound of waves its modulations. But when these Italian words—sparkling like a holiday, resounding like the trumpets of victory so like scarlet among the colors, all imprinted still with the joys a fair climate spreads in every heart; when these same Italian words are pronounced with feeling, their softened brilliance, their concentrated power set off an emotion in the listener as vivid as it is unexpected. Nature's plan seems betrayed, its bounty

31

Book II useless, its advances repelled; for amid so many pleasures, the expression of suffering astonishes and moves even deeper than the sorrow sung in the languages of the north which suffering seems to inspire.

IV The senator took up the crown of myrtle and laurel he was to place on Corinne's head. She unwound the turban encircling her forehead, and all her ebony hair came tumbling in curls upon her shoulders. Bareheaded, she went forward, her gaze brightened by a sense of pleasure and gratitude she in no way sought to hide. Once more she knelt, this time to receive the crown, but she seemed more composed and less tremulous now. She had just spoken, filling her soul with the noblest thoughts, and through the power of enthusiasm she was not timid anymore. No longer a fearful woman, she was an inspired priestess, joyously devoting herself to the cult of genius. When the crown was placed on Corinne's head, all the instruments resounded, playing those triumphal airs that exalt the soul with sublime power. The roll of the drums, the fanfares, moved Corinne anew. Her eyes filled with tears, she sat for a moment, covering her face with her handherchief. Touched to the quick, Oswald came forward to speak to her, but he could not master the embarrassment holding him back. Corinne watched him closely for a time, careful not to draw his attention; but when Prince Castel-Forte took her hand to escort her back to her chariot, she went along absentmindedly, turning several times to look at Oswald under various pretexts. He followed, and as she went down the stairway escorted by her cortege, she drew back suddenly to catch sight of him again, dislodging her crown. Oswald hastened to pick it up, and handing it back spoke a few words in Italian to the effect that humble mortals placed at the feet of the gods the crowns they dared not set upon their heads. 7 Corinne thanked him in English with the pure native accent that can almost never be reproduced on the Continent. How astonished he was at her words! At first he was rooted to the spot; then, feeling unsteady, he leaned against one of the basalt lions at the foot of the stairway of the Capitol. Corinne gazed at him again, keenly

32

Corinne at the Capitol struck by his emotion, but long before Oswald recovered his strength and presence of mind, Corinne had been swept off toward her chariot and the crowd had dispersed. Until that moment Corinne had delighted him as the most charming of foreigners, one of the wonders of the country he wanted to explore. But that English accent, bringing back every memory of his native land, naturalized all of Corinne's charms. Was she English? Had she spent a few years of her life in England? He could not say, but study alone could not have taught her so well. Corinne and Lord Nelvil had to have lived in the same country. Who knows whether their families had not been on friendly terms? Perhaps in childhood he had even seen her! Often the heart has some innate image of what we love that may persuade us we recognize its materialization at first sight. Oswald was quite biased against Italians; he thought them passionate but flighty, unable to feel deep and enduring attachments. Still, Corinne's words at the Capitol had inspired a completely different idea: what if he could recover memories of his native land and at the same time gain a new life through the imagination; what if he could be reborn to the future and yet not break with the past? In the midst of his reverie, Oswald realized he was on the Sant' Angelo Bridge leading to the castle of that name: Hadrian's tomb which had been converted into a fortress.8 The silence of the place, the pale waters of the Tiber, the moonbeams lighting up the statues placed along the bridge and transforming them into white ghosts who unblinkingly watched the flow of the stream and of the ages that concerned them no longer: all these things brought him back to his usual thoughts. Putting his hand to his chest, he felt for the portrait of his father he always carried there. Taking it out, he gazed at it, and his momentary happiness along with the cause of that happiness reminded him only too clearly of the feeling that had once made him offend his father so badly. The thought revived his remorse. "Undying memory of my life!" he exclaimed. "My friend so hurt and yet so generous! Could I have thought that feelings of pleasure would win access to my heart this soon? You, the best and kindest of men, you do not blame me. You want me to be happy; you want that still in spite of what I did. But should you speak to me from out of the heavens, may I at least not mistake your voice then as I mistook it when you were on this earth!"

33

Book in CORINNE

I The day after the celebration at the Capitol, Count d'Erfeuil came by Lord Nelvil's to say: " M y dear Oswald, would you like me to take you to Corinne's this evening?" "What?" interrupted Oswald sharply. "Do you mean you know her?" "No, I do not. But people as famous as she tend to be flattered when you want to meet them, and this morning I wrote asking leave to stop by this evening with you." "I wish you had not mentioned my name without asking," replied Oswald, flushing. "Oh, be grateful that I spared you a few bothersome formalities. Instead of calling on an ambassador, who would take you to a cardinal, who would conduct you to a lady, who would present you to Corinne, I introduce you, you introduce me, and we shall both be very well received." "I am less confident than you and probably with good reason. I am afraid your rash request may not please Corinne." "Quite the contrary, I assure you. She has got too much sense for that, and her reply is most courteous."

34

Corinne "What's that? She answered you?" exclaimed Nelvil. "Well what did she say, my dear Count?" "Oh! it's 'my dear Count,' is it," said d'Erfeuil laughing. "Why now that you know Corinne answered me, you do grow nicer. But no matter, I like you and all is forgiven. So I shall modestly confess that I said more about myself than you, and that in her reply I do think she mentioned you first—but I am never jealous of my friends." "Surely," answered Nelvil, "I think neither one of us can boast of catching Corinne's fancy. As far as I am concerned, all I want is to enjoy the company of so astonishing a personage from time to time. I shall see you this evening, then, since you have already made the arrangements." "You will come with me?" "Well, yes," answered Nelvil, visibly embarrassed. "Then why did you make such a fuss over what I did? You are ending up right where I began, but you insisted on the honor of being more reserved than I just so long as you did not lose anything by it. She is really a delightful person, Corinne, witty and charming. I did not exactly understand much of what she said since she was speaking Italian, but just to look at her, I would wager she knows French very well—we shall see this evening. She does lead a curious life: she is wealthy, young, free, yet nobody really knows whether or not she has lovers. In any case, she seems to have no special preference for anyone at the moment. Besides," the Count added, "it may well be that in this country she has not met a man worthy of her—that would not surprise me in the least." Lord Nelvil let him rattle on in this vein uninterrupted. Strictly speaking, there was nothing unseemly in his words, but he constantly offended Oswald's scrupulous sensitivity by treating his concerns either too roughly or too lightheartedly. There is a kind of discretion that experience of the world or even intelligence cannot teach us, and the heart is often wounded by the exercise of the most exquisite courtesy. Nelvil was quite restless all day thinking of the evening's visit, but he dismissed his troublesome thoughts as best he could, and tried to convince himself that a feeling could be enjoyable in itself and yet not change the course of his life. False security! For the soul takes no pleasure in what it clearly knows to be short-lived.

35

Book III So Lord Nelvil and Count d'Erfeuil went to Corinne's house in the Trastevere, just past the Castel Sant' Angelo. Enhanced by its view of the Tiber, the interior was decorated with perfect elegance. Plaster copies of some of Italy's finest statues ornamented the drawing room: Niobe, the Laocoon, the Medici Venus, the Dying Gladiator. And in the small room where Corinne spent most of her time, were musical instruments, books, and simple but comfortable furniture arranged with the sole aim of drawing her circle of guests close together to encourage conversation. Corinne was not yet there when Oswald arrived. Waiting for her, he paced anxiously through her suite of rooms. In each detail he noticed a harmonious blending of all that is most pleasing in three nations—France, England, and Italy: a taste for social discourse, a love of learning, and a feeling for the arts. At last Corinne came in, dressed in a style without affectation yet still picturesque. She wore antique cameos in her hair, and a coral necklace around her throat. Her courtesy was noble and easy: seeing her informally in her circle of friends, one still recognized the divinity of the Capitol, although here she was perfectly simple and natural. She greeted Count d'Erfeuil first, although she was looking at Oswald; and then as if embarrassed by that kind of guile, she came toward him. When she called him Lord Nelvil, the name seemed to produce a curious effect on her, and twice she repeated it with feeling, as if it brought touching memories to mind. At last she said a few graceful words to him in Italian about the kindness he had shown the day before when he picked up her crown. Oswald haltingly sought to express the admiration she had inspired in him and gently reproached her for not speaking in English: " A m I more foreign to you today than yesterday?" "Certainly not," answered Corinne, "but when a person has spoken two or three different languages over a number of years as I have, one or the other is called forth by the feelings one wants to express." "Surely English is your native language, the one you speak with your friends, the one . . . " "I am Italian," interrupted Corinne. "Forgive me, my Lord, but I seem to see the national pride in you that so often marks your countrymen. W e are more modest in this country. W e are not self-satisfied like the French or proud like the English. All w e ask of foreigners is a little forbearance; and since w e have not been allowed to be a nation

36

Corinne for a long time, w e often err as individuals by acting without the dignity denied us as a people. But when you come to know Italians, you will see that their character reveals traces of ancient grandeur: sparse, scarcely visible traces that in happier times could rise to the surface once more. I will speak English to you occasionally, but not always; Italian is dear to me: I have suffered a great deal to live in Italy," she sighed. Count d'Erfeuil chided Corinne for completely forgetting him as she expressed her ideas in languages he did not understand. "Lovely Corinne, for pity's sake, do speak French, you are truly worthy to speak it." Smiling at his compliment, Corinne began to speak a very pure and fluent French, but with an English accent. Lord Nelvil and the Count were equally astonished; but d'Erfeuil—who thought everything could be said, so long as it was said gracefully, and who imagined that discourtesy was a matter of form, not content—asked Corinne straight away how this strange thing had come to be. At first she was rather disconcerted by this attack of questions, but recovering her composure, she told him: "It would seem, Sir, that I learned French from an Englishman." Laughing but insistent, he continued his interrogation. Feeling more and more uncomfortable, Corinne finally replied: "In the four years that I have lived in Rome, Sir, not a single one of my friends, not one of the people w h o m I know to take a strong interest in me has asked about the course of my life; from the beginning they understood that I find it painful to discuss." These words put an end to the Count's investigation, but Corinne was afraid she had hurt him. Since he seemed very close to Lord Nelvil, she feared even more—without trying to understand why—that he would disparage her to his friend, and once again she took pains to please him. At just that moment, Prince Castel-Forte arrived with several Roman friends of his and Corinne's. Men of spirited, affable wit and kindly manners, they were so readily animated by the conversation around them that it was a lively pleasure to speak with them—all the more since they felt keenly what was worth feeling. The indolence of Italians makes them disinclined to show how really witty they are in social interchange or any other. Even in their private lives, most of them fail to cultivate the intellectual gifts nature has granted them, but what they come by effortlessly they rapturously enjoy.

37

Book III There was much gaiety in Corinne's wit. She saw through nonsense with the finesse of a Frenchwoman, and depicted it with the imaginative powers of an Italian, but kindness pervaded everything she said. Nothing calculated or hostile was ever seen in her; for it is coldness that offends, while imagination is almost always goodnatured. Oswald found Corinne charming in a way entirely new to him. A great and terrible moment in his life was associated with the memory of a very attractive and witty Frenchwoman, but Corinne was not at all similar. Her conversation blended every turn of mind—enthusiasm for the arts and knowledge of the world, subtle ideas and deep feelings. In a word, although she was charmingly vivacious and a quick conversationalist, her thoughts were never unfinished nor her reflections trivial. Oswald was surprised and attracted, uneasy and carried away; he did not understand how one person could combine all that was in Corinne. He wondered whether it was inconsistency or superiority that tied together so many contradictory qualities, whether it was the power to feel everything or to successively forget that explained her moving almost instantaneously from melancholy to gaiety, from depth to charm, from the most amazingly knowledgeable or thought-filled conversation to the coquetry of a woman who seeks to please and wants to captivate. But her coquetry was so perfectly dignified that it compelled as much respect as the strictest reserve! Prince Castel-Forte was extremely solicitous of Corinne, and all the Italians in her circle showed their feeling for her in the most delicate and diligent attentions and compliments; the adoration they lavished spread a kind of festive air over all the days of her life. Corinne was happy to be loved; but happy like those who live in a mild climate, who hear harmonious sounds, who meet pleasantness alone. The deep and serious feeling of love was not imprinted on this face whose lovely mobile features seemed to express everything. Oswald looked at her in silence. His presence stirred her, inspiring the will to please. Yet she would break off at the most brilliant point of her conversation, disconcerted by his outward calm, uncertain whether he approved or secretly blamed her, whether his English views would allow him to applaud such achievment in a woman. Oswald was too captivated by Corinne's charm to remember his former opinions about women's proper seclusion; but he wondered if

38

Corinne it were possible to be loved by her, to have concentrated on oneself alone such diverse beams of light. In a word, he was dazzled and uneasy; and even though she very courteously invited him back as he was leaving, he let a whole day go by, terrified by the emotion sweeping him off. From time to time he compared his new feeling to the fatal error he had made in his earliest youth, only to reject the comparison violently afterward; for whereas a treacherous artfulness had subjected him then, he could not doubt Corinne's sincerity. Was there some magic in her charm or was it poetic inspiration? Was she Armida or Sappho? 1 Could one ever hope to win a genius endowed with splendid wings? It was impossible to know; but he sensed that heaven itself rather than society had shaped this extraordinary being, and that her spirit was as incapable of imitation as her character of pretense. "Oh father," wondered Oswald, "If you had known Corinne, what would you have thought of her?"

II As usual, Count d'Erfeuil came to Lord Nelvil's in the morning, and he reproved his friend for not being at Corinne's the night before: "Had you been there, you would surely have been pleased." "Oh, w h y ? " "Because yesterday I found for certain that she has taken a lively interest in you." "There you go, frivolous again," interrupted Nelvil. "Do you not understand that I cannot be that way and I do not want to be?" "You call the swiftness of my observation frivolous. Am I less right because I am right faster? People like you were made for the happy days of the patriarchs when men lived for five centuries. Well, let me warn you, at least four have been subtracted by now." "All right then, what did your rapid observation reveal?" "That Corinne loves you! Yesterday when I arrived, she welcomed me very nicely to be sure, but her eyes were fixed on the door to see if you were following behind. For a while she tried to talk about other things, but since she is a very lively, very natural person, she finally

39

Book III asked straight out why you had not come with me. I found fault with you—you will not hold it against me, I said you were a strange and gloomy creature. On the other hand, I shall spare you all the compliments I paid you. " 'He is sad,' Corinne said to me. 'No doubt he has lost someone dear to him. He is in mourning. For whom?' " 'His father, Madam,' I told her, 'although he lost him over a year ago. And since the laws of nature oblige us all to outlive our parents, I imagine there is some hidden reason for his lingering and deep melancholy.' " 'Oh!' Corinne went on. I really do not think that all men experience grief in the same way, and I am rather inclined to think that your friend's father, and your friend himself, do not fit the general rule.' "Her voice was soft, my dear Oswald, as she said those last words." "Is that all the proof of her interest?" "Really, in my opinion, it is quite enough to be sure that you are loved, but since you want something better you shall have it: I have saved the strongest evidence for last. Prince Castel-Forte came in and told the whole story of Ancona, not knowing he was talking about you. He told it with great warmth and imagination as far as I can judge with the help of my two Italian lessons—but then, there are so many French words in foreign languages that even though w e do not actually know them, w e understand everything. Besides, Corinne's face would have explained whatever I did not understand. You could read the fluttering of her heart clearly in her expression. She held her breath for fear of missing a single word. Then, asking if the Englishman's name were known, she was so anxious that it was easy to see how afraid she was to hear any name but yours. "When the Prince said he did not know who the Englishman was, Corinne impulsively turned to me and exclaimed: 'It is Lord Nelvil, isn't it, Sir?' " 'Yes, Madam,' I replied, 'it is,' and Corinne burst into tears. She did not cry during the story, so what was there in the hero's name more touching than the story itself?" "She wept!" exclaimed Nelvil. "Oh! why was I not there?" Then stopping short, he lowered his eyes and his masculine face expressed the most exquisite shyness. He hastened to speak for fear the Count

40

Corinne would spoil his joy by taking notice of it. "If the adventure of Ancona is worth telling, the honor belongs to you too, my dear Count." "We certainly did talk about a very charming Frenchman who was there with you, my Lord," answered d'Erfeuil laughing, "but except for me no one paid any attention to that parenthesis in the tale. The lovely Corinne prefers you: no doubt she believes you more faithful. Perhaps that will not be true, perhaps you will bring her far more grief than ever I would, but women love to suffer as long as it is very romantic: so you are just right for her." Every word the Count spoke was painful to Nelvil, but what could he say? The Count never argued, he never listened closely enough to change his mind: once his words were uttered he lost interest in them, and the best thing to do—if possible—was to forget them as quickly as he did.

Ill Thinking he might be expected, Oswald came to Corinne's that evening with entirely new feelings. How delightful is the first glimmer of an understanding with the person you love! Before memory comes to take its part along with hope, before words have expressed feelings, before eloquence has found a way to describe what is happening within you—during those first moments, there is something undefined in the imagination, a mystery more fleeting than happiness itself, but more heavenly still. Oswald felt more constrained than ever as he entered Corinne's room. Seeing she was alone, he was almost distressed; he would have liked to watch her for a long time surrounded by people; he would have wanted some mark of her preference before getting involved in a conversation that might cool Corinne's interest in him should he prove awkward and cold in his embarrassment as he was sure he would. Either Corinne noticed his state of mind or she shared it, and wanting to enliven the conversation and dispel the constraint between

41

Book III them, quickly asked Lord Nelvil if he had seen some of Rome's monuments. "No," he said. "Well, then what did you do yesterday?" she asked smiling. "I spent the day at home; since I came to Rome, I have seen only you, Madam, or else I have been alone." Corinne tried to discuss what he had done in Ancona, beginning: "Yesterday I found o u t . . . " She broke off then saying: "I shall talk to you about it when company arrives." Lord Nelvil had a dignity of manner that made Corinne self-conscious; besides, she was afraid of showing too much emotion when she reminded him of his noble conduct; she thought she might be calmer when they were no longer alone together. Oswald was deeply moved by Corinne's reserve, and by her giving away the reasons for that reserve without a second thought; but the more flustered he got, the less he was able to express his feelings. Thus all of a sudden he got up and went over to the window; then sensing that Corinne would not understand his abrupt move, and more disconcerted than ever, he came back without a word. With more self-assurance in conversation than Oswald, Corinne nonetheless shared his visible discomfort, and in trying to save appearances, she absentmindedly fingered the harp standing beside her, playing several chords at random. Those harmonious sounds, adding to Oswald's emotion, seemed to make him a little bolder. He had already dared look at Corinne directly: and who could look at her and not be struck by the divine inspiration in her eyes? Heartened by the kindness veiling her radiant gaze, Oswald was probably about to speak when Prince Castel-Forte walked in. He was not really pleased to see Lord Nelvil alone with Corinne, but he was used to hiding his reactions; while this skill often combines with highly intense feelings in Italians, in him it came from natural indolence and kindness. He was resigned to not taking first place in Corinne's affections; no longer young, he was very witty and had a strong taste for the arts as well as an imagination lively enough to lend variety to his life without making him restless. And his need to spend every evening with Corinne was such that had she married, he would have begged her husband to let him come every day as usual; under those conditions he would not have been very unhappy at see-

42

Corinne ing her bound to someone else. In Italy the heart's distress is uncomplicated by hurt pride, so that you find men either passionate enough to stab their rivals out of jealousy, or modest enough to accept second place with a woman whose conversation they enjoy; however you would be hard put to find any w h o would refuse to maintain a pleasant relationship for fear of being thought rejected: society has practically no power over pride in this country. When Count d'Erfeuil and the group that met at Corinne's every night were all gathered, conversation turned to the gift of improvisation, so gloriously demonstrated by Corinne at the Capitol, and it came round to asking her own thoughts on the subject. "It is so rare," said Castel-Forte, "to find someone good at both enthusiasm and analysis, gifted as an artist and able to see herself objectively, that w e must beg her to reveal the secrets of her genius as far as such a thing is possible." "In the language of the south," replied Corinne, "the talent for improvisation is no more extraordinary than the orator's eloquence or the spirited brilliance of conversation in other languages. I would even say that unfortunately it is easier for us to make up verses on the spot than to speak well in prose. The language of poetry is so different from prose that from the very first verse its phrases compel attention, setting the poet at a distance from the listeners, so to speak. It is not only the sweetness of Italian, but really the strong and pronounced vibration of its ringing syllables that determines the preeminence of poetry among us. Almost independent of meaning, Italian gives pleasure through the musical charm of its words; besides there is something picturesque in all of these words: they paint the image of their meaning. You sense that this melodious, highly colored language came into being amid the arts under a beautiful sky. So in Italy more than anywhere else, it is easy to seduce with words though the thought lacks depth and the image shows no originality. Like all the arts, poetry charms the senses as much as the mind. I will say, though, that I have never improvised without being stirred by a real emotion or an idea that seemed new to me; so I hope that I have relied somewhat less than others on our bewitching language. It can prelude blindly, if you will, and still yield keen pleasure simply through the charm of rhythm and harmony." "Then you think the talent for improvisation does injustice to our lit-

43

Book III erature," interrupted one of Corinne's friends. "I used to think so before I heard you, but you have changed my mind completely." "I have said that this facility, this literary plenty, was responsible for a very great volume of unexceptional poetry," Corinne went on, "but I am very glad that this fruitfulness is to be found in Italy, just as I am pleased to see our countryside covered with a thousand superfluous crops. I take pride in nature's generosity. I particularly like improvisation in men and women of the people; it brings their imagination to light, though everywhere else it is hidden, developing only among us. It lends something poetic to the lowest orders of society, and spares us the disquiet one cannot help feeling for vulgarity of any kind. When our Sicilians address gracious remarks in their graceful dialect to the travelers they take in their boats, and say a long and lovely farewell in verse, it is as if the pure breath of heaven and sea act on man's imagination like the wind on Aeolian harps, and as if poetry—like those chords—echoes nature. There is something else that makes me prize our talent for improvisation: it could scarcely exist in a society inclined to ridicule. For poets to risk the danger of the enterprise, it takes the simple good-naturedness—if you will allow me that expression—of the south, or rather of countries whose peoples like to enjoy themselves but take no pleasure in criticizing what entertains them. A mocking smile would be enough to destroy the presence of mind necessary for instantaneous and uninterrupted composition; listeners must be aroused along with you and inspire you with their applause." "But you, Madam, but you," said Oswald at last, breaking his silence for the first time, though his eyes had been steadily fixed on Corinne, "which of your poetry do you like best, the work of reflection or the work of inspiration on the spur of the moment?" "My Lord," answered Corinne with a look expressing both a great deal of interest and a still more delicate feeling of respectful attention, "I would leave it for you to judge; but if you ask me to look more closely at what I myself think, I shall say that for me improvisation is like a lively conversation. I do not let myself be bound to any one subject; I go along with the impression my listeners' interest makes on me, and it is to my friends that I owe most of my talent, particularly in this genre. Sometimes when people have spoken of the great and noble questions of man's moral life, his destiny, his goal, his duties, his

44

Corinne affections—the conversation inspires my passionate interest. At times the interest lifts me beyond my own powers, brings me to discover in nature and in my own heart bold truths and language full of life that solitary thought would not have brought into being. At such times it seems to me that I am experiencing a supernatural enthusiasm, and I sense full well that what is speaking within me has a value beyond myself. Often I happen to quit the rhythm of poetry and express my thought in prose. Sometimes I quote the loveliest lines of the different languages I am familiar with. They are mine, those divine verses pervading my soul. Sometimes too, finding no words for certain thoughts and feelings, I put the last touches to them on my harp with chords, with simple national melodies. Ultimately I feel I am a poet not only when a happy choice of rhymes or harmonious syllables, or a favorite cluster of images dazzles my listeners, but also when my soul rises up, when from on high it disdains what is selfish and base— in a word, when a splendid act would be easier for me: it is then that my verses are better. I am a poet when I admire, when I scorn, when I hate—not out of personal feelings, not for my own cause, but for the dignity of the human race and the glory of the world." At this point Corinne noticed that she had been carried away by the conversation; blushing slightly, she turned to Lord Nelvil and said: "You see, I cannot approach any subject that moves me without feeling the kind of shock that is the source of ideal beauty in the arts, religion in solitary souls, generosity in heroes, disinterestedness in men. Forgive me, my Lord, although in your country, a woman like that is hardly the kind to meet with approval." "Who could be like you?" answered Nelvil, "and can laws be made for a person who is unique?" Count d'Erfeuil was thoroughly delighted, even though he had not understood everything Corinne was saying; but her gestures, the sound of her voice, her way of speaking captivated him, and for the first time charm that was not French had affected him. But in all honesty, Corinne's great success in Rome gave him a clue to the opinion he was supposed to have; and in his admiration he did not lose the good habit of letting other people's views serve as his guide. As he left with Lord Nelvil, he said: "My dear Oswald, admit that I deserve some credit for not trying to win favor with so charming a person."

45

Book III "But it seems to me," replied Nelvil, "it is generally understood that she is not easy to please." "That is what they say, but I find it hard to believe. A woman alone, independent, and who lives almost an artist's life should not be hard to win." That notion hurt Nelvil. But either not noticing or simply following the direction of his own ideas, the Count went on: "Still, if I were willing to believe in any woman's virtue, I would just as gladly believe in hers. There is a thousand times more expression in her eyes and liveliness in her reasoning than would be necessary to cast doubt on a woman's firmness in your country or mine; but she is a person of such superior mind, such deep learning, such exquisite tact, that the ordinary rules for judging women cannot be applied. In fact, would you believe that she commands my respect in spite of her spontaneity and free-and-easy conversation? Yesterday, with all due regard to her interest in you, I decided to hazard a few words in my own behalf— the kind of words that may be taken any way you choose—if they are heard, fine; if not, that is fine too—and Corinne looked at me coldly in a way that completely unsettled me. Still it is strange to be shy with an Italian woman, an artist, a poet, in fact everything that should put you at ease." "Her name is unknown," interjected Nelvil, "but her manners can only lead one to believe that it is renowned." "Oh! in novels, the best things are usually hidden, but in the real world w e talk about everything we are proud of, and even a bit more than everything." "That is so," Oswald interrupted, "in some societies where people think only of the effect they are making on each other. But where the inner life is important, circumstances can be mysterious just as feelings can be secret, and only a man who wanted to marry Corinne could know . . . " "Marry Corinne!" exclaimed the Count in a burst of laughter. "That would never have occurred to me! Believe me, my dear Nelvil, if you want to do something foolish, do something that can be set right, but where marriage is concerned, we must look to social convention. I seem frivolous to you; well, even so, in leading my life, I bet I will be the more rational of the two."

46

Corinne "I think you are right," answered Nelvil and did not add another word. Indeed, could he tell the Count that frivolousness has a strong element of selfishness, a selfishness that cannot lead to errors of feeling, those errors where we almost invariably sacrifice ourselves for others? Frivolous men manage quite well at becoming clever where their own interests are at stake; for in what may be called the political science of private life, as in public life, we succeed even more often through the qualities we do not have than through the ones we possess. Put together lack of enthusiasm, lack of opinions, and the negative treasure that is lack of sensitivity, with a little wit, and our life in society properly speaking—that is, fortune and position—is rather solidly acquired or maintained. Yet Nelvil had found the Count's banter unpleasant; he disapproved, but the unwelcome memory of his words was troubling.

47

Book IV ROME

I Throughout the next two weeks, Lord Nelvil devoted himself exclusively to Corinne. He went out only to visit her; he saw nothing else, he sought nothing else, and although he never talked about his feelings, they were apparent enough for her to enjoy all day long. She was used to the lively and flattering homage the Italians offered, but the sensibility Oswald betrayed in spite of his dignified manners and seeming coldness worked far more powerfully on her imagination. Never once did he mention a generous act or a misfortune without tears coming to his eyes, and he always tried to conceal his emotion. He inspired in Corinne a respect she had not known for a long time. However distinguished, no intelligence could astonish her, but highmindedness and dignified character stirred her deeply. In Lord Nelvil these qualities, combined with noble language and elegance in even the smallest actions, contrasted with the nonchalance and familiarity of most great Roman lords. Although their tastes were different in certain respects, Oswald and Corinne understood each other marvelously. Nelvil was flawlessly astute at guessing Corinne's reactions, while she detected what was going on in him through the slightest change in his expression. She was accustomed to stormy Italian passion, and so this shy affec48

Rome tion, this feeling constantly demonstrated yet never acknowledged suffused her life with entirely new interest. She felt immersed in a sweeter, purer atmosphere and every moment of the day brought a happiness she enjoyed without wanting to be quite aware of it. One morning Prince Castel-Forte came to visit. As he was sad, Corinne asked him why. "That Scotsman is going to steal your affection from us, and who knows if he will not carry you far away." Corinne was silent a few moments, then said: "I give you my word he has not said that he loves me." "Still, you believe he does. He speaks to you through his life, and his silence itself is a clever way to win your interest. After all, what can be said to you that you have not heard! What praise is there that has not been offered you! What homage are you not used to! But there is something restrained and veiled in Lord Nelvil's character that will never allow you to judge him through and through as you judge us. You are the easiest person in the world to know; but it is precisely because you show yourself just as you are, that reserve and mystery appeal to you and overcome you. The unknown in any form has greater influence on you than all feelings expressed openly." Corinne smiled: "So, dear Prince, do you think my heart ungrateful and my imagination capricious? All the same, it seems to me that Lord Nelvil's qualities are so remarkable that I cannot take credit for discovering them." "I quite agree. He is a proud man, generous, witty, even sensitive, and above all melancholy; but I am gravely mistaken if his tastes have anything in common with yours. You will not notice so long as he is under the spell of your presence, but were he far away, your influence would not hold. Obstacles would weary him. The despondency his soul has developed will certainly work against carrying out decisions. Besides, you know to what extent the English are slaves to the customs and habits of their country." At these words, sighing, Corinne grew silent, for painful memories on the early events of her life were called to mind. But that evening when she saw Oswald more taken with her than ever, all she retained of her conversation with Prince Castel-Forte was the desire to keep Nelvil in Italy by making him fall in love with the many forms of beauty which grace the country. With this in mind, she wrote him a

49

Book IV letter. The free Roman style of life explained her conduct, and although she might have been reproached as overeager and too candid, Corinne was unusual in managing to retain great dignity in her independence and modesty in her vivaciousness. Corinne's Letter to Lord

Nelvil

December 15, 1794 I do not know, my Lord, whether you will think me forward or whether you will do justice to the motives that may excuse such forwardness. Yesterday I heard you say that you still had not seen anything of Rome, that you are not familiar with either the masterpieces of our art or the ancient ruins that teach history through imagination and feeling; and it has occurred to me that I might dare offer to act as your guide in these trips across the centuries. No doubt a great number of scholars could easily be found in Rome whose profound erudition might be of far more use to you; but if I can make you love this place that has always attracted me so imperiously, your own study will complete what my imperfect sketch has begun. Many foreigners come to Rome as they would go to Paris or London for the entertainment of a big city; and I think that if they dared, most of them would admit that they were bored. But it is just as true that you can find a charm here that never wearies. Will you forgive me, my Lord, for wishing you to know that charm? No doubt the world's political concerns must be forgotten here, but when those concerns are not associated with duty or sacred feelings, they chill the heart. What are called the pleasures of society elsewhere must also be set aside, but those pleasures almost always wither the imagination. In Rome we enjoy an existence that is both solitary and lively, that develops freely all that heaven has placed within us. Let me repeat, my Lord, forgive me the love of my country that makes me want to bring a man like you to love it also. And do not judge with English severity the expression of goodwill an Italian woman believes she can offer without losing anything in her own eyes or in yours. Corinne

50

Rome It would have been useless for Oswald to hide from himself the vivid happiness this letter brought. He caught a hazy glimpse of a delightful and happy future; imagination, love, enthusiasm, all that is divine in the human soul, seemed blended in the enchanting prospect of seeing Rome with Corinne. This time he did not pause to think, this time he rushed immediately to see her; and looking at the skies as he went, feeling the good weather, he wore life lightly. Remorse and fear vanished in clouds of hope; his heart, long oppressed with sorrow, beat and throbbed with joy. He feared, of course, that so happy a state could not endure, but the very thought that it was fleeting made this feverish happiness stronger and more potent. "You have come!" said Corinne as Lord Nelvil entered. "Thank you!" And she held out her hand. Taking it, Oswald pressed it to his lips with the warmth of tenderness, and for once did not feel the painful shyness that often mingled with his pleasantest impressions and sometimes made him bitterly uncomfortable with the people he loved most. Corinne's letter had confirmed the closeness she and Oswald began to feel after they last parted: both were content and felt affectionately grateful to each other. "Then I shall show you the Pantheon and Saint Peter's this morning. I rather hoped you would agree to a Roman journey with me, so my horses are ready," she added smiling. "I waited for you, you came, everything is fine—let us go." "Astonishing person, w h o are you?" said Oswald. "Where did you get so many different charms that would seem to be mutually exclusive—sensitivity, depth, gaiety, grace, spontaneity, modesty? Are you an illusion? Do you mean unearthly happiness for the whole life of the one who encounters you?" "Ah! if I have the power to do some good, you must not think I shall ever give it up." "Beware," warned Oswald as struck with emotion, he seized Corinne's hand: "beware of the good you would do me. For almost two years now, an iron fist has clutched my heart. If your sweet presence has given me respite, if near you I can breathe, what will become of me when I must go back to the life I was born to?" Corinne interrupted, saying: "Let us leave it to time, leave it to chance, to decide if the impression I have made in a day will last more than a day. If our souls are in harmony, our affection for each other

51

Book IV will not prove ephemeral. Whatever comes, let us go admire together all that can lift our minds and feelings, and so taste some moments of happiness still." With these words, Corinne went down to the carriage. Astonished at her reply, Lord Nelvil followed. As he saw it, she admitted the possibility of superficial feeling, of momentary attraction. In fact he thought he discerned signs of frivolousness in her way of speaking, and he was hurt. Without a word, he got into Corinne's carriage. Guessing his thoughts, she said: "I do not believe the heart is made so that one always feels either no love at all or the most unconquerable passion. There are incipient feelings that can be dispelled by a more careful examination. You delude yourself, you set yourself right; and if you are liable to enthusiasm, this very quality that brings delight more rapidly can also insure a hastier cooling down." "You have given a lot of thought to feelings," remarked Oswald bitterly. Corinne blushed and for a few moments kept silent. She started speaking again with a rather striking mixture of frankness and dignity: "I do not think any sensitive woman can reach the age of twenty-six without having known the illusion of love; but if never having been happy, never having met the person worthy of all her heart's affection is a claim to interest, I have the right to yours." To some extent these words and Corinne's tone in speaking them dispersed the clouds that had gathered in Lord Nelvil's soul. Nonetheless he said to himself: "She is the most attractive of women but she is Italian and has not the shy, innocent heart unknown to itself which is doubtless possessed by the young Englishwoman my father intended for me." That young Englishwoman, Lucile Edgermond, was the daughter of Nelvil's father's closest friend; but when Oswald left England she was still too young for him to marry, or even to foresee with any certainty what she would be like one day.

52

Rome

II First of all, Oswald and Corinne went to the Pantheon, called Santa Maria Rotunda today. 1 Everywhere in Italy Catholicism is the heir to pagan times; but the Pantheon is the only temple in Rome completely intact, the only one where the beauty of classic architecture and the special character of the ancients' worship can be seen as a whole. In the square in front of the Pantheon, Oswald and Corinne paused to admire the portico of the temple and the columns supporting it. Corinne pointed out that it w a s constructed to look m u c h larger than it actually is. "The church of Saint Peter produces an entirely different effect: at first y o u think it is less vast than it is in reality. From what I am told of the Pantheon, this happy illusion is created by the greater space between the columns that gives the air free play all around; but it is created mainly by the almost complete absence of decorative detail that weighs d o w n Saint Peter's. In like fashion, classic poetry sketched in the overall picture alone, leaving it to the listener's thoughts to fill in the gaps: in every genre, w e moderns say too much. "Agrippa, the favorite of Augustus, dedicated this temple to his friend, or rather to his master," Corinne went on. "The master, h o w ever, had the modesty to refuse the dedication and, as it turned out, Agrippa w a s obliged to consecrate it to all the gods of Olympus instead of earth's single god: power. Atop the Pantheon was a bronze chariot on w h i c h were placed statues of Augustus and Agrippa. At each side of the portico, these same statues appeared in another form; and on the main facade of the temple may still be read: Agrippa has consecrated it. Augustus gave his name to his times because he made them an age of the h u m a n spirit. The masterpieces of his contemporaries in diverse genres formed, as it were, the radiance of his golden crown. He w a s skillful at honoring writers of genius, and so he has been seen as all the more glorious by posterity. "Let us go inside the temple. You see, it has been left open, almost as it w a s long ago. It is said that the light from above represented the divinity superior to all other divinities. Pagans have always loved symbolic images. Such language does indeed seem more appropriate than words to religion. Rain often falls on these marble courts; but sunlight

53

Book IV comes also to shine upon prayer. What peacefulness! What a festive air is evident in this building! The pagans deified life, the Christians, death: such is the spirit of the two religions; but still our Roman Catholicism is less somber than it was in the north. You will notice that when w e go to Saint Peter's. Inside the sanctuary of the Pantheon are busts of our most famous artists: they decorate the niches where the gods of antiquity once sat. W e have almost never been politically independent in Italy since the destruction of Caesar's empire, so you will find no statesman or military leader here. Our only glory lies in the genius of imagination. But do you not think, my Lord, that people who so honor the talents they possess deserve a nobler destiny?" "I judge nations strictly," Oswald answered. "I always think they deserve their fate, whatever it may be." "That is harsh. Perhaps living in Italy, you will come to feel compassion for this beautiful country that nature seems to have adorned as a victim. But remember, at least, that to the artists among us who love glory, the dearest hope is to win a place here. I have already marked out mine," she said pointing to a still empty niche. " W h o knows, Oswald, if you will not come back to these same halls when my bust is set there! Then . . ," 2 Oswald interrupted sharply: "Resplendent with youth and beauty, how can you talk that way to someone already bent over the grave by suffering and misfortune?" "Ah! it takes but a moment for a storm to crush flowers still holding their heads upright," said Corinne, adding: "Oswald, dear Oswald, why can you not be happier? Why . . . " "Never question me! You have your secrets. I have mine. Let us respect each other's silence. No, you do not know what emotion I would feel if I had to tell my misfortunes!" Corinne grew silent, and as she left the temple her steps were slower, her expression more musing. Under the portico she paused. "In that spot," she told Nelvil, "there used to stand a porphyry um of the greatest beauty, now removed to Saint John Lateran. It held the ashes of Agrippa that were placed at the foot of the statue he erected to himself. The ancients took such care to soften the idea of destruction that they knew how to ward off its gloomy and frightening aspects. Besides, their tombs were so magnificent that the contrast between the void of death and the

54

Rome splendor of life was felt to a lesser degree. It is also true that pagans looked much less fervently than Christians to another world, so they did their utmost to wrest from death the memory we lay down without fear in the bosom of the Eternal." Oswald sighed and said nothing more. Melancholy ideas are very attractive so long as w e ourselves have not been deeply unhappy, but once sorrow has taken hold of the soul with all its harshness, we no longer hear without a shudder words that once excited nothing more than rather pleasant reveries.

Ill The way to Saint Peter's leads over the Sant' Angelo Bridge. Corinne and Lord Nelvil crossed on foot. "It was on this bridge, coming back from the Capitol," said Oswald, "that I first thought about you at length." "I did not imagine the coronation at the Capitol would win me a friend, but all the while I sought glory, I have hoped it would make me loved. What use would it be without that hope, for women at least!" "Let us stay here a few moments longer. What memory of all the ages can my heart prize as much as this place that reminds me of the first day I saw you?" "Perhaps I am mistaken, my Lord, but I think people become dearer to each other when they share admiration for monuments whose true greatness speaks to the soul! The buildings of Rome are neither cold nor mute, genius created them, remarkable events consecrate them. Perhaps, Oswald, one must love character like yours—love it beyond everything else—to enjoy a shared sensitivity to all that is noble and beautiful in the universe." "Yes, but when I look at you, when I listen to you, I need no other marvels." Corinne thanked him with an utterly charming smile. They paused in front of the Castel Sant' Angelo on their way to Saint Peter's. "Here is one of the most original exteriors," explained Corinne. "Transformed into a fortress by the Goths, Hadrian's tomb shows the characteristics of its double purpose. Built for death, it is

55

Book IV ringed by an impenetrable wall; and yet by building outer fortifications, the living have added something hostile that strikes a contrast with the silence and the noble uselessness of a monument to the dead. On the very top, you see a bronze angel with sword unsheathed; 3 inside, cruel prisons are carved out of the rock. From Hadrian's day to our own, all the events of Roman history are connected to this monument. Belisarius fought off the Goths there, and almost as barbarian as they, he hurled against his enemies the beautiful statues decorating the interior of the building. Cresentius, Arnoult de Brescia, Nicolas Rienzi, 4 those friends of Roman freedom who so often took memories for hopes, held out for a long time in an emperor's tomb. I love these stones that are linked to so many glorious deeds. I love this luxury designed for the ruler of the world: a magnificent tomb. There is something great in a man unafraid of turning his attention to death long ahead of time, when all the earthly pleasures and pomp are in his hands. Moral thoughts, unselfish feelings fill the soul as soon as, in some way, it quits the confines of life. "It is from here that Saint Peter's should be seen," Corinne went on, "and the columns standing in front were supposed to extend this far. That was Michelangelo's magnificent plan; he hoped it would be completed after his death at least; but these days, men no longer think about posterity. Once enthusiasm is made to look foolish, everything but money and power is undone." "You are the one who will bring that feeling back to life!" exclaimed Nelvil. "Who ever felt the happiness I am tasting? Rome shown by you, Rome interpreted by imagination and genius; Rome: a world quickened by feeling, without which the world itself is but a desert.5 Oh, Corinne! What will follow these days that are happier than my fate or heart allow!" Corinne answered gently: "All sincere affection comes from heaven, Oswald; why would it not protect what it inspires! It is for heaven to dispose of us." Just then Saint Peter's came into view, the tallest structure men have ever erected, for even the Pyramids of Egypt are lower. "Perhaps I should have had you see our most beautiful buildings last," Corinne said, "but that is not my method. I think you have to begin with the things that inspire deep and lively admiration if you want to develop

56

Rome sensitivity to the arts. Once experienced, this feeling reveals a new sphere of ideas, so to speak; the result is that you develop a greater ability to love and judge everything that recalls your first impression, even if it is of a lesser order. None of that going step by step, that cautious, delicately shaded way of preparing grand effects, is to my taste. The sublime is not reached by degrees; it is infinitely far from the merely beautiful." When they came to the front of Saint Peter's, Oswald was aware of the most extraordinary feeling. For the first time human achievment affected him like a wonder of nature. Saint Peter's is the only work of art on earth today with the kind of grandeur distinguishing works right out of the hand of the Creator. Corinne enjoyed Oswald's astonishment. "I have chosen the brightest of sunlit days for you to see this monument. I am holding in store for you a more intimate, more religious pleasure: beholding it by moonlight; but first of all you had to witness the most brilliant of celebrations: man's genius ornamented by nature's magnificence." Saint Peter's Square is surrounded by columns that seem slender from a distance and massive at close range. The ground sloping upward to the portico of the church adds to the effect. In the middle of the square stands an obelisk, eighty feet tall, that scarcely seems high alongside Saint Peter's dome. In the very shape of obelisks, there is something pleasing to the imagination; their summits disappear into the air, and seem to bear some great human thought up to heaven. This monument brought from Egypt to decorate Caligula's bath and later moved to the foot of Saint Peter's Temple by Sixtus the Fifth, this contemporary of so many ages powerless against it, inspires a feeling of respect: man feels so ephemeral that he is always unsettled in the presence of the immutable. Not far from each side of the obelisk stand two fountains with water continually spurting up to fall cascading through the air in profusion. The murmur of the waters, ordinarily heard out in the countryside, produces an altogether new sensation in this enclosed space; but it harmonizes with the sensation aroused by the sight of a majestic temple. Painting and sculpture, because they usually imitate the human form or some object existing in nature, awaken perfectly clear and defined ideas in our souls. But an architectural monument has no specific meaning, if you will; and as you look, you are seized by the

57

Book IV unanalytical and aimless reverie that carries thought so far. The sound of the water suits all these vague and deep impressions; it is regular, just as the building is symmetrical. Eternal movement and eternal rest* are thus drawn together. In this place above all, time is powerless, for it no more dries up these gushing springs than it rattles these motionless stones. The columns of water that shoot up from the fountains are so light and misty that on a nice day, sunbeams make little rainbows of the most beautiful hues. "Stop here for a moment," said Corinne to Lord Nelvil who was already under the portico of the church. "Stop before you lift the curtain across the temple door: does not your heart beat faster as you draw near the sanctuary? And as you are about to enter, do you not feel all the expectation a solemn event would inspire?" Corinne herself lifted the curtain, holding it aside to let Nelvil pass; her bearing was so graceful that for the first few moments, Oswald took pleasure in watching her alone. However he did go forward into the temple, and the immense vaults above made so profound and religious an impression, that even the emotion of love was no longer enough to fill his soul completely. He walked slowly at Corinne's side. Both were silent; everything compels silence there: the slightest noise reverberates so far that in this almost eternal dwelling place no word seems worthy of such repetition. Prayer alone, the accent of sorrow, however faintly it speaks, is profoundly moving in this vast space. And when from afar under these immense domes, an old man's trembling steps are heard dragging across the beautiful marble watered by so many tears, you feel that man commands respect by the very frailty of his nature subjecting his divine soul to so much suffering, and that the cult of sorrow—Christianity—holds the true secret of man's sojourn on earth. Corinne interrupted Oswald's reverie, saying: "You have seen Gothic churches in England and Germany. You have probably noticed that they are far more somber in character, for there was something mystical in the Catholicism of northern peoples which speaks to *Verse by M. De Fontanes.6

58

Rome the imagination through external objects. W h e n Michelangelo saw the dome of the Pantheon, he said: 'I shall set it in the air.' And indeed, Saint Peter's is a temple set on a church. The w a y the interior affects the imagination suggests some sort of alliance between ancient religions and Christianity. Often I come walking here to restore to my soul the serenity it sometimes loses. The sight of such a monument is like continual obligato music, waiting to do y o u good w h e n you draw near; and surely among our nation's titles to fame must be numbered the patience, courage, and unselfishness of the church leaders w h o devoted one hundred and fifty years, so much money, and so much w o r k to complete a structure that none of its builders could hope to enjoy. 7 W h e n a monument symbolizing so many noble and generous ideas is given to a nation, it is a service even to public morality." "Yes," answered Oswald, "the arts are magnificent here; the imagination shows genius; but w h a t about h u m a n dignity, h o w is that protected? W h a t institutions, w h a t weakness in most Italian governments! A n d even in their weakness, h o w they enslave the spirit!" "Other peoples have borne a similar y o k e , " interrupted Corinne, "without the degree of imagination that leads to dreaming another destiny: Servi siam si, ma servi ognor frementi. "We are slaves, but slaves who still quiver, said Alfieri, 8 the proudest of our modern writers. There is so much spirituality in our arts that perhaps one day our character will equal our genius. "Look at the statues standing on the tombs, at the mosaic pictures, patient and faithful copies of our old masters. I never study Saint Peter's in detail, because I do not like to find the multiplicity of beauty that intrudes on the total effect. But h o w do you define a monument in w h i c h the very masterpieces of the h u m a n spirit seem to be superfluous decorations! This temple is like a world apart. You find shelter here from the cold and heat. It has its o w n seasons, its perpetual springtime, never touched by the atmosphere outside. A n underground church w a s built beneath the courtyard of this temple; the popes are buried there, and several rulers of foreign countries: Christina, after her abdication; the Stuarts, once their dynasty was overthrown. For a long time Rome has been asylum to the exiles of the

59

Book IV world: but is not Rome herself dethroned? The sight of her consoles kings who, like her, have been despoiled. Cadono le cittá, cadono i regni, Et 1 'uom, d'esser mortal, par che si sdegni! Cities fall, empires disappear,

and man resents his mortality!9

"Stand here, next to the altar," Corinne told Lord Nelvil. "You will see the church of the dead through the iron grating under our feet, and when you raise your eyes, your gaze will barely reach the top of the vault. Even seen from below, the dome inspires a feeling of terror. You seem to see chasms suspended over your head. Beyond certain proportions, everything arouses an invincible fear in man, in this finite being. What we know is as inexplicable as the unknown; but you might say we are practiced in our routine vagueness, whereas new mysteries are terrifying and upset our mental faculties. "This whole church is decorated with ancient marble, and its stones know more than we do about times gone by. There is the statue of Jupiter, made into a Saint Peter by putting a halo round his head. The overall expression of the temple perfectly characterizes the mixture of gloomy dogma and brilliant ceremony; an underlying vein of sorrow in the ideas, but the nonchalant vivaciousness of the south in their application: austere intentions but very mild interpretations, Christian theology and pagan images—in a word, the most admirable union of splendor and majesty that man can give his worship of the divinity. "Ornamented with the marvels of the arts, the tombs do not present death in a fearsome light at all. It is not exactly like the ancients who carved games and dances on sarcophogi; but masterpieces of genius turn thoughts away from the contemplation of a coffin. On the very altar of death, they bring immortality to mind; and kindled by the admiration they inspire, the imagination does not feel silence and cold— those immutable guardians of the tomb—as it does in the north." "No doubt we want death to be shrouded in sadness," said Oswald, "and even before we were enlightened by Christianity's insights, our ancient mythology, our Ossian,10 set only sorrow and funeral dirges alongside the grave. Here you want to enjoy life and forget. I am not sure I would want your beautiful skies to do me that kind of good." "Yet you must not think us fickle in character and frivolous of 60

Rome mind/' Corinne rejoined. "Only vanity makes people frivolous; indolence can interject intervals of sleep or forgetfulness into life, but it neither withers the heart nor wears it down; and unfortunately for us, one may emerge from this state through deeper and more terrible passions than those expressed by normally active souls." With these words, Corinne and Lord Nelvil drew near the door of the church. "Just one last look at this immense sanctuary," she said. "See h o w inconsequential m a n seems in the presence of religion, even w h e n w e can do no more than examine its material symbols! What immutability, w h a t lasting quality mortals can give their works, while they themselves pass so rapidly and survive only through genius! This temple is an image of infinity; there is no limit to the feelings it brings to life, to the ideas it recalls, to the immense number of years—past or future—that it summons for reflection; and w h e n y o u leave its walls, y o u seem to go from celestial thoughts to worldly concerns, and from religious eternity to the lightweight air of time." W h e n they were outside, Corinne called Nelvil's attention to the bas-reliefs on the doors portraying Ovid's Metamorphoses. "In Rome, no one is shocked by pagan images sanctioned by the arts. The marvels of genius always bring the soul a religious impression, and w e pay homage to Christian worship through all the masterpieces that other forms of worship have inspired." Oswald smiled at this explanation. "Believe me, m y Lord, there is a great deal of genuine faith in the feeling of nations with lively imagination. But good-bye until tomorrow. If y o u like, I shall take y o u to the Capitol. I trust I still have a number of tours to suggest. W h e n they are finished, will y o u leave? Will y o u . . . " She stopped short, afraid she had already said too much. "No, Corinne," Oswald answered. "No, I shall not give up this glimmer of happiness shining on me from the heights of heaven, thanks perhaps to some guardian angel."

IV As they set out the next day, Oswald and Corinne were more trustful and calm. They were friends traveling together; they began to say we.

61

Book IV How very touching is the we pronounced by love! What a declaration it implies, timidly yet warmly expressed! "So w e are going to the Capitol," said Corinne. "Yes, w e are going there," Oswald answered, his tone so sweetly tender that his voice said everything with those simple words! " W e can easily make out the seven hills from the top of the Capitol as it is today," Corinne explained. " W e shall wander over them all, one after the other; there is not one without its traces of history." At first Corinne and Nelvil followed what used to be called the via sacra or the via triomphale. "Your chariot came along this w a y ? " "Yes, this ancient dust must have been amazed to bear such a chariot; but since the end of the Roman Republic so many shameful deeds have marked this road that the respect it once inspired has been greatly weakened." Next Corinne had them driven to the foot of the stairway leading to the present-day Capitol: the old one was entered through the Forum. "I wish this were the same stairway Scipio took w h e n refuting slander with glorious deeds, he went into the temple to thank the gods for the victories he had won. But this new stairway, like the new Capitol, was built on the ruins of the old to receive the peaceable magistrate bearing the name—prodigious in itself alone—of Roman senator that in earlier times was respected by the whole universe. We have only the names here n o w , but their euphonious sound and ancient dignity are always rather unsettling, leaving you with a bittersweet feeling of pleasure and regret. The other day I met a woman of the people and asked her where she lived. 'At the Tarpeian Rock,' she answered; and even stripped of the ideas once associated with them, those words still act on the imagination. 11 Oswald and Corinne stopped to examine the two basalt lions at the foot of the stairway to the Capitol. 12 They come from Egypt where sculptors caught the animal face with far greater genius than that of man. The lions of the Capitol are nobly at peace, and their countenance is the true image of tranquillity in strength. A guisa de leon, quando si posa. Like the lion when at rest.13 DANTE

62

Rome Not far from the lions, y o u see a statue of tortured Romans that m o d e m Romans have set there without dreaming they had found the w a y to present the most perfect symbol of their o w n contemporary Rome. The statue has neither head nor feet, but the remaining torso and drapery still have something of their ancient beauty. At the head of the stairway are t w o colosses thought to represent Castor and Pollux, then Marius's trophies, then t w o military columns once used to measure the R o m a n universe, and the equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius, beautiful and calm amid those varied remembrances. A n d so everything is there: the heroic age represented by the Dioscuri, the Republic by the lions, the civil wars by Marius, and the fine days of the emperors by Marcus Aurelius. Moving toward the modern Capitol, y o u see on the left and right t w o churches built on the ruins of the temple of the Feretrian Jupiter and Jupiter Capitolinus. In front of the entrance is a fountain presided over by t w o rivers, the Nile and the Tiber, along with Romulus's she-wolf. The Tiber's name is not uttered like the names of uncelebrated rivers. One of the pleasures of Rome is to say: Take me along the Tiber's banks; let us cross the Tiber. It is as if y o u were conjuring history by speaking those words, as if y o u were bringing the dead back to life. O n your right, as y o u go to the Capitol by w a y of the Forum, are the Mamertine prisons. They were built first by Ancus Martius and were used for ordinary criminals. But Servius Tullius had m u c h crueler cells dug underground for political criminals, as if these criminals did not deserve the most special consideration since they m a y err in good faith. Jugurtha perished in these prisons along w i t h Cataline's accomplices; it is also said that Saint Peter and Saint Paul were confined there. On the other side of the Capitol is the Tarpeian Rock; at the foot of the rock is a hospital called the Hospital of Consolation today. It seems that the austere spirit of antiquity and the gentleness of Christianity have thus come together in Rome across the centuries, and that they are displayed to the eye as well as to reflection. W h e n they reached the top of the Capitol tower, Corinne pointed out the seven hills to Oswald, the city of Rome bounded first by the Palatine, then by the walls of Servius Tullius enclosing the seven hills, finally by Aurelian's walls that still enclose most of Rome today. Corinne recalled the lines of Tibullus and Propertius that glory in the fee-

63

Book IV ble beginnings from which the sovereign of the world emerged. 14 The Palatine alone was all there was to Rome for some time; but later on, the emperors' palace took up the space that had been enough for a nation. A poet of Nero's day wrote an epigram on the subject:* Rome will soon be no more than a palace. Go to Veii, Romans, i f , however, the palace there does not cover all of Veii. The seven hills are infinitely lower than they were in bygone times when they deserved to be called steep mountains. Modern Rome is forty feet above the level of ancient Rome. The valleys separating the hills have been practically filled in with time and ruins; but what is stranger still, heaps of broken pottery have built two new hills.** It is almost an image of modern times that the progress of civilization—or rather its debris—puts mountains on a level with valleys, obliterating, in a moral sense as well as literally, all the beautiful irregularities produced by nature. Three other hills*** not included among the seven famous ones, give Rome such a picturesque quality that it may be the only city that, of itself and within its confines, offers utterly magnificent vistas. There is such a remarkable mixture of ruins and buildings, countryside and barren ground, that you can examine Rome from all sides and, from opposite perspectives, always see a striking picture. Oswald could not weary of examining the traces of ancient Rome from the heights of the Capitol where Corinne had brought him. Readings in history, the thoughts they provoke, do not act upon our souls like these scattered stones, these ruins interspersed with buildings. Eyes are all-powerful over the soul: once you have seen Roman ruins, you believe in the ancient Romans as if you had lived among them. The mind acquires its memories through study; the imagination's memories are born of a more immediate and deep-seated impression that gives life to thought and makes us into a kind of witness to what we have learned. No doubt all these modern buildings mingled with the ancient debris are intrusive; but a portico standing beside a humble roof, small church windows cut out between columns, a tomb sheltering a whole rustic family, evoke an inexplicable mixture of *Roma domus fiet: Veios migrate, Quintes; Si non et Veios occupat ista domus. " M o n t e Citorio and Monte Testacio. ***The Janiculum, Monte Vaticano, and Monte Mario

64

Rome great and simple ideas, an inexplicable pleasure of discovery which keeps us constantly interested. On the outside, everything about most of our European cities is ordinary, everything is prosaic, and more often than any other, Rome offers the mournful sight of poverty and degradation. But suddenly a broken column, a half-wrecked basrelief, stones linked to the indestructable style of ancient architects, remind you that there is an eternal power in man, a divine spark, and that you must never grow weary of lighting it in yourself and of rekindling it in others. The Forum, so tightly enclosed, witness to so many astonishing things, is striking proof of man's moral grandeur. During the last days of the Roman era, when the universe was subject to inglorious masters, whole centuries passed, leaving behind few deeds for history to retain. This Forum took up little space at the center of a very cramped city whose people fought to wrest away bits of its territory- And yet has not this Forum engrossed the loftiest geniuses of all times with the memories it recalls? Honor then, eternal honor, to brave and free peoples because they so fascinate the gaze of posterity. Corinne pointed out to Lord Nelvil that there was very little left in Rome from the days of the Republic. The aqueducts—those underground canals built to transport water—were the one luxury of the Republic as of the kings of earlier times. The only things left are useful buildings, tombs erected in memory of her great men, and a few surviving brick temples. It was only after the conquest of Sicily that Romans first used marble in their monuments; but one need only see the sites of great actions to feel an indefinable emotion. It is this tendency of the soul that gives rise to the religious power of the pilgrimage. Even stripped of their great men and their monuments, countries famous in every domain exert considerable power over the imagination. What once struck the eye is gone, but the charm of memory remains. In the Forum there is no longer any trace of the famous tribune from which the Roman people were governed by eloquence. But still standing are the columns erected by Augustus in honor of JupiterTonans after lightning struck nearby without touching him. There is still an arch of triumph erected by the Senate to Septimus Severus as a reward for his exploits. The names of his two sons, Caracalla and Geta, were inscribed on the pediment, but Septimus had Caracalla's

65

B o o k IV name removed w h e n the young man killed his brother, and y o u can still see traces of the scraped-off letters. Farther along are the temple of Faustina, m o n u m e n t to the blind weakness of Marcus Aurelius, and a temple to Venus that in the time of the Republic was devoted to Pallas. A bit farther o n are the ruins of a temple dedicated to the sun and m o o n , built by Emperor Hadrian w h o , jealous of the famous Greek architect Apollodorous, had him put to death for criticizing the proportions of his building. On the other side of the square, y o u see the ruins of several monuments devoted to purer and nobler memories. The columns of a temple believed to be that of Jupiter-Stator, the Jupiter w h o kept the Romans from ever fleeing before their enemies. One column, all that remains of a temple to Jupiter the Guardian, said to be located not far from the abyss into w h i c h Curtius threw himself. 15 Columns of a temple erected, some say, to Concord, others, to Victory: perhaps conquering people confuse the t w o ideas, thinking there can be no true peace until they have subjugated the universe. At the far side of the Palatine Hill rises a beautiful arch of triumph dedicated to Titus for the conquest of Jerusalem. People say that Jews in Rome never pass under this arch, and point out a little path they say Jews use to avoid it. For the honor of the Jews, it is to be hoped that the story is true: long memory is suited to long misfortune. Not far from there is the Arch of Constantine, embellished with several bas-reliefs removed from Trajan's Forum by Christians w h o wanted to decorate the monument dedicated to the founder of repose, as Constantine w a s called. At that time the arts were in decline, and the past w a s stripped bare to honor n e w exploits. To the degree that man can plan such a thing, these triumphal arches still seen in Rome perpetuate the honor that is paid to glory. Atop the arches there w a s a flat space designed for flutists and trumpeters so that the conqueror might be intoxicated with both music and praise as he passed by, and thus savor at once all the most exalted emotions. Opposite these arches of triumph lie the ruins of Vespasian's Temple of Peace; so m u c h bronze and gold decorated the interior that w h e n fire consumed it, burning metal lava flowed as far as the Forum. Last of all, the Colosseum, Rome's most beautiful ruin, concludes the tour of the enclosure where all history comes into view. Despoiled of gold and marble, only the stones are left of this splendid

66

Rome structure once used as the arena where gladiators fought wild animals. This was how the Roman people were entertained and misled by strong emotion when natural feelings could no longer take flight. There used to be two doors to the Colosseum: one was reserved for the victors; the dead were carried out through the other.* What singular scorn for the human race to ordain the life or death of a man for the mere pastime of a show! Titus, the best of emperors, dedicated the Colosseum to the Roman people, and these admirable ruins are such a beautiful expression of magnificence and genius that they tempt you to delude yourself about true greatness and to accord artistic masterpieces the admiration deserved only by monuments devoted to generous institutions. Oswald refused to allow himself the admiration Corinne felt. As he gazed at those arcades, those four structures rising one above the other, at the mixture of pomp and decay that simultaneously inspires pity and respect, he saw only the master's wealth and the slaves' blood, and he felt biased against arts indifferent to their purpose and showering their gifts upon whatever object is assigned to them. Corinne tried to counter this frame of mind: "Do not gaze upon Italy's monuments with the severity of your moral principles and your sense of justice. As I have said, many of them recall the splendor, the elegance, and the taste of classical forms rather than the glorious age of Roman virtue. But do you not find traces of those early days in the gigantic ostentation of the monuments that came later? The very degradation of the Roman people is impressive still; in mourning freedom, they have covered the world with marvels, and the genius of ideal beauty seeks to console man for the real and true dignity he has lost. See those immense baths, open to everyone w h o wanted a taste of oriental delights. See these circuses, designed for elephants come to battle with tigers; these aqueducts that instantly transformed the arenas into a lake where galley ships had their turn to fight; where crocodiles appeared to take the place of the lions that had been displayed there before: all of this was Roman luxury when luxury was the source of pride! These obelisks brought from Egypt, stolen from the African shadows to come decorate Roman tombs, this population of statues found in Rome long *Sana vivaria, sandapilaria.

67

Book IV ago, cannot be considered as the useless and gaudy pomp of Asiatic despots: they are world-conquering Roman genius, clothed by the arts in visible form. There is something supernatural in this magnificence, and its poetic splendor makes you forget both its origin and its goal." Corinne's eloquence excited Oswald's admiration without convincing him; he looked for moral feeling everywhere, and all the magic of the arts could never satisfy him. Then Corinne remembered that in this same arena, persecuted Christians had died, victims to their steadfast purpose. Showing Nelvil the altars raised to honor their ashes, and the Stations of the Cross done by penitents at the foot of the most magnificent remains of worldly splendor, she asked him if this power of soul and will meant nothing to his heart. "Yes," he exclaimed, "I deeply admire the power of soul and will against sorrow and death; any sacrifice at all is more beautiful than all the outpourings of soul and thought. Impassioned imaginations can produce miracles of genius, but you are truly virtuous only when you give yourself up to belief or feeling. Then alone can celestial might subdue the mortal man in us." Noble and pure though they were, these words troubled Corinne; she looked at Lord Nelvil, then lowered her eyes. Even though at that instant he took her hand and clasped it to his heart, she shivered at the idea that such a man might sacrifice others and himself to the cult of beliefs, principles, or duties he had chosen.

V After visiting the Capitol and the Forum, Corinne and Lord Nelvil spent two days wandering through the seven hills. The Romans of old honored them with a holiday. These hills enclosed within the boundaries of Rome are one of its original beauties, and it is easy to understand how out of love for their native land people delighted in celebrating this unusual aspect of the landscape. Having seen the Capitoline the day before, Oswald and Corinne took up their tour again with the Palatine Hill. The palace of the Caesars—called the Golden Palace—once occupied it completely,16 but

68

Rome now the hill offers only ruins. Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, and Nero built its four sides, and only the stones covered with rampant plants remain today: nature has reasserted her domain over the work of men, and the beauty of the flowers consoles us for the ruins of the palace. In the days of the kings and the Republic, luxury was found in public buildings alone; private homes were very small and very simple. Cicero, Hortentius, the Grachi lived on this Palatine Hill, scarcely enough space for the home of one man during Rome's period of decadence and decline. In the final centuries, the nation was no more than an anonymous mob, designated only by its master's era. It is useless to search in these places for the two laurel trees planted in front of Augustus's door—the laurel of war and the laurel of the arts cultivated by peace—for both have disappeared. A few rooms of Livia's baths are left on the Palatine; you are shown where precious stones were once lavished on ceilings as if they were mere ornaments; and you see paintings where the colors are still perfectly intact; the very fragility of the colors adds to the surprise of seeing them preserved, and brings the past closer to us. If it is true that Livia cut Augustus's life short, it is in one of these rooms that the crime was conceived; and the eyes of the ruler of the world, betrayed in his deepest affections, may have paused on one of these paintings whose elegant flowers still survive. In his old age, what did he think of life and its ostentation? Did he remember the people he had banished, or his own glory? Did he fear a world to come or did he hope for it? And the last thought that reveals everything to m a n — does that last thought of a ruler of the universe wander here still beneath these vaults? 17 More than any other hill, the Aventine offers traces of the earliest days of Roman history. Exactly opposite the palace Tiberius built, you can see the remains of the Temple of Liberty built by the Grachis' father. At the foot of the Aventine was the temple dedicated to Manly Fortune by Servius Tullius who, born a slave, thanked the gods that he had become a king. Outside Rome's walls are also found the ruins of a temple consecrated to the Fortune of Women when Venturia stopped Coriolanus. Facing the Aventine is the Janiculum where Porsena set his army. It was opposite this hill that Horatius Codes had the bridge leading to Rome cut off behind him; the foundations of that bridge are still in existence today. On the river banks there is an

69

Book IV arch of triumph built of bricks, as simple as the action it recalls was great: it is said that the arch was put up in honor of Horatius Codes. In the middle of the Tiber, you can make out an island formed from sheaves of wheat gathered in Tarquin's fields and exposed on the river for a long time because the Roman people refused to take them for fear of bad luck. In our day it would be difficult to bring down a curse on any riches so strong that no one would consent to seize them. It was on the Aventine that the temples of Patrician Chastity and Plebeian Chastity were set. At the foot of the hill is the Temple of Vesta that still survives practically intact, although the Tiber's floods have often threatened it.* Not far away are the ruins of a debtors' prison where, it is said, the well-known and beautiful act of filial piety occurred. 18 It was at this same spot that Porsena's prisoners, Clelia and her companions, crossed the Tiber to join the Romans. The Aventine provides rest for the soul from all the painful memories awakened by the other hills, and it looks as lovely as the memories it recalls. The name beautiful shore (pulchrum littus) was given to the riverside at the foot of the hill. It was there that Roman orators strolled as they left the Forum; it was there that Caesar and Pompey met as ordinary citizens and sought to win over Cicero whose independent eloquence was more important to them than the power of the armies themselves. Poetry, too, came to embellish this land: Virgil placed the lair of Cacus on the Aventine; 1 9 and the Romans, so great by their history, are also great through the heroic tales with which their poets have embroidered their legendary origins. Finally, coming back from the Aventine, you catch sight of the houses built by Cola di Rienzi, w h o tried in vain to make ancient times live again in modern times; and feeble as it is beside the others this memory makes you ponder at length. 20 The Caelian Hill is noteworthy for the remains of the camps of the Pretorians and foreign soldiers. On the building constructed to house the soldiers from other lands, this inscription has been found: To the sacred guardian spirit of the foreign camps. Sacred indeed to those whose power it supported! What is left of those ancient barracks sug-

•Vidimus flavum Tiberini, etc.

70

Rome gests that they were built in the style of cloisters, or rather that they have served as a model for cloisters. The Esquiline w a s called the Mount of the Poets, as Maescenas had his palace there, and Horace, Propertius, and Tibullus also had homes on the hill. Not far a w a y are the ruins of the baths of Titus and Trajan. Raphael is believed to have modeled his arabesques on the frescoes of Titus's baths. There too, the Laocoon was discovered. Fresh cool w a ter gives such pleasure in hot countries that people enjoyed bringing together all the p o m p of luxury and all the delights of the imagination in the places where they bathed. The Romans displayed masterpieces of painting and sculpture there. They gazed at them by lamplight since the buildings seem to have been designed to keep daylight from ever penetrating, so that the bathers might protect themselves from the rays of the sun w h i c h in southern lands are so painfully sharp: that is probably the reason the ancients called them Apollo's darts. W h e n y o u observe the extreme precautions taken by the ancients against the heat, y o u might well believe that the climate then w a s still more burning than it is today. In the Baths of Caracalla were set the Farnese Hercules, Flora, and the Dirce group. Near Ostia, Apollo Belvedere w a s found in Nero's baths. Is it conceivable that Nero felt no generous impulse w h e n he looked at that noble figure! The only traces of buildings devoted to public entertainment in Rome are the baths and circuses. There are no longer to be found ruins of any theater besides that of Marcellus. Pliny relates that three hundred sixty marble columns and three thousand statues were to be seen in a theater meant to last just a few days. Sometimes the Romans put up buildings solid enough to withstand earthquakes; sometimes they liked to devote immense projects to buildings they tore d o w n themselves once the celebration w a s over: thus did they trifle with time in all its forms. Besides, unlike the Greeks, the Romans did not have a passion for dramatic performances; only through Greek works and artists did the fine arts flourish in Rome; Roman grandeur was expressed through the colossal magnificence of architecture rather than by masterpieces of the imagination. This luxury on a grand scale, these marvels of wealth have great dignity of character: it was not freedom any longer, but it w a s still power. The public buildings devoted to baths were called "provinces": collected there were all the different goods and institutions that may be found in an entire country. You

71

Book IV can still see the remains of the circus called Circus Maximus; it was so close to the Caesars' palace that Nero could signal the start of the games from his window. It was large enough to hold three hundred thousand people. Almost the entire nation was entertained at the same time: these immense celebrations could be considered a sort of popular institution that gathered all men together for pleasure as once they had gathered for glory. The Quirinal and Viminal hills are so close together that it is hard to tell them apart. Sallust and Pompey once had houses there; it is there too that the pope has now settled. You cannot take one step in Rome without bringing together present and past, without juxtaposing different pasts. But seeing the eternal mobility of man's history, you learn to take the events of your own day calmly; in the presence of so many centuries which have all undone the work of their predecessors, you feel somewhat ashamed of your own agitation. Alongside the seven hills, on their slopes, or at their summits rise a multitude of church towers, obelisks, the columns of Trajan and Antoninus Pius, the Conti Tower where Nero is said to have watched Rome bum, and the dome of Saint Peter's that itself dominates everything else that dominates. The very air seems peopled with these monuments stretched up toward the sky, and a city of the air seems to glide majestically over the city of the earth. To come back into Rome, Corinne took Oswald through the Portico di Octavia, named for the woman who loved so well and suffered so badly. 21 Then they crossed the Scoundrel's Path where the infamous Tullia trampled her father's body under her horses' hooves. In the distance could be seen the temple Agrippina erected in honor of Claudius w h o m she had had poisoned, and last, they went by the mausoleum of Augustus where animal fights are held today. "I have given you a rather cursory look at some vestiges of ancient history," said Corinne, "but you will understand the pleasure found in research both learned and poetic, speaking to mind and imagination alike. In Rome there are many distinguished men concerned only with discovering new relationships between history and the ruins." "I know no other study that might appeal to me more, were I composed enough to devote myself to it," replied Nelvil, adding: "This kind of erudition is far livelier than the type acquired through books:

72

Rome it is as if y o u bring back to life w h a t y o u discover, as if the past reappears beneath the dust that has buried it." "That is true," said Corinne, "and the passion for antiquity is not a useless penchant. W e live in an age w h e n self-interest alone seems to determine all of man's acts—and what empathy, what emotion, w h a t enthusiasm can ever grow out of self-interest! It is pleasanter to dream of those times of dedication, sacrifice, and heroism that used to be, and that have left honorable traces upon the earth."

VI Privately Corinne imagined she had w o n Oswald's heart; but k n o w ing his reserve and austerity, she had not dared show h o w much interest he inspired, even though by nature she was not inclined to hide her feelings. Perhaps she also believed that even w h e n they spoke on subjects unrelated to their feelings, their mutual affection was betrayed by their tone of voice, and a secret avowal of love was painted in their gaze and in that melancholy veiled language that penetrates so deep within the soul. One morning, as Corinne w a s getting ready for another tour with Oswald, she got an almost formal note announcing that ill health w o u l d keep h i m at h o m e for several days. Corinne's heart was gripped with painful anxiety. At first she feared he might be seriously ill, but that night she learned from Count d'Erfeuil that it was an attack of the depression he w a s quite subject to, and that at such times he did not w a n t to talk to anyone. "Even I do not see him w h e n he is like that," added the Count. The even I rather annoyed Corinne, but she w a s careful not to s h o w it to the only m a n w h o might be able to give her n e w s of Lord Nelvil. She questioned him, sure at least that a m a n w h o w a s to all appearances so frivolous would tell her everything he k n e w . But suddenly, either wanting to hide in an aura of mystery the fact that Oswald had confided nothing, or believing it more honorable to refuse w h a t w a s asked than to grant it, he countered Corinne's burning curiosity with impenetrable silence. She, w h o always got the better of others in conversation, could not under-

73

Book IV stand why her means of persuasion had no effect on d'Erfeuil. Was she unaware that nothing is more inflexible than pride? Then what means did Corinne have left to find out what was happening in Oswald's heart? Write to him? Such restraint is called for when one writes! And it was Corinne's spontaneity and absence of constraint above all that made her attractive. Three days rolled by; cut off from Nelvil, she was tormented by a deadly anxiety. "Whatever did I do to put him off?" she wondered. "I certainly did not say I loved him—I did not make that mistake, so dreadful in England, so forgivable in Italy. Did he guess? But then why would he think less of me?" Oswald had withdrawn only because he felt himself being swept away by Corinne's charms. Although he had not given his word to marry Lucile Edgermond, he knew that his father had meant her to be his wife, and he wanted to comply. Finally, Corinne was not known by her real name, and for several years had been leading a far too independent life. In no way would his father have approved such a marriage, Nelvil believed; and he also felt that this was the wrong way to atone for having behaved so badly toward him. It was for these reasons that he had withdrawn. He decided to write to Corinne when he left Rome, a plan that condemned him to leave; but not feeling the strength to carry it out, he simply stayed away from her, and yet by the second day the sacrifice seemed unendurable. Corinne was struck by the thought that she would never see Oswald again, that he would go away without saying good-bye. Expecting at every moment to hear he had left, she was so excited by her fear that she was suddenly carried away by passion, by that vulture's claw which compels happiness and independence to submission. Unable to stay at home, where Lord Nelvil came no more, she sometimes wandered around Rome's gardens, hoping to meet him. Walking aimlessly, she found the passing time more bearable since there was the chance that she might catch sight of him. Corinne's fervent imagination was the source of her talent, but, to her misfortune, it blended with her natural sensibility, often causing her great pain. On the evening of the fourth day of this cruel separation, a full moon shone, and Rome is beautiful indeed in the silence of the night when she seems inhabited by none but her illustrious ghosts. As Corinne returned from the home of a woman friend, her suffer-

74

Rome ing weighed heavily upon her, and she got out of her carriage to rest at the Trevi Fountain for a f e w moments, in front of this bounteous stream cascading d o w n in the center of Rome, as if it were the very life of this tranquil place. W h e n the fountain stops running for a few days, Rome seems struck with astonishment. In other cities y o u need to hear the rattle of carriages; in Rome it is the murmur of this immense fountain that seems the required accompaniment to the dreamy life one leads there. Corinne's image w a s painted in water so pure that for several hundred years it has been called virginal water. Oswald, pausing there a f e w moments later, glimpsed the reflection of his friend's lovely face. Such intense emotion gripped him that at first he did not k n o w whether his imagination was bringing him sight of Corinne's shadow just as so many times before it had shown him his father's. He leaned over the fountain for a closer look and saw his o w n features reflected beside Corinne's. She recognized him, uttered a cry, flew rapidly toward him, and seized his arm as if afraid he w o u l d go off again. But hardly had she yielded to this impetuous gesture that, recalling anew Lord Nelvil's character, she blushed at having s h o w n her feelings so vividly, and letting go the hand that held onto Oswald, she covered her face with the other to hide her tears. "Corinne, dear Corinne, so m y absence has made you unhappy!" "Yes! and y o u k n e w it would! So w h y did y o u hurt me? Do I deserve to suffer at your hand!" "No! No, of course not! But if I do not consider myself free, if in my heart I feel nothing but apprehension and remorse, w h y would I make y o u a party to that storm of feeling and fears? W h y . . . " "It is too late for that," Corinne interjected. "It is too late. I am already suffering in m y heart. Be careful with m e ! " "You, suffering? in the midst of such a brilliant career, so much success, with such a lively imagination?" "Stop! You do not k n o w me. Of all m y gifts, the most powerful is the gift for suffering. I was b o m for happiness, I am confident by nature, m y imagination is lively; but pain excites an impulsiveness in me that I do not understand, that can cloud my reason and kill me. I will tell y o u again: be careful with me. M y gaiety, my changes of mood only seem to be of use. But in my soul are unfathomed depths of s o r r o w — m y only defense has been to shield myself from love."

75

Book IV Corinne's expression as she spoke these words moved Oswwald keenly. "Have no doubts, Corinne. I will be there to see you tomorrow morning." "Do you swear it to me?" she answered, vainly trying to hide her anxiety. "Yes, I swear," Lord Nelvil cried, and disappeared into the night.

76

BookV TOMBS, CHURCHES, AND PALACES

I The next day both Oswald and Corinne were embarrassed when they saw each other again. Corinne no longer had any confidence in the love she inspired. Oswald was dissatisfied with himself, recognizing a kind of weakness in his character that at times set him against his own feelings as against some tyrant. Both of them tried not to talk about their affection for each other. "Today I propose a rather solemn visit, but it will certainly interest you: let us see the last resting place of those who lived among the monuments we have gazed on." "Yes," answered Oswald, "you have guessed what suits my present mood," and so sorrowfully did he say these words that Corinne was silent for a few moments, not daring to speak. But as she wanted to ease his suffering by arousing lively interest in everything they saw together, she summoned her courage anew and said: "You know, my Lord, among the ancients, far from disheartening the living, the sight of tombs was thought to inspire renewed emulation, and they were placed along the public roads that they might silently invite the young to imitate the illustrious men they called to mind."

77

BookV "Oh! how I envy all those whose sorrows are not mixed with self-reproach!" sighed Oswald. "You, self-reproach! You! Oh! I am sure that in you it is just another virtue, the heart's integrity and impassioned rectitude!" "Corinne, keep away from that subject," interrupted Oswald. "In your happy country, dark thoughts dissolve in the brightness of the skies; but pain that has burrowed deep within the soul unsettles it for a lifetime." "You misjudge me. I have already told you that though I am made to enjoy happiness intensely, I would suffer more than you if. . ." Breaking off, she changed the subject. "I only want to turn your thoughts in another direction for a while, my Lord. That is all I hope to do." The gentleness of her reply touched Nelvil, and seeing a melancholy look in Corinne's eyes instead of their natural interest and fire, he reproached himself for grieving someone bom for sweet and lively reactions, and did his best to draw her back to them. But Corinne's misgivings over Oswald's plans, over the possibility that he might leave, cast a pall over her usual serenity. She led him out beyond the city's gates along the ancient remains of the Appian Way. In the midst of the Roman countryside, these remains are marked on the left and right by tombs whose ruins stretch several miles beyond the walls, as far as the eye can see. The Romans did not allow the dead to be buried within the city where only the tombs of emperors were permitted. Yet one ordinary citizen, Publius Biblius, won this favor as a reward for his humble virtues. Indeed, contemporaries honor those virtues more willingly than all the others. To reach the Appian Way, you go through the Saint Sebastian Gate that used to be called the Capena. 1 According to Cicero, the first tombs you see when you pass through this gate belonged to the Metullus, the Scipio, and the Servilius families. The Scipios' tomb was found right here and has since been transferred to the Vatican. It is almost sacrilege to move ashes, to tamper with ruins: imagination is far more clearly tied to morality than might be thought; it must not be offended. Names are placed at random among the many tombs that strike the eye; you can only guess where they belong, there is no way to be sure; but the very uncertainty inspires an emotion that precludes indifference when you look at any of these monuments. Peasants' houses have been fitted into some of them, for the Romans devoted a

78

Tombs, Churches, and Palaces good deal of ground and rather spacious buildings to the funeral urns of their friends or their illustrious fellow citizens. They did not have the arid utilitarian values that fertilize a few extra corners of land while turning into barren ground the vast domain of feeling and thought. At some distance from the Appian Way, you see a temple to Honor and Virtue built by the Republic; another to the god who made Hannibal turn back; the Egerian fountain where Numa would consult the deity of upright men: conscience examined in solitude. Around these tombs, it seems that only traces of virtue still remain. No monument from the centuries of crime is to be found beside the resting places of the illustrious dead; they are surrounded by honorable ground where the noblest memories may reign undisturbed. There is something particularly remarkable in the sight of the Roman countryside: undoubtedly it is a wasteland, for there are no trees there, nor any dwellings; but wild vegetation covers the ground, proliferating through the vigor of its growth. These parasitic plants slipping into the tombs and decorating the ruins seem to be there only to honor the dead. It is as if proud Nature has spurned man's labor ever since the Cincinnati stopped guiding the plough that once furrowed her bosom; she produces plants at random, not permitting the living to make use of her wealth. These plants growing wild can give little pleasure to farmers, administrators, and all those who use the earth for profit, and want to exploit it for human needs. But dreamers' souls, concerned as much with death as with life, delight in contemplating this Roman landscape where present time has left no trace, this earth that cherishes her dead, that lovingly covers them with useless flowers, useless plants that trail over the soil, never standing high enough to part company with the ashes they seem to caress. Oswald agreed that there was more calm to be enjoyed here than anywhere else. The soul suffers less from the images portrayed by sorrow; it is as if you share the charm of the air, the sun, the verdure, with those who are no longer alive. Corinne noticed Nelvil's reaction and took some hope. She did not imagine she might console him; she would not even have wanted to erase from his heart grief rightfully due the loss of a father; but there is something sweet and harmonious in the feeling of sorrow that we must try to make known to those who have felt only its bitterness: this is the only good we can do them. "Let us stop here," said Corinne, "at the one tomb still almost in79

BookV tact. It is not the grave of a famous Roman, it is for Cecilia Metella, a girl whose father had the monument put up." "Happy, happy are the children w h o die in their fathers' arms," Oswald exclaimed, "and w h o meet death held in the bosom of the one who gave them life! For them death loses even its sharp edge." "Yes," agreed Corinne feelingly, "those w h o are not orphaned are fortunate indeed! Look, arms are carved on this tomb, even though it is a woman's; but the daughters of heroes can have their fathers' trophies on their tombs: h o w beautiful is the union of valor and innocence! There is an elegy by Propertius which portrays better than anything else written in antiquity the dignity of women among the Romans, more stately and pure than the glamor they enjoyed during the age of chivalry. Cornelia, who died young, spoke the most touching farewell and comfort to her husband, and in almost every word, you feel all that is sacred and worthy of respect in family ties. The noble pride of a life without stain is shown in the majestic poetry of the Romans, poetry that was noble and austere like the masters of the world. Yes, said Cornelia, from marriage to the funeral pyre, no spot has stained my life; pure have I lived between the two flaming torches.2 What admirable language! What a sublime image! How enviable the fate of a w o m a n w h o has managed to retain the most perfect oneness in her destiny, and w h o carries only one memory off to the grave! That is enough for a life." As she said these words, her eyes filled with tears. A cruel sensation, a painful suspicion seized hold of Oswald's heart. "Corinne," he cried, "Corinne, has your tender soul any cause for blame? If I could do what I want with my life, if I could offer myself to you, would I have any rivals in the past? Could I be proud of my choice? Would any cruel jealousy disturb my happiness?" "I am free, and I love you as I have never loved. What more do you want? Must I admit that before I knew you, my imagination may have misinterpreted the interest inspired by another! And is there no sacred compassion in man's heart for errors that feeling—or at least the illusion of feeling—might have led me to commit!" With these words, a modest blush suffused her face. Oswald shuddered but said nothing. The remorse and timidity expressed in Corinne's eyes kept him from judging her harshly, and he sensed that a ray of light shone

80

Tombs, Churches, and Palaces down on her in absolution. Taking her hand, saying nothing, promising nothing, he gazed at her with a love that justified every hope. "Take my advice," Corinne told him. "Let us make no plans for the years ahead. Life's happiest moments are still the ones granted us by benevolent chance. Is it really here, really among the graves that we are to believe so intensely in the future?" "No! I will not believe in a future that might separate us. Those four days without you have taught me too well that I only live through you now." Making no reply to these tender words, Corinne reverently gathered them into her heart. Although they were speaking of the feeling that filled her thoughts entirely, she was still afraid that by prolonging the conversation, she would stir Oswald to declare his intentions before he became so attached to her that he could not leave. Thus she often distracted his attention deliberately to the world outside, like the sultana of the Arabian tales who sought to captivate the interest of the man she loved by a thousand different stories and so put off his decision on her fate until the moment the charms of her mind stood victorious.

II Not far from the Appian Way, Oswald and Corinne had the Columbaria shown to them; there slaves were reunited with their masters, and in the same tomb you see everything that lived under the protection of one man or one woman. Livia's women, for example, devoted to the care of her beauty long ago, fought against time for her, contending with the passing years for a few of her charms: now they are set beside her in small urns. It is as if you are seeing the ordinary dead grouped around one of the illustrious dead who is no less silent than her following. A short distance away, you see a field where they buried alive vestals unfaithful to their vows—a curious case of fanaticism in a normally tolerant religion. "I shall not take you to the Catacombs," Corinne told Nelvil, "although by a strange coincidence, they are right under this Appian

81

BookV Way so that tomb lies upon tomb. But that sanctuary for persecuted Christians is somehow so somber and so terrifying that I cannot bring myself to go back there. It is not the touching melancholy you breathe in open places; it is the dungeon close by the sepulchre, it is life's agony side by side with death's horror. Doubtless we are filled with admiration for men who managed to withstand this life underground through the power of enthusiasm alone, who thus cut themselves off from the sun and nature. But the soul is so uncomfortable in that place that no good can come to it there. Man is part of creation; his moral harmony is to be found in the universe as a whole, in the normal order of destiny; and while certain violent and fearsome exceptions may astonish the mind, they so terrify the imagination that they can prove no advantage to the customary state of the soul. Instead, let us visit Cestius's pyramid. Protestants who die here are all buried around this pyramid and it is a gentler shelter, tolerant and liberal." "Yes, that is where a number of my compatriots have found a last resting place. Let us go there; perhaps that is the way I will never leave you." Corinne shuddered at these words, and her hand trembled as she leaned on Lord Nelvil's arm. "I am better," he added, "much better since I have known you." And Corinne's face was lit anew with the sweetly tender joy that was her normal expression. Cestius presided over the Roman games; his name is not to be found in history, but he is famous for his tomb. The massive pyramid confining him defends his death from the oblivion that has completely erased his life. Afraid that the pyramid might be used as a fortress to attack Rome, Aurelian had it surrounded by walls that still stand, not as useless ruins but as the enclosure for modern Rome. By their shape, pyramids are said to imitate the flame rising over a stake. What is certain is that this mysterious shape attracts the eye and lends a picturesque quality to every view that includes it. Opposite is the Monte Testaccio; underneath are extremely cool grottos where banquets are held during the summer. In Rome banquets are in no way disturbed by the sight of tombs. The pines and the cypress glimpsed at intervals in the smiling Italian countryside also bring these solemn memories to mind; and the contrast produces the same effect as these lines Horace placed in the middle of a poem devoted to all the joys of the earth: 82

Tombs, Churches, and Palaces Moriture, Delli, Linquenda tellus, et domus, et placens Uxor,* 3 The ancients always felt a sensual pleasure in the idea of death. Love and celebrations recall it too, for the emotion of vivid joy seems enhanced by the very idea of life's brevity. Returning from their visit to the tombs, Corinne and Lord Nelvil skirted the banks of the Tiber. In earlier times it was covered with ships and bordered with palaces; in earlier times its very floods were seen as omens. It was the prophet river, Rome's tutelary god. 4 So solitary is it now, so livid the color of its waters, that you might be inclined to say it flows among the ghosts of the dead! The most beautiful monuments of the arts, the most admirable statues were thrown into the Tiber and lie hidden beneath its waters. Who knows whether people will not divert it from its bed one day to look for them? But when you reflect that masterpieces of human genius are there in front of us perhaps, and that a sharper eye would see them through the waters, you feel the indescribable emotion that constantly comes to life in Rome under many forms; with its help, thought finds company in physical objects mute everywhere else.

Ill Raphael has said that modem Rome was built almost entirely with the debris of ancient Rome; and indeed you cannot take a step without being struck by some vestige of antiquity. The eternal walls, to use Pliny's expression, are apparent under the work of the last few centuries. Almost all of Rome's buildings bear a historic imprint; it is as if the physiognomy of the ages can be discerned in them. From Etruscan times to our own, from those peoples more ancient than the Romans themselves and whose workmanship is as solid as the Egyptians' and whose designs are as strange; from them to the cavalier Bernini, an artist man*Dellius, you must die You must leave the earth and your home, and your cherished husband.3

83

BookV nered like seventeenth-century Italian poets—from those earliest times, the human spirit can be observed in Rome through the various qualities of the arts, buildings, and ruins. The Middle Ages and the brilliant Medici era reappear before our eyes through their works; and this study of the past through objects visible to our eyes gives us insight into the genius of different periods. It is thought that Rome had a mysterious name in times past, known only to a select few; but one must still be initiated into the secrets of the city, it seems. It is not simply a collection of dwellings, it is the world's history represented by diverse symbols and portrayed in varied forms. Corinne and Lord Nelvil agreed that first they would visit the buildings of modern Rome together, and that they would save her admirable collections of paintings and statues for another time. Perhaps without being aware of it, Corinne wanted to put off as long as possible what absolutely must be seen in Rome; for who has ever left without beholding the Apollo Belvedere and Raphael's paintings! Weak as it was, this guarantee that Oswald would not yet leave pleased her imagination. Can you be proud of trying to hold what you love on some other basis than feeling? I do not know; but the more you love, the less you rely on the feeling you inspire; and w e always joyously welcome whatever assures us that the cherished person will stay at our side. A certain kind of pride is frequently imbued with a good deal of vanity, so that if there is a real advantage to generally admired charms like Corinne's, it is that they allow you to be proud of the feeling you experience even more than of the feeling you inspire. And so Corinne and Lord Nelvil set out again, this time to the most remarkable of the numerous Roman churches: they are all decorated with the splendors of ancient times, but in those beautiful marbles, those festive ornaments carried off from pagan temples, there is something somber and strange. There were so many columns of porphyry and granite that, setting almost no value on them, people scattered them to the winds. Saint John Lateran—the church famous for the councils held there—has such a quantity of marble columns that, covered with plaster, a number of them have been turned into pilasters: such was the indifference created by a surfeit of riches! Several of these columns were in Hadrian's tomb; others at the Capitol still bear on their capitals the figure of the geese that saved the people of Rome. These columns support gothic ornamentation and a

84

Tombs, Churches, and Palaces f e w of them, ornamentation in the Arab style. Agrippa's urn harbors a pope's ashes, for the dead themselves have given w a y to other dead, and tombs have changed owners almost as often as the houses of the living. Near Saint John Lateran is the holy stairway, moved from Jerusalem to Rome, they say. You climb it only o n your knees. Caesar himself and Claudius climbed the staircase leading to the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus on their knees. Beside Saint John Lateran is the baptistry where Constantine is said to have been baptized. In the middle of the square an obelisk is seen that m a y be the oldest monument in the w o r l d — a n obelisk contemporary with the Trojan War! A n obelisk the barbarian Cambyses still respected enough to halt the burning of a city in its honor! A n obelisk for w h i c h a king pledged the life of his only son! The Romans brought it miraculously intact from deepest Egypt into Italy; they diverted the Nile from its course so that the river w o u l d seek the obelisk and transport it as far as the sea. It is still covered with hieroglyphics that have guarded their secret for so many centuries, defying the most learned research to this very day: the Indians, the Egyptians—the antiquity of antiquity—might be revealed to us through those signs. The marvelous attraction of Rome is not only the real beauty of her monuments, but also the interest they inspire by exciting us to think, and that sort of interest increases daily with each n e w investigation. One of most unusual churches in Rome is Saint Paul's: the exterior looks like a badly constructed barn, and the interior is decorated with eighty-four columns of such beautiful marble and perfect form that they seem to belong to some Athenian temple described by Pausanias. 5 We are surrounded by the remains of history, said Cicero. If he said so then, w h a t do w e say n o w ! The columns, statues, bas-reliefs of ancient Rome are so lavishly strewn about the churches of the m o d e m city that in one of them, Saint Agnes, bas-reliefs turned facedown are used for the steps of a staircase without anyone's taking the slightest trouble to see w h a t they portray. W h a t an astonishing sight ancient Rome would offer n o w , had the columns, the marble, the statues been left precisely where they were found! Almost the entire ancient city w o u l d still be standing, but w o u l d men of our day dare w a l k through? The architecture in the vast palaces of the great lords of Rome is of-

85

BookV ten very beautiful and always imposing, but the decoration inside is rarely in good taste. People here have no idea of the elegant rooms that the perfected pleasures of social life have inspired elsewhere. These vast and superb dwellings of the Roman princes are silent and deserted; the lazy people w h o live there withdraw to a few tiny unnoticed rooms, leaving strangers to wander through magnificent galleries where the finest paintings of the age of Leo X are collected. These great Roman lords are as distant now from the luxurious pomp of their ancestors, as their ancestors were from the austere virtue of the Romans under the Republic. Their country houses give an even clearer idea of the solitude, the indifference, of those who own the world's most splendid estates. Strolling through these immense gardens, you have no reason to suspect that anyone is responsible for their care. Grass grows all over the pathways and along these same untended paths trees are pruned artistically in the style that formerly reigned in France: a curious extravagance, this neglect of the essential and ostentatious display of the useless! But in Rome and in most other Italian cities, you are often surprised by the taste for mannered decoration in people w h o constantly have the noble simplicity of ancient days before their eyes. They love brilliance rather than elegance and comfort. In every way, they have the advantages and disadvantages of not being accustomed to life in society. Their luxury is meant for the imagination rather than for pleasure: isolated as they are among themselves, they cannot dread the mocking wit which in Rome rarely gets into family secrets. And seeing the contrast between the inside and the outside of the palaces, you would be likely to say that most of the great lords of Italy set up their homes to dazzle passersby but not to receive their friends. When they had gone through the churches and palaces, Corinne took Oswald to the Villa Mellini, a lonely garden with no other ornament than magnificent trees. In the distance the chain of the Apennines can be seen; the transparent air colors the mountains, brings them close, delineating them in a singularly picturesque manner. Oswald and Corinne stayed there a while to savor the sky's charm and nature's calm. It is impossible to have any idea of that remarkable calm when you have not lived in southern countries. Not the lightest breath of wind is felt on a hot day. The slenderest blades of grass are perfectly motionless; even the animals share the indolence inspired

86

Tombs, Churches, and Palaces by fine weather. At noon you hear no buzzing flies, no sound of cicadas, no bird songs; no one exhausts himself with useless and shortlived excitement; everything sleeps until storm or passion wakens violent nature who impetuously comes out of her own deep repose. In the gardens of Rome, there are a great many evergreens that add still more to the illusion created by the mildness of the climate in winter. Close together, pines of special elegance, broad and bushy toward the top, form a kind of plateau in midair: the effect is charming if you climb high enough for a good look. Lower trees are planted in the shelter of this verdant vault. Only two palm trees are to be found in Rome, and both are in monastery gardens: 6 one, set on an elevation, can be seen from a distance; and from various perspectives in Rome there is a feeling of pleasure in always rediscovering, in catching sight of this African deputy, this image of a southland even more torrid than Italy, and which awakens so many new ideas and sensations. "Do you not find that nature sets you dreaming more in Italy than anywhere else?" said Corinne as she and Oswald gazed at the countryside around them. "You might say she is more in touch with man here and that the creator uses her like a language between His creatures and Himself." "Probably. I think so. But who knows whether it is not really the deep tenderness you are stirring up in my heart that makes me sensitive to everything I see. You make me aware of the thoughts and emotions that physical objects can bring to life. I used to live in my heart alone; you have wakened my imagination. But the magic of the universe you are teaching me to know will never offer me anything lovelier than the look in your eyes, nothing more touching than your voice." "May the feeling I inspire in you today last as long as my life, or may my life last no longer than your feeling!" Oswald and Corinne ended their Roman journey at the Villa Borghese where, of all the Roman gardens and palaces, the splendors of nature and the arts are gathered with the most taste and brilliance. Trees of all kinds and magnificent waterways are to be found there. An unbelievable collection of statues, of vases, of stone coffins from ancient times mingle with the freshness of youthful nature in the south. The mythology of the ancients seems to take new life there. Naiads are set on the banks of streams, nymphs in woods worthy of them, tombs in Elysian shade; the statue of Aesculapius stands in the 87

BookV middle of an island; that of Venus seems to be emerging from the shadows: Ovid and Virgil might stroll in this lovely place thinking they were still in the Augustan Age. The masterpieces of sculpture in the palace give it a magnificence that is forever fresh and new. Through the trees y o u can glimpse the city of Rome in the distance, and Saint Peter's, and the countryside, and long arcades—remains of the aqueducts that used to transport mountain streams into ancient Rome. Everything is there for thought, for imagination, for reverie. The purest sensations blend with the pleasures of the soul and so suggest the idea of perfect happiness. But w h e n y o u ask w h y no one lives in this enchanting place, the answer is that the bad air (la cattiva aria) makes it impossible to stay there in the summer. 7 In a manner of speaking, that bad air has Rome under siege; every year it draws a f e w steps closer, and people are obliged to abandon charming homes to its dominion. Doubtless the absence of trees in the countryside around the city helped make the air unhealthy; perhaps this explains w h y the ancient Romans consecrated the woods to goddesses: to command respect in the people. By n o w innumerable forests have been chopped down: indeed in our day could there be places holy enough to save from the ravages of greed? Bad air is the scourge of Rome's people and threatens the city with complete depopulation, but perhaps it even adds to the effect of the superb gardens within the confines of Rome. No sign of its malign influence is evident there: the air y o u breathe seems pure and pleasant, the earth is cheerful and fertile, the evening is deliciously cool and refreshing after the burning heat of the d a y — a n d yet all of that is death! "I love this mysterious, invisible danger," Oswald told Corinne. "If death is but a call to a happier existence, as I believe, w h y w o u l d not the perfume of flowers, the shade of beautiful trees, the refreshing breath of evening be charged with announcing it to us? Government must undoubtedly w a t c h over the preservation of human life in every w a y ; but nature has secrets that only imagination fathoms; and I can easily understand that in Rome inhabitants and visitors alike are not put off by the kind of risk they run during the year's most beautiful season."

88

Book VI ITALIAN CHARACTER AND CUSTOMS I Increased by his misfortunes, Oswald's native indecisiveness led him to fear any irrevocable choice. In his state of uncertainty, he had not even dared ask Corrine the secret of her name and fate, and yet his love for her grew stronger with each passing day. He never looked at her without being stirred; when they were with others, he could hardly bring himself to stray from her side for a moment; he was alive to every word she said; she had not a moment's sorrow or joy that was not reflected in his own expression. But even though he admired Corinne, even though he loved her, he remembered how little such a woman fit in with the English way of life, how different she was from his father's idea of a suitable wife for him; and what he said to Corinne reflected the constraint and perplexity born of these considerations. She was only too aware of this, but the cost of breaking with Nelvil would have been so high that she herself was a party to avoiding any definitive understanding. And since there was something improvident in her nature, she was happy with the present as it was, even though she could not possibly know what it would bring. She had cut herself off completely from society to devote all her time to her feelings for Oswald. But finally, hurt by his silence on

89

Book VI their future, she decided to accept an invitation to a ball where her presence w a s keenly desired. Nothing is of less concern in Rome than people's coming and going in society as it suits them; it is the country least interested in w h a t is called gossip elsewhere. People do as they wish, and no one asks any questions unless some obstacle to personal love or ambition arises. Romans worry no more about what their compatriots do than about the foreigners w h o come and go in their city, that meeting place for Europeans. Yet Nelvil was annoyed w h e n he heard that Corinne w a s going to the ball. For some time n o w , he thought he saw a melancholy strain in her temperament that harmonized with his o w n ; then suddenly she seemed quite taken up with dancing, a talent she excelled in, and her imagination seemed kindled by the prospect of a party. Corinne w a s not a frivolous person, but each day she felt increasingly enslaved by her love for Oswald, and she wanted to try to w e a k e n its power. Experience had taught her that reflection and sacrifice have less sway over passionate temperaments than diversions, and she thought that rational behavior is not a matter of getting the better of yourself according to rules, but of managing it any w a y y o u can. Answering Nelvil's reproaches, she said: "I simply must k n o w if there is anything but y o u in the world that might fill my life. I have to k n o w if w h a t I liked in the past can still give me pleasure, and if the feeling y o u inspire is to absorb every other interest and every other idea." " Y o u mean y o u w a n t to stop loving m e ? " "No, but to feel dominated by a single affection as I do can be rewarding only in private life. Loving y o u as I do does me great harm: I need my talents, m y mind, my imagination to sustain the brilliance of the life I have adopted." "You mean that for me y o u would not give up the homage, the g l o r y . . ." " W h a t difference can it make to k n o w whether I would give them up for y o u ! " Corinne interrupted. "Since w e are not meant for one another, you must not lay waste forever the kind of happiness that has to suffice for me. Lord Nelvil gave no answer because, to express his feelings, he w o u l d have to announce w h a t plans they inspired and his heart still

90

Italian Character and Customs did not know. So he sighed and said nothing, following Corinne to the ball even though he found it painful. For the first time since his misfortune, he was at a large gathering, and the festive din so overwhelmed him with sadness that he spent a long time in a room next to the ballroom, his head in his hand, making no effort even to see Corinne dance. He was listening to the dance music which like all music sets one to dreaming even though it would seem intended for joy alone. Count d'Erfeuil arrived, utterly delighted with a ball, with a party, with a crowd of people who indeed reminded him a little of France. "I did my best to find something interesting in those ruins they make such a fuss over in Rome," he told Nelvil. "But I do not see anything beautiful in all that. People are simply predisposed to admire those bramble-covered ruins. I shall speak my mind on the subject when I get back to Paris, for it is about time that we have done with Italy's reputation. There is not one monument intact in Europe today that is not more remarkable than those stumps of columns, those basreliefs darkened by time, that cannot be appreciated without scholarly erudition. A pleasure that costs so much study does not in itself seem so very keen to me. To be enraptured with the sights of Paris, for example, nobody need grow pale and wan over books." Nelvil did not answer, and once more the Count asked for his impressions of Rome. "The middle of a ball is no time to talk seriously, and you know that is the only way I can talk." "Good heavens! I am a more cheerful sort than you, I agree, but who knows if I am not wiser too? Believe me, there is a lot of philosophy in my lighthearted manner: one has to take life as it comes." "You could be right," answered Oswald, "but you are that kind of person naturally, not because you have thought it out, and that is precisely why your style of life suits only you." Hearing Corinne's name mentioned in the ballroom, the Count left to find out what was happening. Nelvil moved as far as the door and saw the handsome Neapolitan, Prince d'Amalfi, inviting Corinne to dance the Tarantella, a very original and graceful dance from Naples. Corinne's friends also begged her to accept. That she did not have to be persuaded astonished the Count, accustomed as he was to the convention that consent only follows several refusals. But in Italy that

91

Book VI kind of feminine charm is unheard of, and a person simply thinks to please society all the more by eagerly doing what is asked. Yet had this natural w a y of acting not been the custom, Corinne would have invented it. The g o w n she wore for the ball was elegant and light as air, her hair w a s caught in a silken net, Italian style, and her eyes expressed joyous pleasure that made her more captivating than ever. Stirred, Oswald struggled against himself, indignant at his o w n fascination with charms he had reason to complain of, since far from seeking to please him with her display of enchanting loveliness, Corinne was almost trying to escape his influence. But w h o can resist the attraction of grace? Even disdainful it w o u l d be all-powerful, but that assuredly was not Corinne's inclination. She caught sight of Nelvil, blushed, and w h e n she looked at him there was an entrancing sweetness in her eyes. Prince d'Amalfi accompanied his dance with castinets. Before joining him, Corinne gracefully waved to the assembled guests with both her hands, and spinning lightly around, took the tambourine the Prince was holding out to her. She began to dance, shaking her tambourine in the air, and in all her movements there was a graceful litheness, mixing modesty and sensual delight, that might suggest the power exercised over the imagination by the Bayaderes—the temple dancing girls in India, w h e n they are poets of the dance, if y o u will, w h e n they express so many different feelings through the set steps and captivating tableaux they present to the eye. Corinne was so familiar with all the postures depicted by the ancient painters and sculptors, that with a slight gesture of her arms, placing the tambourine n o w above her head, n o w straight ahead with one hand while the other ran along the bells with incredible skill, she brought to mind the w o m e n dancers of Herculanum and called to life, in succession, a host of n e w ideas for drawing and painting. 1 It w a s in no w a y French dance, so remarkable for its elegance and the difficulty of its steps; rather it w a s a talent much closer to imagination and feeling. The quality of the music was expressed by movements that were in turn precise and langorous. As if she were improvising, as if she were playing the lyre or sketching faces, Corinne communicated her feelings directly to the souls of the spectators through her dance: everything w a s language to her. Looking at her, the musicians were m o v e d to make the essence of their music felt more

92

Italian Character and Customs strongly. It is impossible to explain the impassioned joy, the imaginative sensitivity that electrified everyone watching that magical dance, transporting them into an ideal existence where happiness not of this world is dreamed. In this Neapolitan dance, there is a moment when the woman kneels while the man circles round her, not as master but as conqueror. How charming and dignified Corinne was at that moment! How much a sovereign as she knelt! And when she rose, sounding her instrument, her airy cymbal, she seemed quickened by an enthusiasm for life, for youth, and for beauty which must have made it seem that to be happy she needed no one else. Alas! that was not the situation; but Oswald was afraid, and though he admired her, he sighed as if each one of her successes had separated her from him! At the end of the dance, it is the man's turn to fall to his knees, and it is the woman who dances around him. In that moment, Corinne outdid herself still more, if that were possible; her steps were so light as she traced the same circles three or four times that her feet in low dancing boots flew rapid as lightning over the floor. And when she raised one of her hands, shaking her tambourine, and with the other beckoned Prince d'Amalfi to stand, all the men were tempted to kneel with him—all except Lord Nelvil who moved back a few steps and Count d'Erfeuil who moved forward to congratulate Corinne. As for the Italians, their enthusiasm had no hidden motive, they gave way to it simply because it was their feeling. These were not men so accustomed to society and the pride it excites that they cared about the effect they were producing; they never let vanity distract them from their pleasures, nor acclaim from their goal. Corinne was delighted with her success and thanked everyone with unaffected grace, ingenuously allowing her pleasure to show. But Oswald was leaning against a door across the room, and her main concern was making her way through the crowd to join him. She got there at last and paused for a moment, waiting for him to speak. Trying to hide his distress, his fascination, and his suffering, he managed to say: "Well Corinne, what homage, what success! But among all those men who worship you so enthusiastically, is there one brave and reliable friend? Is there a lifelong protector? And should the vain uproar of applause be enough for a soul like yours?"

93

Book VI

II The crowd kept Corinne from replying. People were going in to dinner and each cavaliere servente hastened to sit down beside his lady. A stranger came in, and w h e n she could not find a place, none of the men but Lord Nelvil and Count d'Erfeuil offered her his seat. That not one Roman got up was not from discourtesy; rather, for the great Roman lord, honor and duty lie in not leaving his lady's side for even an instant. Some few, unable to find a seat, stood behind their beautiful companions, attending to their slightest need. The ladies spoke only to their gallant escorts. Gentlemen w h o came to the balls as strangers wandered around this circle in vain: no one had anything to say to them, for in Italy w o m e n k n o w nothing of coquetry, of the triumph in love that flatters pride. They do not wish to please anyone but the man they love; the attraction of heart and eyes always precedes that of the mind, yet sometimes the most precipitous beginnings are followed by sincere affection and attachment. In Italy unfaithfulness is censured more severely in a man than in a woman; three or four men with different claims and status pursue the same woman, w h o takes them along without always taking the trouble to mention their names to the host w h o receives them into his house. One is the special favorite, another aspires to the position, a third is known as "the long-suffering fellow" (il patito)—completely scorned, but allowed to act the adoring suitor; and all these rivals live peacefully together. Only the common people still resort to daggers. In this country there is a strange mixture of simplicity and corruption, dissimulation and truth, good nature and vengeance, weakness and strength, which can be understood through careful observation. The good qualities come into being because nothing is done for the purpose of satisfying vanity, and the bad because a great deal is done from self-interest whether that self-interest be related to love, ambition, or material wealth. Social distinctions rarely carry much weight in Italy; if Italians are not very susceptible to aristocratic prejudices, it is rather because of their easy-going temperament and their informality than through any philosophy; and since society does not set itself up to judge anything, it accepts everything. After supper, everyone went to the gambling tables; some w o m e n

94

Italiain Character and Customs took up games of chance, others the most silent whist, for not one word w a s spoken in this room full of talk and laughter a short while before. Southern peoples often go directly from the most intense excitement to the deepest calm; laziness combined with the most tireless activity is but another contrast in their character. In every w a y these are m e n w h o must not be judged at first sight, for they harbor the most contradictory qualities and defects. If y o u see them cautious one moment, they may well prove the most daring of men the next; if they are indolent, they may be resting from some act or preparing to act again; in a word, they lose no spiritual strength in society, but gather it all in reserve for crucial situations. At this Roman gathering, men were losing enormous sums, gambling without any visible emotion. These same men would have had the liveliest expressions and most animated gestures had they been relating some unimportant facts. But w h e n the passions reach a certain degree of violence, they fear witnesses and almost always go veiled in silence and immobility. Lord Nelvil still bitterly resented what he had seen at the ball; he thought that the Italians with their lively w a y of showing enthusiasm had, for the m o m e n t at least, turned Corinne's interest away from him. He w a s miserably unhappy, but his pride counseled hiding it or expressing it only as scorn for the acclaim that delighted his brilliant friend. Invited to join in the gambling, he refused; so did Corinne w h o beckoned him to sit at her side, but he w a s afraid of compromising her were he openly to spend the w h o l e evening alone with her. "There is n o need to worry," she told him. "No one will pay any attention. It is c o m m o n practice here to do as you please in society; there are no set standards, nothing to take into consideration; courteous goodwill is the r u l e — n o one expects people to put themselves under constraint for each other. Liberty, as y o u understand it in England, is certainly not to be found in this land, but w e do enjoy perfect social independence." "That is to say there is no respect for morals," Oswald commented. " A t least there is n o hypocrisy," interrupted Corinne. "Monsieur de La Rochefoucauld has said: The least fault of a woman of easy virtue is her easy virtue. Indeed, whatever their faults, Italian w o m e n do not resort to lies, and if marriage v o w s are not respected enough, it is with the consent of both husband and wife."

95

Book VI "There is no sincerity behind that kind of frankness, only indifference to public opinion. W h e n I arrived, I had a letter of recommendation to a princess. I gave it to my servant w h o told me: Sir, the letter will be useless to you right now as the Princess is not seeing anybody: she is I N N A M O R A T A . A n d the state of being I N N A M O R A T A was announced like any other situation in life, and a public announcement of that sort has not even the justification of a grand passion, for a number of attachments—all equally well k n o w n — f o l l o w one after the other. W o m e n show so little reticence in this domain that they are less embarrassed to admit their affairs than our wives simply to talk about their husbands. It is easy to believe that there is no fine or deep feeling mixed with this shameless instability. For this matter, in a country where people think of nothing but love, there is not a single novel, because love proceeds at such high speed and is so public that it does not lend itself to any kind of development, and to portray truthfully the w a y people act, y o u would have to begin and end on page one. "Forgive me, Corinne," Nelvil exclaimed, noticing the distress he was causing. " Y o u are Italian and that fact should disarm me. On the other hand, one reason for your incomparable grace is that it combines charms of many different countries. I do not k n o w the land where y o u were raised, but y o u have certainly not spent your w h o l e life in Italy. Perhaps it w a s even in England . . . Oh, Corinne! If that were true, h o w could y o u have left that sanctuary of refinement and modesty to come here w h e r e they k n o w so little, not just about virtue, but about love itself? One breathes it in the air, but does it make its w a y to the heart? Love plays an important role in poems: they are very graceful, very imaginative, ornamented with brilliant scenes, vivid and sensual in color. But where will you find the melancholy and tender feeling that animates our poetry? What could y o u compare with the scene between Belvidera and her husband in Otway? 2 with Shakespeare's Romeo? above all with the admirable lines in Thompson's song of spring where he portrays the happiness of married love in such noble and touching strokes? 3 Is there any marriage like that in Italy? A n d can there be any love where there is no domestic happiness? Is that happiness not the goal of the heart's passion, as possession is the aim of sensual passion? And are all beautiful young w o m e n not alike if qualities of mind do not fix one's preference? And

96

Italian Character and Customs what do these qualities lead one to desire? Marriage, that is to say, the association of all feelings and all thoughts. Even when illicit love unfortunately appears among us, it is still a reflection of marriage, if I dare put it that way. What people seek is an intimate happiness they did not manage to taste at home, and infidelity itself is more moral in England than marriage in Italy." Those harsh words wounded Corinne deeply. Her eyes filled with tears, she rose immediately, left the room, and went straight home. Oswald was in despair at offending her, but the irritation he felt over her success at the ball had betrayed itself in the words that had just escaped him. He followed her home, but she refused to speak with him. He returned the next morning to no avail: her door was closed. It was not like Corinne to refuse steadfastly to see Lord Nelvil, but the views he had expressed on Italian women grieved her painfully, and precisely because of those views she made it a rule for the future to hide the feeling that was sweeping her away—if only she could. As for Oswald, he thought that Corinne was not behaving with her normal unaffectedness in this situation, and the dissatisfaction he had felt at the ball hardened all the more; it stimulated a frame of mind which could struggle against the feeling whose dominion he dreaded. Because his principles were austere, he suffered intensely from the mystery surrounding the past of the woman he loved. He found Corinne's manners charming, but sometimes a bit too motivated by an all-embracing desire to please. He found her speech and bearing noble and reserved, but her opinions too lenient. In a word, captivated and swept away though he was, Oswald nevertheless harbored an enemy within, who fought what he felt. Such a predicament is often embittering. You suffer and feel a need to suffer still more, or at least provoke a violent confrontation that might lead one of the two feelings tearing at the heart to triumph completely. Such was Nelvil's disposition when he wrote to Corinne. He sensed that his letter was bitter and unseemly, but ambivalent impulses prompted him to send it off; his struggle caused such unhappiness that he welcomed any circumstance at any price that might bring it to an end. A rumor Count d'Erfeuil had come to report probably led him to sharpen his language, even though he did not believe it. In Rome people were saying that Corinne would marry Prince d'Amalfi. Oswald

97

Book VI knew perfectly well that she did not love him, and he must have realized that the ball was the only basis for the news; but he persuaded himself that she had seen Amalfi at home the very morning she closed her door to him. Too proud to express his jealousy, he satisfied his secret dissatisfaction by belittling the country which—as he saw with such distress—Corinne markedly preferred.

Ill Oswald's

Letter to Corinne

January 24, 1795 You refuse to see me; you are offended by our conversation of the other day; from now on you doubtless plan to welcome only your compatriots into your home: apparently you want to atone for your error in receiving a man from another country. Nevertheless, I am not at all sorry that I spoke to you sincerely about Italian women. In fact to you, whom I have tried to see as an Englishwoman in my fantasies, to you I shall dare say even more strongly than before that you will find neither happiness nor dignity should you insist on choosing a husband in the society around you. Among Italians, I do not know one who might be worthy of you, not one whose name would do you honor, whatever the title he bestowed on you in marriage. In Italy, man is not nearly so worthy as woman, because he has her faults over and above his own. Will you have me believe that they are capable of love—these southerners who take such care to run away from difficulty, who are so bent on happiness? At the theater last month did you not see—you are the one who told me—a man who had lost his wife the week before, a wife he said he loved? People here want to get rid of death and the idea of death as soon as possible. Priests perform funeral services the way cavalieri servente practice the service of love. The rites and conventions are all laid out in advance, sorrow and enthusiasm are out of place. Last, and more destructive of love than anything else, men inspire no respect in women. Because men have no strength of character nor any serious purpose in life, women are not at all grateful for their docility. For nature and the social order to be revealed in all their 98

Italian Character and Customs beauty, m a n must be the protector and w o m a n the protected. However, the protector must adore the weakness he defends, and respect the impotent divinity w h o , like the Roman household gods, brings good fortune to his home. In Italy y o u would almost think that w o m e n were the sultan and men the harem. Here men have the mildness and flexibility of women's character. There is an Italian proverb that says: He who knows not how to pretend, knows not how to live. Is that not a w o m a n ' s proverb? And in fact, h o w could m e n develop dignity and strength in a country with neither military careers nor free institutions? As a result their minds turn to cleverness and they play life like a game of chess where success is everything. All they have left over from antiquity is an extravagant quality of language and outward sumptuousness; but alongside this unfounded grandeur y o u often see the most vulgar taste and wretchedly neglected family life. Corinne, is this the nation you are to prefer above all others? Is this the one w h o s e noisy acclaim is so important to y o u that any other destiny w o u l d seem inaudible beside those resounding bravos? W h o could hope to make y o u happy by tearing you a w a y from that uproar? It is impossible to conceive of a person like you: your feelings are deep and your tastes frivolous; you are independent through pride of spirit yet enslaved by the need for entertainment, capable of loving one m a n but needing them all. You are a sorceress alternately disquieting and reassuring; y o u prove sublime, then suddenly vanish from the sphere where y o u are unique to blend with the crowd. Corinne, Corinne, it is impossible not to fear you even as one loves you! Oswald

Corinne w a s offended by Oswald's rancorous prejudice against her nation as she read his letter. But fortunately she guessed the truth that he w a s troubled by the party and by her refusal to see him after their conversation at supper. For a while she hesitated, or at least thought she w a s hesitating, on the line of behavior to adopt with him. Her feelings spurred her to see him again, but she was extremely distressed that he could imagine she wanted marriage, even though their fortunes were equivalent at the very least, and though by revealing her name she could s h o w that it was in no w a y inferior to his. At any

99

Book VI event, what was independent and singular in her way of life probably inspired a certain antipathy to marriage, and she would surely have thrust the idea aside had feeling not blinded her to all the difficulties she would have to endure were she to forswear Italy and marry an Englishman. In all matters of the heart, pride gives way; but from the moment obstacles of social interest or convention arise in any way, from the moment there is reason to suppose the loved person would be making a sacrifice in joining his life to yours, it is no longer possible to show him the slightest expression of feeling on the subject. Nevertheless since Corinne could not bring herself to break with Oswald, she tried to persuade herself that she would be able to see him in the future and hide the love she felt. Guided by this idea, she carefully restricted her reply to his unjust accusations against the Italian nation, arguing as if it were the only subject of interest to him. For a woman of superior intelligence, perhaps the best way to recover dignity and reserve is to take refuge in thought as in a sanctuary. Corinne to Lord Nelvil January 25, 1795 Had your letter concerned me alone, my Lord, I would make no attempt to justify myself: my character is so readily known that anyone who did not understand me on his own would understand me no better through any explanation I could provide. Do believe me, the virtuous reserve of Englishwomen, and the graceful artifice of Frenchwomen are frequently used to hide half of what goes on in their souls. What you like to call "magic" in me is a spontaneity that sometimes gives free rein to different feelings and contradictory thoughts without making any effort to harmonize them; for that harmony, when it exists, is almost always artificial, while genuine character is largely inconsistent. But it is not myself I want to discuss with you, it is the unfortunate nation you attack so cruelly. Could it be my affection for my friends that provokes such bitter spite? You know me too well to be jealous, and I am simply not vain enough to believe a feeling of that sort made you unjust to such a degree. You say what all foreigners say about Italians, what seems to strike them at the outset. But to judge a country that was so great at various moments of history, one must probe deeper. How is it that under the Romans this was the most military of nations; among the medieval

100

Italian Character and Customs republics, the most jealous of her freedom; in the sixteenth century, the most illustrious in letters, science, and the arts? Has she not pursued glory in all of its forms! And if she no longer has any, why not blame her political situation, since in other circumstances she proved so different from what she is today? Perhaps I am mistaken, but the faults of the Italians inspire me with nothing but pity for their fate. Throughout the ages, making this beautiful country a prey for their endless ambition, foreigners have conquered and torn her to shreds, only to reproach her bitterly for the faults of nations vanquished and torn to shreds! The Italians gave Europe the arts and sciences and now she turns their gifts against them, often contesting the last glory allowed nations without military strength and without freedom: the glory of science and the arts. It is so true that governments form the character of nations that remarkable differences in manners are to be seen in the different states that make up this same Italy. The Piedmontese, who used to form a small national group, are more military-minded than the rest of Italy; Florentines, who have known freedom or liberal princes, are enlightened and gentle; the Venetians and Genoese prove capable of political thought because of their republican aristocracy; the Milanese are more sincere because northern countries have long since introduced that quality; Neapolitans could easily become warlike, because for several thousand years they have been united under a government that, with all its imperfections, is still their own. With no military or political life, the Roman nobility is necessarily ignorant and lazy; but the minds of clerics pursuing an active career and an occupation are far more developed. And since the Papal government recognizes no distinctions of birth and, on the contrary, is purely elective in the ranks of the clergy, the result is a certain liberality in practice, if not in ideas, that makes Rome the pleasantest of places to live for those who no longer have any ambition or any opportunity to play a role in the world. Southern peoples are more readily changed by their institutions than northerners; their indolence quickly becomes resignation; and nature offers them so many delights that they are easily consoled for the privileges society denies them. There is surely a good deal of corruption in Italy, and yet civilization is far less polished here than in other countries. Despite their subtlety of mind, these people might al-

101

Book VI most be considered somewhat primitive, for their subtlety is like the hunter's in the art of taking his prey unawares. Guile comes easily to indolent peoples: since it is their habit to act pleasant, they can disguise even anger w h e n the occasion arises; for it is always customary behavior that allows us to act as if the chance event were expected. In private relationships, Italians are sincere and faithful. Self-interest and ambition wield great power over them, but pride and vanity do not, for social distinctions make very little impression. There is no society, n o salon, no fashions to follow, no host of little daily contrivances to attract attention by their details. These usual causes for envy and dissembling are not to be found among them: if they deceive their enemies and rivals, it is only because they view the situation as a state of war, for in peace they are spontaneous and truthful. It is this very truthfulness that leads to the scandal you find objectionable. Constantly hearing about love, living amid the enticements and models of love, w o m e n do not hide their feelings, and bring a kind of innocence, as it were, even into love affairs; nor do they have any sense that they are opening themselves to ridicule, particularly the sort that society can deliver. Some are so ignorant that they do not k n o w h o w to write, and they admit it openly; w h e n they get a note in the morning, they have their attorney (il paglietto) write the answer on legalsize paper in the style of a lawsuit. O n the other hand, among educated w o m e n , y o u will see professors at the academies in their black sashes, giving public lectures; and were you tempted to laugh, people might ask you: Is there any harm in knowing Greek? Is there any harm in work to earn a living? So why do you laugh at something so simple? And last of all, my Lord, shall I approach a more delicate subject? Shall I try to fathom w h y the men rarely show much military spirit? They risk their lives quite readily for love and hate; none are ruffled or daunted by dagger thrusts given or received as a result. Although they are not afraid w h e n the natural passions oblige them to brave death, it must be acknowledged that since they have no fatherland, they often prefer life to political interests that scarcely touch them. Further, knightly honor holds scant sway in a nation where society does not exist to formulate public opinion. Considering the degree to which all public p o w e r is disorganized, it is easy to see h o w w o m e n gain ascendancy over men, and perhaps they do have too m u c h influence to respect and admire them. Nonetheless, w o m e n are treated with great

102

Italian Character and Customs tact and devotion. In England the domestic virtues are their glory and happiness; but if there be countries where love is found outside the sacred bonds of marriage, it is in Italy that women's happiness is dealt with most tactfully. Our men have developed a moral system for relationships outside of morality, and at least they have been just and generous in the distribution of duties. In breaking the ties of love, they have judged themselves guiltier than women, since the women have made greater sacrifices and lost more. Before the tribunal of the heart they have judged most criminal those who do the most harm: men are in the wrong through callousness, women through weakness. The society that is both stringent and corrupt—that is to say, pitiless to errors with unfortunate results—must be harsher with women; but in a country with no society, natural goodness has great influence. I grant that the notions of reputation and dignity are far less powerful, and even far less known, in Italy than anywhere else, and I explain it through the absence of society and public opinion. But despite all that has been said about the perfidy of Italians, I maintain that this is one of the countries where the greatest good nature is shown. Indeed Italians are so good-natured about everything touching their vanity, that although foreigners say worse things of Italy than of any other country, nowhere are they so warmly welcomed. Italians are reproached for being too inclined to flattery, but it must be admitted that this is not from selfish motives most of the time, but simply from the desire to please. It is because they are truly obliging that their language overflows with charming expressions; what is more, their expressions are never belied by the way they act in the normal course of life. Even so, would they be faithful friends in extraordinary circumstances if it meant risking danger and adversity? Few, I admit, very few, would be capable of such friendship; but it is not only in Italy that this judgment holds true. In everyday life, Italians show an oriental idleness; but once their passions are aroused, no men are more active or persistent. The very women you see indolent as odalisques in a harem are suddenly capable of the finest self-sacrifice. There are mysteries in the Italian character and imagination, and you meet in turn with unexpected deeds of generosity and friendship, or somberly fearsome proofs of hate and vengeance. There is no will to excel in anything here: life is no more than a dream-filled sleep under beautiful skies. But give these men a

103

Book VI goal, and in six months you will see them learn and plan everything. The same is true of the women. W h y should they study when most men would not understand them? Improving their minds would isolate their hearts; but these same w o m e n would quickly become worthy of a superior man if they loved him. Here everyone sleeps; but in a country where great interests drowse, rest and indolence are nobler than a vain hubbub over insignificant matters. Letters themselves languish wherever life's strong and varied action fails to renew thought. And yet what country has ever shown more admiration of literature and the arts? History teaches that in every age popes, princes, and the people have offered the most stunning homage to distinguished painters, poets, and writers. 4 1 acknowledge, my Lord, that this enthusiasm for talent is one of the main reasons I am so fond of this country. One does not find here any trace of the blasé imagination, the disheartening spirit, or the tyrannical mediocrity that so effectively torment or choke off native genius elsewhere. A n idea, a feeling, a felicitous expression catch fire, if you will, among one's listeners. Precisely because talent is accorded the highest rank here, it excites great envy. Pergolesi was murdered for his Stabat;5 Giorgione armed himself with a breastplate w h e n he had to paint in a public place. But the jealousy aroused in us by talent is born of power in other lands. This jealousy of ours, which can hate, ostracize, kill, does not in any w a y discredit its object. Always blended with fanatical admiration, it stimulates the very genius it would persecute. In the long run, w h e n so much life is found within so narrow a sphere, amid so many obstacles and bonds of every kind, it seems to me that one cannot help but take a lively interest in a people w h o so avidly breathe in the bit of air imagination forces across the barriers shutting them in. I will not deny that these barriers are now such that Italian men rarely attain the dignity and pride characterizing free, military nations. If you like, my Lord, I shall even grant that the character of those nations is more apt to inspire enthusiasm and love in women. But might it not be possible for a fearless, noble, and austere man to combine all the qualities that inspire love and yet not possess the very ones that promise happiness? Corinne

104

Italian Character and Customs

IV Oswald read Corinne's letter, ashamed for the second time that he could have thought of breaking away from her. He was moved by her spirited dignity and commanding gentleness in thrusting aside the harsh words he had allowed himself, and he was filled with admiration. So great, unpretentious, and genuine a superiority seemed above all ordinary rules in his eyes. Indeed, he still felt that Corinne was not the weak, shy woman, unsure of everything outside her duties and her o w n feelings that he had imagined for his life's companion. Lucile, as he remembered seeing her at the age of twelve, corresponded more closely to that image: but could anything compare with Corinne? Could the common run of laws apply to one whose genius and sensibility were the unifying bond of so many diverse qualities? Corinne was a miracle of nature, and was not that miracle performed on Oswald's behalf, since he could claim to interest such a woman? But what was her name? What was her status in life? What would she do if he declared his intention to join his life to hers? Everything was still unclear. Although persuaded by his enthusiasm that he was set on marriage, the idea that Corinne's life had not been wholly blameless, and that his father would surely have disapproved, often overwhelmed his soul with confusion, and plunged him into harrowing anxiety. He was not so depressed as in the days before he knew Corinne, but he no longer felt the calm that can exist in the very midst of remorse, when one's entire life is devoted to the expiation of a serious mistake. Formerly, he was not afraid to let his memories flow freely, whatever their bitterness; now he dreaded the long, deep reveries that would reveal what was in the depths of his soul. At any event, he was about to go thank Corinne for her letter and ask pardon for his own, when one of Lucile's relatives, Mr. Edgermond, came into his room. 6 He was a worthy English gentleman who had spent most of his life in the principality of Wales, where he owned property. His were the principles and prejudices that in every country serve to keep things as they are. The system works well when these things are as good as hu-

105

Book VI man reason will allow: for then, men like Mr. Edgermond—that is, the partisans of the established order—are to be judged enlightened and reasonable minds, even if they are strongly, even stubbornly, bound to their own customs and views. Oswald gave a start when he heard Mr. Edgermond announced; it seemed that his memories were taking concrete form all at once. But it soon occurred to him that Lucile's mother, Lady Edgermond, had sent her relative to upbraid him, and that this was her way of trying to constrict his independence. Recovering all his self-possession at the thought, he made his welcome extremely cold. He was all the more wrong since Mr. Edgermond's plans had nothing whatever to do with him. He was traveling through Italy for his health, taking a great deal of exercise, hunting, and toasting the health of King George and Old England. He was the finest gentleman in the world; furthermore, he was wittier and better educated than his way of life must have suggested. First and foremost he was English, not only as might be expected, but also in ways one might wish he were not: wherever he was, he followed the customs of his own country, living only among Englishmen, and never holding a conversation with foreigners—not that he looked down on them, but because he was reluctant to speak other languages, and at the age of fifty, he was still so shy that he found it very difficult to meet new people. "I am delighted to see you," he told Lord Nelvil. "I am going to Naples in two weeks. Will you be there? I hope so, since I have little time left to spend in Italy, with my regiment due to ship out soon." "Your regiment?" repeated Nelvil, and flushed as if he had forgotten that he was on leave for a year, since his unit was not to be called up any earlier; but he flushed at the thought that Corinne might possibly bring him to forget even his duty. "But your regiment will not be called up for quite a while," Edgermond went on. "So do not worry. Just stay here and get back your health. Before I left, I saw my young cousin, the one you are interested in. She is lovelier than ever, and in a year, when you return, I have no doubt she will be the most beautiful woman in England." Lord Nelvil said nothing, and Mr. Edgermond said no more either. They went on to exchange a few more laconic but pleasant words, and Edgermond was about to leave, when he turned back to say: "By

106

Italian Character and Customs the way, my Lord, you can do me a favor. I am told that you know the famous Corinne, and though usually I do not want to meet new people, I am really curious." "I shall ask Corinne's permission to bring you to her house since that is your wish." "Please do. I would like to see her on a day when she will improvise, sing, or dance for us." "Corinne does not display her talents to strangers," said Nelvil. "In every respect, she is a woman who is your equal and my own." "Forgive my error. Since she uses only the name Corinne, and lives alone at the age of twenty-six with no member of her family, I thought she earned a living from her talents, and I gladly seized the opportunity to meet her." "She has independent means," replied Nelvil sharply, "and her soul is even more independent than her fortune." When Edgermond saw that Oswald was interested in Corinne, he immediately stopped talking about her, sorry that he had even mentioned the subject. For in everything that has to do with genuine attachment, the English are the most discreet and circumspect men in the world. Mr. Edgermond left. Alone once more, Nelvil could not keep from crying aloud: "I have got to marry Corinne. I have got to protect her so that never again can anyone fail to recognize her for what she is. I shall give her what little I have—position, name, while she will lavish on me all the bliss that she alone on earth can bestow." In that frame of mind, he rushed to Corinne's, and never did he enter her home with sweeter feelings of hope and love. But in a characteristic burst of shyness, he began by speaking of unimportant things to steel his nerve; and so he asked permission to bring Mr. Edgermond to see her. Visibly disturbed by the name, she refused in a voice trembling with emotion. Completely taken aback, he said: "I would have thought that in a house where everyone is welcome, being my friend would not be grounds for exclusion." "Do not take offense, my Lord. Do understand that I must have very powerful reasons to refuse what you would like." "And will you give me those reasons?"

107

Book VI "Impossible!" exclaimed Corrine. "Impossible!" "Well then . . . /' said Oswald, his words stifled by the violence of his feeling. He turned to leave. In tears, Corinne said in English: "In God's name, do not leave unless you want to break my heart." Those words, that tone, stirred Oswald's soul deeply, and he sat down again, putting some distance between them and leaning his head against an alabaster vase that lit the room. Then suddenly he said: "Cruel woman, you see that I love you, you see that twenty times a day, I am ready to offer you my hand and my life, and you refuse to tell me who you are! Tell me, Corinne. Tell me," he repeated, holding out his hand to her with the most touchingly sensitive expression. "Oswald," she cried, "you do not know how you are hurting me. If I were mad enough to tell you everything, if I did that, your love for me would end." "Good heavens!" he exclaimed. "Whatever are you hiding?" "Nothing that would make me unworthy of you—only chance circumstances, differences in our tastes, in our opinions, that were valid at one time, but would not hold true any longer. Do not insist that I tell you who I am; one day, perhaps, one day, if you love me enough, i f . . . Ah! I do not know what I am saying. You will know everything, but do not leave me until you hear me out. In the name of your father who is now in heaven, promise me that you will." "Do not speak that name," Nelvil exclaimed. "Do you know whether it brings us together or sets us apart? Do you believe he might consent to our union? If you do, swear to me, and I shall not be troubled or distraught any more. One day, I shall tell you the sad story of my life, but right now, see what a state I am in, what a state you are putting me in." Indeed, a cold sweat covered his forehead, his face was pale, and his lips trembled as they formed those last words almost inaudibly. Sitting down beside him, Corinne took his hands in hers, and gently brought him back to himself: " M y dear Oswald, ask Mr. Edgermond if he has ever been in Northumberland. If he has, but only in the last five years, you may bring him here." At these words, Oswald looked at Corinne intently. Saying nothing more, she bowed her head. "I shall do as you command," he said and left.

108

Italian Character and Customs Back at his lodgings, he exhausted himself guessing at Corinne's secret. It seemed clear to him that she had spent a great deal of time in England, and that her name and family must be known there. But what made her hide them, and why did she leave England if she had been settled there? These different questions troubled Oswald's heart exceedingly. Convinced that nothing sinful could be found in Corinne's life, he nonetheless feared some combination of circumstances that might make her guilty in the eyes of others; and what he dreaded most for her was England's disapproval. He felt strong enough to defy opinion in any other country but the memory of his father was so intimately bound in his thoughts to his native land, that the two feelings intensified each other. Finding that Mr. Edgermond had been in Northumberland for the first time the previous year, Oswald promised to take him to Corinne's that very night. He came first to forewarn her of Edgermond's preconceived ideas, and asked her to make his friend sense how mistaken he was by being coldly reserved with him. "If you please," Corinne replied, "I shall be the same with him as with everyone else. If he wants to hear me, I shall improvise for him; indeed, I shall act just the way I am, and yet I think he will recognize the soul's dignity just as well in straightforward behavior, as in an affected constraint." "Yes, Corinne, yes, you are right. Anyone who wanted to alter your wonderful spontaneity in any way would be quite wrong!" Just then, Mr. Edgermond arrived with the rest of the company. As the evening began, Nelvil, seated at Corinne's side, said everything that might set her off to advantage, with the partiality that bespeaks the protector and the man in love. He showed her a respect meant less for his own satisfaction than to compel the regard of others. But soon, to his delight, he sensed that his misgivings were groundless. Corinne won over Mr. Edgermond completely; she won him not only with her wit and charm, but also by inspiring the respect that upright character always accords genuine character. Thus when he dared ask her to speak on a subject of her choice, he sought the favor with as much respect as eagerness. She consented graciously, and so proved that the value of the favor was independent of the difficulty in winning it. But she was too eager to please a countryman of Oswald's, a man so worthy of regard that he could influence Oswald's views

109

Book VI when he spoke of her: thus she was overcome with a shyness she had not known before. She tried to begin, but emotion took her breath away. Oswald was grieved that she was not displaying her full superiority to an Englishman. He lowered his eyes, so visibly embarrassed that Corinne, concerned only with the effect she was producing in him, had difficulty in recovering the presence of mind required for the gift of improvisation. At last, sensing that she was faltering, that words were coming to her from memory rather than feeling, and that, as a result, she portrayed neither her thought nor her true inner experience, Corinne stopped short, and said to Mr. Edgermond: "Forgive me if shyness has stripped me of my talent today. As my friends know, this is the first time that I have proved so completely unworthy of myself. But perhaps it will not be the last," she added with a sigh. Oswald was deeply moved by Corinne's touching weakness. Until then, he had always seen imagination and genius triumph over her personal feelings and restore her spirit when she was most dejected. This time feeling had the upper hand, subduing her mind completely. Yet Oswald had so identified with Corinne's glory that evening, that he suffered from her confusion instead of enjoying it. Still, convinced that she would shine as brilliantly as ever some other day, he gladly gave way to the pleasure of his newfound view of her, and images of his friend reigned in his heart more securely than ever.

110

Book VII ITALIAN LITERATURE

I Lord Nelvil was eager to have Mr. Edgermond enjoy Corinne's conversation which surely equaled her improvised verse. The following day, the same group gathered in her home, and to draw her out, Oswald brought the subject around to Italian literature, provoking her natural liveliness with the statement that England had a greater number of true poets, superior through intellect and sensitivity to any that Italy could boast. "First of all," Corinne replied, "most foreigners know only our poets of the first rank—Dante, Petrarch, Ariosto, Guarini, Tasso, and Metastasio, though we have several others, such as Chiabrera, Guidi, Filicaja, Parini, and so on, without counting Sannazaro, Poliziano, and more, w h o have written brilliantly in Latin. All of them combine color and harmony in their verse; all are more or less expert at introducing the wonders of nature and the fine arts into canvases painted with words. Doubtless, the knowledge of the human heart that distinguishes your poets is missing in ours, as is their deep melancholy; but is not this form of superiority more proper to philosophical writers than to poets? The dazzling melody of Italian is more suited to the luster of concrete objects than to reflection. Our language is probably more appropriate to painting rage than sorrow,

111

because the reflective feelings require a more metaphysical language, while the will to vengeance kindles the imagination, and turns pain outward. The best and most elegant translation of Ossian was done by Cesarotti, but for the reader, the words themselves seem to have a festive air that contradicts the somber ideas they call to mind. One yields to the charm of our soothing words—limpid brook, smiling countryside, cool shade—as one would to the murmur of waters and the range of colors: what more do you ask of poetry? Why ask the nightingale the meaning of his song? He can explain it only by starting to sing again; he can only be understood if we open ourselves to the impression he makes. At times, the light step of dance is imitated by the meter of the verse, the harmonious rhymes, those abrupt endings formed by two short syllables whose sound does indeed slide as their name—Sdruccioli—suggests. At times, more solemn tones recall the din of the storm or the clash of arms. In sum, our poetry is a marvel of the imagination. It must not be looked to for anything save the pleasure offered in all of its forms." "You explain the beauties and flaws of your poetry as well as possible," Lord Nelvil interjected. "There is no doubt about that. But when these same defects turn up in prose without the beauty, h o w will you defend them? What is merely vague in poetry becomes empty in prose, and that mass of banalities your poets know h o w to embellish with their melody and images comes out cold in the tedious sprightliness of the prose. Most of your prose writers use language so declamatory, so verbose, so rich in superlatives, that they all seem to be writing to order, with stock phrases, for conventional temperaments. They seem to have no idea that writing expresses the writer's character and thought. Literary style is an artificial fabric for them, a mosaic pattern imported from elsewhere, something foreign to their souls in a way I cannot explain, but that is done with the pen, just as a mechanical piece of work is done with the fingers. No one can approach them in enlarging on an idea, commenting, inflating, making a froth of feeling, if it may be put that way, for they have the secret, and to such a degree that one would be tempted to tell them just what the African woman said to the French lady wearing a wide hoop under a long dress: Madam, is that all you? Indeed, where is the real person in all that show of words? Faced with any

112

Italian Literature genuine expression, those writers would be exposed as sham, and disappear." "First of all, you are leaving out Machiavelli and Boccaccio," interrupted Corinne heatedly, "and Gravina, Filangieri, and, too, our own contemporaries, Cesarotti, Verri, Bettinelli, and so many others besides, who know how to write and to think. But I do agree with you that deprived of independence for the past few hundred years by unfortunate circumstances, Italians have lost all taste for truth and, frequently, the very possibility of speaking it. It follows that not daring to go near ideas, people have grown accustomed to the pleasure of words. Since they knew their writing could exercise no concrete influence, they wrote only to show their wit, the surest way to end up without even wit; for we come by most ideas when our efforts are directed toward some notably useful purpose. Prose writers unable to influence their nation's welfare write only to dazzle; when, in effect, the journey becomes its own end, they double back in a thousand detours, but never go forward. Italians are afraid of new thoughts, it is true, but laziness is the curse, not slavish imitation of other writers. Their character, their gaiety, their imagination, are quite original, and yet their generalizations are commonplace, since they no longer bother to think them over. Even their eloquence, so vivid when they speak, has no spontaneity when they write; you might think working chilled them. Besides, prose constricts southern peoples; it is only in verse that they paint their true feelings. That is not the case in French literature," said Corinne, turning to Count d'Erfeuil. "Your prose writers are often more eloquent and even more poetic than your poets." "It is true that we have the genuine classical authorities," the Count replied. "Bossuet, La Bruyère, Montesquieu, Buffon cannot be outdone, particularly the first two who belong to the Age of Louis XIV, an age that cannot be praised too much, and whose perfect models are to be imitated as closely as possible.1 Foreigners should follow this advice as zealously as we French do." " I find it hard to believe," answered Corinne, "that the whole world would do well to lose every bit of natural color, all originality of feeling and mind. And I dare say, Count, that even in your country, this literary orthodoxy, if I may put it that way, stands in the way of all felicitous innovation, and ultimately can only make your literature very

113

Book VII sterile. Genius is essentially creative, stamped with the character of the person e n d o w e d with it. Nature, w h i c h has refused to make t w o leaves identical, has provided souls with more variety still; and imitation is a sort of death, since it strips us of spontaneous existence." "Lovely foreign lady," the Count went on, " w o u l d y o u have us admit to our country the coarse barbarity of Young's Nights from England, the Concetti from Italy and Spain? 2 After such crossbreeding, what w o u l d become of French taste, and the elegance of French style?" Prince Castel-Forte, w h o had not yet spoken, added: "It seems to me that w e all need each other; for those equipped to understand, the literature of each country unfolds a n e w sphere of ideas. Charles V himself said that one man who knows four languages is worth four men. If that great political genius held such an opinion in temporal matters, h o w m u c h truer it is for the realm of letters! All foreigners k n o w French; it follows that they have a broader point of view than the French, w h o do not k n o w foreign languages. W h y do they not take the trouble to l e a m them more often? That w a y they would retain what sets them apart, and they would sometimes discover what they might be missing."

II " A t least y o u will acknowledge," the Count replied, "that in one respect w e have nothing to learn from anyone. Our theater is decidedly foremost in Europe, for I do not think the English themselves would imagine putting Shakespeare up against us." "I beg your pardon," interrupted Mr. Edgermond. "They certainly do imagine that!" And having said his piece, he lapsed into silence again. "In that case, I have nothing to say," the Count went on, his smile expressing a charming disdain. "Each of us can think what he pleases, but I still maintain that one can state without arrogance that w e are foremost in the dramatic art. A n d as for the Italians, if I may be allowed to speak frankly, they do not even suspect there is a dramatic art anywhere in the world. Music is everything with them, and the

114

Italian Literature play is nothing. If the second act has better music than the first, they begin with the second act. If the same is true of the first two acts of t w o different plays, they perform these t w o acts on the same day, putting in-between an act from a prose comedy—usually of the most impeccable morality, but a morality completely made up of maxims our o w n ancestors sent off to foreign parts long ago as too antiquated. Your poets are entirely at the mercy of your famous musicians: one proclaims that he cannot sing if the w o r d felicità is not in his aria; the tenor demands tomba, and the third can do his vocal flourishes only on the word catene. The poor poet has to fit those different tastes to the dramatic situation as best he can. A n d that is still not all! There are virtuosi w h o refuse to come onstage on their o w n t w o feet: they must be seen first o n a cloud, or they make their w a y d o w n the w h o l e staircase of a palace for a more striking entrance. W h e n the aria is over, h o w e v e r touching or violent the situation, the actor has to take a b o w to acknowledge the applause he has w o n . The other day, at Semiramide, after the ghost of Ninus had sung his aria, the actor in his ghost costume b o w e d l o w to the audience in the orchestra, greatly reducing their fright at the apparition. "In Italy, the theater is generally considered a big meeting hall, where one only listens to the arias and the ballet. I am right to say where one only listens to the ballet, since the audience in the orchestra insists on silence only w h e n it is about to start. And this ballet is still another masterpiece of bad taste. Except for the freaks w h o are true caricatures of the dance, I do not k n o w w h a t can possibly be entertaining in these ballets beside their absurdity. I saw Ghengis K h a n turned into a ballet; he w a s all covered in ermine, all clothed in beautiful feelings, for he surrendered his c r o w n to the son of the king he had defeated, and standing on one foot, held him aloft—a novel w a y to set a monarch on a throne. I also saw the Sacrifice of Curtius, a ballet in three acts with all the divertissements. Dressed as an Arcadian shepherd, Curtius dances with his beloved for quite a while before mounting a real horse in the middle of the stage, and bounding forward into a fiery chasm made of yellow stain and gilt paper w h i c h looked much more like the centerpiece of a dessert table than an abyss. After all that, I saw a complete précis of human history in ballet, from Romulus to Caesar." "Everything y o u say is true," replied the Prince mildly, "but you

115

Book VII have spoken of nothing but music and dance, and in n o country are they considered dramatic art." "It is m u c h worse," interrupted the Count, " w h e n they put on tragedies, or dramas that are not called plays with a happy ending. More horrors are t h r o w n together in five acts than the imagination could possibly conceive. In one of those plays, the lover kills his beloved's brother by act two; in act three h e shoots his beloved's brains out right on the stage; the fourth is taken u p with her burial; in the intermission between acts four and five, the actor playing the lover comes out as calm as can be to a n n o u n c e the harlequinade to be shown the following day, and then h e reappears in act five to shoot himself dead with a pistol. 3 The tragic actors are perfectly suited to the cold tone and exaggerated dimensions of the plays. They commit all those terrible deeds with the greatest composure. W h e n an actor gets excited, he is said to be jumping around like a preacher, since there is indeed m u c h more action in the pulpit than o n the stage. And it is very fortunate that these actors are so untroubled w h e n pathos is called for: since there is nothing interesting in either the play or the situation, the more noise they made, the more ridiculous they would look. There might be some justification, if only this nonsense were joyous, but it is only dull. "There is n o more comedy in Italy t h a n there is tragedy, and there, too, w e French rank first. The only genre that is authentically Italian is the harlequinade: a roguish, gluttonous, cowardly valet, an old credulous guardian w h o is a miser or in love—right there you have the w h o l e subject of the plays. You will agree that it does not take m u c h to put that kind of thing together, and that Tartuffe or The Misanthrope imply rather more genius." The Count's attack did not exactly please the Italians; however they took it laughing, and besides, in conversation, d'Erfeuil far preferred to show wit t h a n kindness. His natural goodness dictated what he did, but his vanity determined w h a t h e said. Prince Castel-Forte, along with all other Italians, was eager to refute him, but considering that Corinne would best defend their cause, and that they themselves took n o special pleasure in conversing brilliantly, they begged Corinne to reply, merely citing the well-known names of Maffei, Metastasio, Goldoni, Alfieri, Monti. 4 First of all, Corinne agreed that the Italians had n o theater, but she set out to prove that circum-

116

Italian Literature stances were the reason and not lack of talent. Since comedy depends on observation of manners, it can exist only in a country where people live in the midst of a populous and sparkling society. In Italy, there are only passions and idle pleasures; and the violent passions lead to such highly colored crimes and vices that all nuances of character vanish in their wake. But in this same Italy, ideal comedy, as it were, was invented, the kind that depends on imagination and fits all times and all countries. Harlequin, Brighella, Pantalone, and more are found in every play, their character unchanged. In every context they have masks rather than faces: theirs are the features of a human type and not of any individual. Finding the roles all set up in advance like the pieces in a chess game, modem authors of harlequinades doubtless cannot take credit for inventing them, but the form itself was first invented in Italy. And these whimsical characters, who from one end of Europe to the other delight all children and all people who become children through imagination must surely be considered a creation of the Italians which justifies their claims on the comic art. Observation of the human heart is an inexhaustible source for literature; but nations better suited to poetry than reflection yield more readily to the intoxication of joy than to philosophic irony. There is something sad underlying jokes based on knowledge of men; truly inoffensive gaiety belongs to the imagination alone. Italians are skilled at studying the men they deal with; they are shrewder than anyone else at uncovering the most hidden thoughts, but this talent serves as a guide to behavior, and they are quite unaccustomed to using it for literature. They might even dislike circulating their discoveries, making their insights public. There is something cautious and secretive in their character that counsels, perhaps, against using comedy to bring into the open what guides their private relationships, and to reveal through fiction what might be useful in the real situations of life. On the other hand, far from hiding anything, Machiavelli made known all the secrets of a criminal system of politics: through him, one can see the terrifying Italian capacity for understanding the human heart! But this kind of depth does not fall within the province of comedy, and it is only the leisure activities of an actual society that can teach the way to portray men on the comic stage. Living in Venice, the Italian city with the most developed society, Goldoni introduces more subtle insights than are generally found in other authors.

117

Book VII Nonetheless his characters are monotonous; the same situations recur because there is little variety in the characters. His many plays seem modeled on the theater in general and not on life. The true nature of Italian gaiety is imaginative, not mocking; it is poetic exaggeration, not portrayal of manners. It is Ariosto w h o can entertain Italy, not Moliere. Gozzi, Goldoni's rival, showed far more originality in his writing which is m u c h less like regular comedy in its form. By choice, he yielded freely to the Italian genius, portraying fairy tales, mixing buffoonery and harlequinades with the wonders of poetry, refusing to imitate nature, but indulging in joyous fantasies and dreams of fairyland as well, and in every w a y carrying the mind and spirit off beyond the limits of w h a t happens in the world. He was prodigiously successful in his day, and it may be that of all comic writing, his is the most suited to the Italian imagination. However, to k n o w for certain what comedy and tragedy could be like in Italy, w e would need a theater and actors. Scores of small towns, each insisting on its o w n theater, spread their f e w potential resources thin. Division of a country into states normally favors freedom and happiness, but it is harmful to Italy. She w o u l d need a center of enlightenment and power to resist the prejudice devouring her. Elsewhere governmental authority represses the individual impulse. In Italy that authority would be welcome if it fought the ignorance of states that are separated and of men w h o are isolated from one another, if, by fostering emulation, it battled against the indolence natural to this climate, and finally, if it gave life to a w h o l e nation satisfied with dreaming. Corinne wittily developed these various ideas, and a few others besides. She w a s very skillful, too, at the high-speed art of light talk that dwells on nothing, and the task of pleasing others so that each person in turn is set off to advantage. A n d yet in conversation, she often indulged in the kind of talent that made her a famous improvisatrice. Several times she invited Prince Castel-Forte to come to her aid with his o w n views on a given subject, but she spoke so well that all her listeners enjoyed hearing her and tolerated no interruption. Mr. Edgermond in particular could not get enough of seeing and hearing Corinne. He scarcely dared express the admiration she inspired, and said a few words of praise under his breath, hoping she would understand without his having to speak to her directly. Yet he was so anxious to

118

Italian Literature hear her thoughts on tragedy, that in spite of his shyness, he ventured a f e w words on the subject: "Madam, to m y mind, w h a t Italian literature lacks most of all is tragedy. It seems to m e that there is less distance between children and men than between your tragedy and ours; for even granting their instability, children have impulsive but authentic feelings, while there is something affected and outsized about w h a t is serious in your tragedies that kills all the emotion for me. Isn't that true, Lord Nelvil?" added Edgermond turning to him, astonished that he had dared speak in front of so many people, and his eyes appealing for support. "I am of precisely the same mind," answered Oswald. "Metastasio is praised as the poet of love. But he colors that passion alike in all countries and in all situations. There are admirable arias, some to be applauded for their grace and harmony, others for lyrical beauties of the highest order, particularly w h e n they are considered apart from the play. But for those of us w h o have Shakespeare, the poet w h o has best probed h u m a n history and passions, it is unbearable to watch those t w o sets of lovers w h o appear in almost all of Metastasio's plays. Named in turn Achilles, Tircis, Brutus, and Corilas, they all sing the sorrows and martyrdom of love in precisely the same way, barely stirring the surface of the soul, and portraying the stormiest feeling that can trouble the h u m a n heart as if it were pale and tame. "Although I have deep respect for Alfieri's character, y o u will allow me several remarks on his plays. Their purpose is so noble, the feelings expressed are so nicely in accord with their author's personal conduct, that his tragedies must always be praised as deeds, even though, in some respects, they m a y be open to criticism as works of literature. But it seems to me that some of his tragedies are as monotonous in their power as Metastasio's in their pleasantness. Alfieri's plays show such abundant energy and generosity, or such excessive violence and crime, that there is no w a y to see the true character of men. For men are never so evil or so generous as he makes them out. Most of the scenes are designed to set vice against virtue, but the contrast is not presented with the shadings of truth. In real life, if tyrants endured what victims say to their face in Alfieri's plays, you might almost feel sorry for them. In Ottavia, this lack of credibility is particularly striking. Seneca is constantly lecturing Nero as if he were the most patient of m e n and as if he, Seneca, were the most courageous. To entertain

119

Book VII the audience, the ruler of the world allows himself to be insulted and then to get angry in every scene, as if it were not his prerogative to put a stop to the w h o l e thing with a single word. These endless dialogues do indeed occasion splendid responses from Seneca, and one would be pleased to find his noble thoughts in an oration or a work of literature, but is that any w a y to suggest w h a t tragedy is like! For rather than paint it in its fearful hues, Alfieri merely uses it as a pretext for verbal swordplay. But w o u l d not the terror have been a thousand times greater had Shakespeare portrayed Nero hiding his uneasiness, forcing himself to look calm, surrounded by trembling men w h o scarcely dare answer the most innocuous questions, while Seneca works nearby o n the apologia for Agrippina's murder? And through the very silence of the rhetoric and the truthfulness of the scenes, w o u l d not a single reflection set forth by the author give rise to a thousand in the souls of the spectators?" Oswald could have gone on speaking uninterrupted, for Corinne w a s so delighted with the sound of his voice and his noble elegance of language that she w o u l d have liked to prolong the impression for hours on end, and found it hard to look a w a y from him even after he had finished. Slowly, she turned to her other guests w h o were impatiently asking w h a t she thought of Italian tragedy, then looking back at Nelvil, said: " M y Lord, I share your views on almost everything, so in replying I will not argue but simply point out a f e w exceptions to generalizations that are perhaps too sweeping. It is true that Metastasio is more lyric poet than dramatist, and that he paints love as a fine art embellishing life, rather than as the inmost secret of our suffering or our happiness. Generally speaking, although our poetry has been devoted to the song of love, I shall venture to say that w e show greater depth and sensitivity in painting every other passion. In the process of churning out love poetry, a conventional language has been developed, and our poets use their reading for inspiration rather than their o w n experience. The reality of love in Italy bears no resemblance to the love portrayed by our poets. I k n o w only one novel, Boccaccio's Fiammetta, that gives an idea of this passion in authentic, national colors. Our poets make subtle distinctions or exaggerate feelings, while the true stamp of Italian character is a swift deep reaction, far better expressed by passionate wordless acts than by ingenious language. In

120

Italian Literature general, our literature says very little about our character and our customs. W e are too modest as a nation, I would almost say too humble, to dare have our very o w n tragedies, composed with our history, or at least bearing the mark of our o w n feelings. 5 "In a sense, Alfieri w a s transplanted from antiquity into modern times by an odd stroke of chance. Born to act, he could only write, a constraint that affected his style and his tragedies, for he tried to use literature to advance a political goal. It was doubtless the noblest possible goal; but no matter, for nothing so perverts works of imagination. Alfieri chafed at living in a nation where, despite the presence of very learned scholars and a f e w highly enlightened men, most writers and readers were rarely interested in anything serious, enjoying only short stories, novellas, and madrigals. Alfieri, I maintain, decided to make his tragedies as austere as possible. He removed confidants, startling turns of events, everything, to focus interest on dialogue. It seemed that he w a s trying to bring Italians to do penance for their natural liveliness and imagination. Yet he has been m u c h admired for his true greatness of character and soul, and because modern Romans in particular applaud the deeds and feelings of ancient Romans as if they identified with them still. They are devotees of energy and independence as m u c h as of the beautiful paintings in their galleries. But it is none the less true that, strictly speaking, Alfieri did not create an Italian theater; that is, his tragedies s h o w no merit peculiar to Italy. And he did not even particularize the countries and times he portrays. His Congiura de' Pazzi, Virginia, and Filippo are admirable for their lofty, powerful ideas; but instead of the stamp of nations and times, it is always Alfieri's that is on the stage. Although the French mind and Alfieri's are totally different they do have one similarity: that is, they dress all the subjects they treat in their o w n colors." Hearing the allusion to the French mind, Count d'Erfeuil took the floor. "It w o u l d be impossible for us to tolerate the inconsistencies of the Greeks o n the stage, or the monstrosities of Shakespeare—French taste is too pure for that. Our theater is a model of refinement and elegance, that is w h a t makes it special. To introduce anything foreign among us w o u l d be to plunge us into barbarism." " Y o u might just as well build the Great Wall of China around yourselves," said Corinne, smiling. "In your tragic authors there are surely u n c o m m o n beauties, but still n e w ones might evolve were you to al-

121

Book VII l o w something besides French plays on your stage. Our o w n Italian genius for the theater w o u l d lose a great deal if it submitted to rules w e did not invent, and then put up with the constraints they impose. A nation's theater must be shaped by its o w n imagination, character, and customs. Italians passionately love the fine arts, music, painting, and even pantomime—indeed, everything that strikes the senses. How could they be satisfied, then, with austerely eloquent dialogue as their sole pleasure in the theater? With all his genius, Alfieri's attempts to force it on them failed, and even he felt that his system was too rigid.6 "In m y view, Maffei's Merope, Alfieri's Saul, Monti's Aristodemo, and, above all, Dante's poem (even though he never wrote for the theater) suggest w h a t dramatic art could be in Italy. In Maffei's Merope, the action is simple, but there is also brilliant poetry, clothed in the most felicitous images. And w h y ban poetry from dramatic works? In Italy, the language of verse is so magnificent that it would be a worse mistake to renounce its beauties here than anywhere else. Alfieri, w h o excelled in all genres w h e n he chose, made superb use of lyric poetry in his Saul; and one might appropriately introduce music—not to mix song with speech, but to calm Saul's fits of rage with David's harp. W e have such delightful music that the pleasure it affords can m a k e us apathetic to the joys of the mind. Far from trying to separate them, w e should seek to bring them together, not by having the hero sing—that w o u l d destroy all the dignity of the play—but by introducing the chorus in the classic style or musical effects appropriate to the situation, as so often happens naturally in life. Far from diminishing the pleasures of the imagination in the Italian theater, I think that, o n the contrary, they should be increased and multiplied in every w a y . The lively Italian enthusiasm for music and lavishly produced ballets suggests a powerful imagination that must always be engaged, even w h e n serious matters are treated; these should not be made harsher than reality, as in the case of Alfieri. "Feeling duty bound to applaud w h a t is austere and solemn, the nation quickly returns to its natural tastes. Yet Italians would appreciate tragedy were it embellished with the charm and variety of the various forms of poetry and with all the theatrical devices the English and Spanish k n o w h o w to enjoy. "There is something

of Dante's terrifying pathos in

122

Monti's

Italian Literature Aristodemo, and surely this is by right one of the most highly admired tragedies. Dante, that great master of so many genres, had a tragic genius that w o u l d have yielded the finest results in Italy if, somehow, he could have been adapted to the stage. For that poet k n e w h o w to portray for the eye w h a t goes on in the depths of the soul, and his imagination makes sorrow palpable, visible. Had Dante written tragedies, they w o u l d have impressed children as well as men, the mob as well as distinguished minds. Dramatic literature must be popular; it is like a public event, and so to be judged by the w h o l e nation." "In Dante's times," said Oswald, "Italians played a major political role in Europe and at home. Perhaps there is no w a y for you to have a national tragic theater n o w . For such a theater to evolve, great circumstances in life must shape the feelings expressed on stage. Of all the literary masterpieces, there is none so dependent as tragedy on a w h o l e people: the audience contributes almost as much as the authors. Dramatic genius is made up of the public mind, history, government, customs, that is, whatever makes its w a y into thought each day and shapes the moral being, just as the air one breathes nourishes the life of the body. Although there is a real correlation between the climate and religion of Spain and Italy, the Spanish have far more genius for drama than you. Full of their history, their chivalry, and their religious faith, Spanish plays are original and alive, but it is also true that their success in the genre dates back to the glorious era of their history. That being understood, h o w could a tragic theater be created n o w w h e n it has never existed in Italy?" "Unfortunately y o u may very well be right, my Lord," answered Corinne. "Nonetheless, I still place great hopes in the native capacity of the Italian spirit to soar and to strive even w h e n external circumstances offer n o encouragement. But w h a t w e need most are tragic actors. Affected language inevitably leads to declamatory, artificial delivery. But in n o other language might a great actor show as much talent as in ours, for the melodious sounds add fresh charm to the sincerity of the tone, thus music blends continuously with the expression of feeling, and yet diminishes none of its power." "If y o u really m e a n to convince us," interrupted Prince CastelForte, " y o u must prove it. Yes, do give us the unutterable joy of seeing y o u play tragedy. You must grant foreigners you judge worthy the rare pleasure of encountering a talent that y o u alone possess in It-

123

Book VII a l y — o r rather, y o u alone in the world, since that power bears the stamp of your entire soul." Secretly, Corinne wanted to play tragedy for Lord Nelvil and thus show herself to great advantage, but not daring to agree without his approval, she asked it with her eyes. He understood, and joined her friends' entreaties, for he was touched by the shyness that had kept her from improvising the night before, and he was eager, as well, for Mr. Edgermond's approval. "All right then," she said, and hesitating no longer she turned to the Prince: "For a long time I have been planning to perform my translation of Romeo and Juliet. N o w , if you like, w e shall do it." 7 "Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet!" exclaimed Edgermond. "So y o u k n o w English?" "Yes." " A n d y o u like Shakespeare?" "As a friend, for he k n o w s all the secrets of suffering." " A n d y o u will play him in Italian! A n d I shall hear it! And y o u shall hear it, too, my dear Nelvil! Oh! h o w fortunate you are!" Immediately sorry for his indiscretion, he reddened, and the blush inspired by tact and kindness is affecting at any age. Embarrassed, he added: " H o w fortunate w e will be to witness such a performance!"

Ill Within a f e w days, everything was arranged. The roles were assigned and an evening chosen for the performance in a palace belonging to a friend of Corinne's and cousin to Prince Castel-Forte. Oswald looked forward to this n e w success with a mixture of uneasiness and pleasure. For while he enjoyed the thought of it, he was also jealous, not of any m a n in particular, but of the public that w a s to witness the talents of the w o m a n he loved. He w o u l d have liked to be the only one to k n o w she w a s witty and charming. He would have liked Corinne to show an Englishwoman's diffident reserve, saving her eloquence and genius for him alone. However distinguished a man may be, the pleasure he takes in a w o m a n ' s superiority is probably never unalloyed: if he loves her, his heart is uneasy; if he does not, his pride

124

Italian Literature takes offense. Oswald was more intoxicated than happy when he was with Corinne, and the admiration she inspired increased his love without leading to any firm plans. He saw her as an admirable phenomenon, new each day, but the very delight and astonishment she made him feel seemed to banish the hope of a calm, peaceful life. Yet Corinne was the sweetest and easiest woman to live with, for her brilliance aside, she would have been lovable for the qualities she shared with the common run of people. But he kept returning to the fact that she was gifted in too many directions, she was too remarkable in every domain. Whatever his own talents, Lord Nelvil did not believe he was her equal, and so he feared that their mutual affection would not last. In vain, Corinne made herself his slave out of love, for ill at ease with this queen in chains, the master could not enjoy his reign in peace. A few hours before the performance, Nelvil took Corinne to the palace of Princess Castel-Forte where the theater had been set up. It was a lovely sunlit day, and from one of the windows on the stairway, Rome and the countryside around it could be seen. Oswald held Corinne back for a moment, saying: "You see this beautiful weather? It is for you, to light up your triumph." "Ah! if that were so, you would be the one to bring me luck. It is to you I would owe heaven's protection." "The beauty of nature here inspires sweetly pure feelings. Would they be enough to make you happy? It is a long way from the air we breathe now, from the reverie the countryside arouses, to the noisy hall that will soon echo with your name." "Oswald, if I win that applause, will not its power to move me come only from your hearing it too? And will not my feeling for you inspire any talent I show? Poetry, love, religion—indeed, everything related to enthusiasm—is in harmony with nature; and when I look at the azure skies, opening myself to the emotion they evoke, I understand Juliet's feeling better, I am more worthy of Romeo." "Yes, heavenly creature, you are worthy of him," Nelvil exclaimed. 8 "Yes, to be jealous of your talents, to need to live with you all alone in the universe, shows spiritual weakness. Go and reap the world's homage. Go, but save for me alone that look of love more heavenly still than your genius."

125

B o o k VII At that, they took leave of each other, and going to take his seat, Nelvil awaited the pleasure of seeing Corinne appear. The subject of Romeo and Juliet is Italian. The scene is Verona, where they still show the lovers' tomb. Shakespeare wrote the play with the southern imagination, at once so passionate and so sunny, the imagination that excels in happiness, yet turns so easily to despair, and from despair to death. It reacts rapidly and yet one senses that its rapid reactions will be irreversible. In a strenuous climate the ripening of passion is hastened by nature's power, and not by the heart's whims. Though vegetation sprouts readily, the soil is not shallow and, better than any other foreign writer, Shakespeare grasped Italy's national character and the fertility of mind that invents a thousand different ways to express the same feeling, the oriental eloquence that uses images from every aspect of nature to paint what goes on in the heart. He is not limited to a single hue like Ossian, to a single sound that steadfastly corresponds to the heart's most sensitive chord. Yet the multitude of colors Shakespeare uses in Romeo and Juliet does not make his style coldly mannered; the beam of light broken up, reflected, varied, produces these colors, and one always senses the fire and light of their origin. The life-force is strong in this work; there is a brilliance of language peculiar to the country and its people. Translated into Italian, Romeo and Juliet seems to return to its native tongue. Juliet makes her first appearance at a ball. Romeo Montague has surreptitiously made his way into this house of his father's mortal enemies, the Capulets. Corinne wore a ball gown that was lovely and yet consistent with the dress of the time. Her hair was artfully interwoven with flowers and precious stones. At first, she struck the audience as someone n e w to them; then they recognized her voice and her face— but a face transformed, divinely expressing poetry alone. When she came on stage, they all burst into applause. Catching sight of Oswald immediately, she let her eyes dwell on him: her face sparkled with joy and a sweet sharp hope. The heart quickened with fear and pleasure at the sight of her; one sensed that so much happiness could not last on earth: was this a foreboding of Corinne's fate? When Romeo drew near to speak softly of her grace and brilliance in verse so brilliant in English, so splendid in the Italian translation, all the m e n in the audience, enchanted in being thus interpreted, identified ecstatically with Romeo. And the sudden passion that took hold

126

Italian Literature of him, a passion kindled by his first glimpse of Juliet, seemed perfectly credible to every eye. From that moment, Oswald began to feel uneasy. It seemed to him that everything w o u l d soon be revealed, that they w o u l d proclaim Corinne an angel among w o m e n , question him on his feelings for her, vie with him for her, tear her away from him. It w a s as if some dazzling cloud passed before his eyes. Afraid he w o u l d be unable to see, afraid of losing consciousness, he retreated behind a column for a f e w moments. Troubled, Corinne looked for him anxiously, and spoke the line: Too early seen u n k n o w n , and k n o w n too late! with such meaningful accents, that it made Oswald shudder, for he sensed that Corinne meant it for their o w n situation. He watched with unflagging admiration. He followed her graceful gestures, the dignity of her movements, the w a y her expression portrayed w h a t words cannot convey and disclosed those mysteries of the heart w h i c h determine our lives, although they remain unspoken. W h e n the actor is truly moved, truly inspired, the tone of voice, the eyes, the slightest gestures, are a constant revelation of the human heart; and the ideal of art always goes hand in hand with these revelations of nature. The harmony of verse, and the charm of the actor's bearing lend a grace and dignity to passion that are frequently absent in reality. Thus all the heart's feelings and the soul's fluctuations filter through the imagination without losing any of their truth. In the second act, Juliet appears on the balcony overlooking the garden to speak w i t h Romeo. Of all her finery, Corinne had kept only the flowers, and soon they too w o u l d disappear. The semidarkness of the theater, suggesting night, shed a softer, more touching light on Corinne's face. The sound of her voice w a s even more harmonious than amid the splendor of a ball. Lifted toward the stars, her hand seemed to invoke the only witnesses worthy of hearing her; and w h e n she repeated Romeo! Romeo!, Oswald, though certain she was thinking of him, felt jealous of the delightful accents that made the air echo with another name. Since he was standing opposite the balcony, with the m a n playing Romeo partly hidden by the darkness, Corinne's gaze could fall on Oswald alone as she spoke these enchanting lines:

127

Book VII In truth, fair Montague, I am too fond; And therefore thou may'st think my 'havior light; But trust me, gentleman, I'll prove more true, Than those that have more cunning to be strange.

therefore pardon me. At the words pardon me!—pardon me for loving! pardon me for letting you know!—there was such tender pleading in Corinne's eyes, so much respect for the man she loved, so much pride in her choice when she said "Noble Romeo! Fair Montague!" that Oswald was as proud as he was happy. Tender feeling had bowed his head, but he raised it now, strong in the sense that he was monarch of the world since he reigned over a heart filled with all of life's treasures. Aware of her effect on Oswald, Corinne was increasingly stirred by the heart's emotion which alone produces miracles. And when at daybreak, Juliet thinks she hears the song of the lark, signaling Romeo's departure, the tones of Corinne's voice took on a supernatural charm; portraying love, they yet conveyed a religious mystery, some few recollections of heaven presaging the soul's return, an entirely celestial sorrow like that of a soul exiled upon the earth and soon to be recalled by the divine land of its fathers. How happy Corinne felt on the day she played that noble role in a beautiful tragedy for her chosen friend! How many years, how many lives would be dull after such a day! Had Nelvil played Romeo opposite Corinne, the pleasure she tasted would have been less complete. She would have wished to set aside the lines of the greatest poets to speak directly from her heart. An unconquerable shyness might even have fettered her talent; she might not have dared look at Oswald for fear of giving herself away. Indeed, taken that far, truth would have destroyed the authority of art. Yet how sweet it was to know that the one she loved was there when she felt the thrust of exaltation that poetry alone can inspire! when she experienced all the charm of emotion with none of reality's agonzing distress! when the tenderness she expressed was in no way either personal or abstract: and she seemed to be telling Lord Nelvil: "See what capacity I have for love!"

128

Italian Literature It is impossible for a woman living independently to be pleased with herself: passion and shyness sweep away or hold back in turn, inspire too much bitterness or too much docility. In playing tragedy, however, Corinne knew the explicit pleasure of combining sensibility with the composure it too often dissipates, of living for a moment in the sweetest of the heart's dreams. Blended with this pleasure was the satisfaction of all the success and all the applause she won, and she laid them at Oswald's feet through the look in her eyes; for in itself alone, his approval was more precious to her than glory. At least for a moment Corinne was happy. The price was her peace of mind, but for a moment she knew the soul's rapture that she had longed for vainly until this day, and that she would yearn for ever after. In the third act, Juliet secretly becomes Romeo's bride. In the fourth, when her parents would force her into marriage with someone else, she decides to take the sleeping potion given her by a monk, and which will give her every appearance of death. All Corinne's gestures, her feverish manner, the changes in her voice, her expression— lively one moment, downcast the next—portrayed the cruel conflict of fear and love, the harrowing images that haunted her at the idea of being carried alive into the burial vault of her ancestors, and yet the enthusiasm born of passion that allowed so young a soul to conquer so natural a dread. Oswald felt an almost irresistible urge to rush to her aid. Once she raised her eyes fervently to heaven, intensely expressing the need for divine protection, a need from which no human being has ever managed to wrest free. Another time, Nelvil thought she was reaching her arms out to him as if to call for help, and he rose in a burst of frenzy. Quickly brought back to his senses by the surprised glances of the people around him, he sat down; but his feelings were becoming so strong that he could not hide them any longer. In the fifth act, Romeo, thinking Juliet dead, lifts her from the tomb before she awakens and presses her, unconscious, against his heart. Dressed in white, her black hair all disheveled, her head drooping gracefully against Romeo, Corinne was so convincingly deathlike, so touchingly somber, that Oswald was shaken simultaneously by the most contradictory impressions. He could not bear to see Corinne in another man's arms; he shuddered at the sight of the woman he loved thus bereft of life. For like Romeo, he felt the cruel mixture of despair and love, death and desire, that make of this scene the most

129

Book VII heart-breaking in the theater. W h e n at last Juliet awakens from the t o m b — h e r lover having taken his life at its f o o t — w h e n her first words spoken from within the coffin under the dismal arches of the burial vault are not inspired by the dread she must have felt, w h e n she cries out: Where is my lord? where is my Romeo? Lord Nelvil's moans answered her cries, and he came to himself only w h e n Mr. Edgermond dragged him from the hall. Once the play ended, Corinne was exhausted and overcome with emotion. The first to reach her room, Oswald found her alone with her attendants, still dressed as Juliet and, like her, half fainting in their arms. Troubled and confused to such a degree that he could not tell whether he w a s seeing truth or fiction, Oswald threw himself at Corinne's feet and spoke these words of Romeo's in English: Eyes, look your last! arms, take your last embrace. Still distraught, Corinne exclaimed: "Good God! What are y o u saying? W o u l d y o u leave me? Would y o u want to?" "No, no," Oswald interrupted, "no, I swear . . ." Just then Corinne's many friends and admirers forced their w a y in to see her. She went on looking at Oswald, anxiously waiting for him to go on with what he had started to say, but since they were not alone for a moment, it was impossible to exchange a w o r d all evening long. Never had tragedy produced such an effect in Italy. Rapturously the Romans extolled the translation, the play, the actress. They said that this w a s truly the tragedy suited to Italians, portraying their ways, stirring their souls by enthralling their imagination, and making the most of their beautiful language with a style in turn eloquent and lyric, inspired and natural. Corinne accepted all their praise with modest cordiality, but her soul w a s still hanging on the words I swear . . . that Oswald had pronounced just as people came in, cutting off w h a t w a s to follow: t w o words that might indeed hold the secret of her destiny.

130

Book Vin STATUES AND PAINTINGS

I That night Oswald could not close his eyes. He had never been closer to giving up everything for Corinne. He did not even want to ask her secret; or at least, before knowing it, he wanted to make a solemn commitment to devote his life to her. For the space of a few hours, his mind seemed freed of all uncertainty, and he took pleasure in composing in his head the letter he would write the next day, the letter that would decide his fate. But this confidence in happiness, this calm bom of resolution, was short-lived. Soon his thoughts took him back toward the past; he remembered being in love, undeniably much less than with Corinne—and the object of that choice could not be compared with her—but still, that feeling had swept him off to irresponsible acts, acts that had broken his father's heart. " W h o knows," he exclaimed, " w h o knows whether he would not be just as fearful today that his son would forget his native land and the duty he owes her?" Addressing his father's portrait, he said: "You, the best friend I will ever have on earth, I can no longer hear your voice. But teach me what I must do to bring you some satisfaction in heaven from your son, teach me with your silent gaze, still so potent in my soul. And yet do not forget the need for happiness that consumes mortal men. Be kind in your heavenly dwelling, just as you were on earth. If I am

131

Book VIII happy for a while, if I live with this angelic creature, if I have the honor of protecting, of saving such a woman, I shall be the better for it.—Save her?" he repeated sharply. "And from what? From a life she enjoys? A life of homage, success, independence!" The thought, straight from his own mind, frightened him as if inspired by his father. In the course of emotional struggle, who has not often felt some kind of secret superstition induce us to take our own thoughts as omens, and our own suffering as a warning from heaven? Ah! What a battle rages in souls open to passion and conscience! Oswald paced back and forth in bitter turmoil, pausing from time to time to look at the softly beautiful Italian moon. The sight of nature teaches resignation, but is helpless against doubt. He was still in this state at daybreak, and the night's anxiety had so altered his appearance that when Count d'Erfeuil and Mr. Edgermond came by, they were concerned for his health. D'Erfeuil was the first to break the silence that had settled in: "You must admit that yesterday's show was delightful. Corinne is wonderful. I missed half of what she said, but her tone of voice and her expression made everything clear. What a pity that a wealthy woman has so much talent! Free as she is, she could go on the stage if she were poor, and an actress like that would be Italy's glory." Although d'Erfeuil's words pained Oswald, he did not know how to express his reaction, for the Count was a special kind of person— you could not rightfully get angry with what he said even when you found it unpleasant. Only sensitive souls know how to spare each other's feelings: so touchy in its own interests, vanity rarely notices touchiness in others. Edgermond praised Corinne in the most appropriately flattering terms. To spare Corinne from the Count's unpleasant praise, Oswald answered in English. "It would appear that I am in the way," d'Erfeuil remarked. "I shall be off to Corinne's. She will be very pleased to hear what I have to say about her acting last night. I have a few bits of advice for her, matters of detail, but details have a great deal to do with the total effect. And she is really such an amazing woman that w e must not overlook anything at all to help her reach perfection. And besides, "he said, bending close to Nelvil, "I intend to encourage her to do tragedy more often: it is a sure way of getting herself a husband among those distin-

132

Statues and Paintings guished foreigners w h o come through Rome. You and I, my dear Oswald, are not so inclined; we are so used to charming women that they cannot make us do something foolish. But a German prince, a Spanish grandee—who knows?" Beside himself at these words, Oswald rose to his feet. It is impossible to say what would have happened next had the Count noticed, but he was so pleased with his final remarks that he went off lightheartedly on tiptoe, not suspecting he had offended Lord Nelvil. Had he known, he would surely have stayed, although he loved him as much as he was capable of loving. More than vanity, the Count's splendid valor deluded him on his faults. Exquisitely scrupulous on everything touching honor, it did not occur to him that he might be found wanting where sensitivity was concerned. Rightly judging himself likable and brave, he congratulated himself on his lot, never guessing that there was anything more profound to life. None of the feelings troubling Oswald had escaped Mr. Edgermond, and w h e n the Count left, he said: "My dear Oswald, I am leaving for Naples." "Why so soon?" "Because it is not good for me to be here. I am fifty years old, and yet I am not sure that I would not go crazy over Corinne." "And if you did," interrupted Oswald, "what would happen to you?" "A w o m a n like that is not made to live in Wales. Believe me, my dear Oswald, only Englishwomen are right for England. It is not my place to give you advice, and I need not assure you that I will say nothing of what I have seen. But as lovable as Corinne is, I think like Thomas Walpole: what do you do with that at home? And as you know home is everything in our country, everything for women at least. Do you picture your beautiful Italian staying alone while you hunt or go to Parliament, and leaving you at dessert to get the tea ready for when you get up from the table? Dear Oswald, our women have domestic virtues you will find nowhere else. In Italy men have nothing to do but please women; so the more lovable women are the better. But in our country where m e n have active careers, women have to stay in the shadow, and it would be too bad to put Corinne there. I would like to see her on the throne of England, but not under my humble roof. I knew your mother, my Lord, w h o m your worthy father missed

133

Book VIII so much after her death: she was a person just like my young cousin, and that is what I would want in a wife if I were still at an age to choose and to be loved. Good-bye my dear friend. Do not hold what I have just said against me, for no one admires Corinne more than I, and perhaps if I were your age, I would be unable to give up the hope of pleasing her." As he concluded, he took Oswald's hand, clasped it cordially, and went off without Oswald's saying a single word. But Edgermond understood his silence, and satisfied with the responsiveness of Oswald's handshake, he left, eager to end a conversation he found painful. Out of all he had said, a single word had struck Oswald's heart: his mother's memory and his father's deep attachment for her. Only fourteen when he lost her, he remembered both her virtues and their quality of shy reserve with deep respect. "Fool that I am," he exclaimed when he was alone. "I want to know what kind of wife my father planned for me, and do I not already know since I can call to mind the image of my mother, his dearly beloved wife? What more do I want? And why fool myself, pretending not to know what he would think today if I could consult him still?" Nonetheless, after what had happened the night before, it would have been dreadful for Oswald to see Corinne and say nothing to confirm the feelings he had expressed. His turmoil, his suffering, so intensified that they brought a recurrence of an accidental injury he had thought cured—the healed blood vessel in his chest opened up again. While his frightened servants called for help in every direction, he wished privately that the end of his life might bring an end to his sorrows. "If I could die after seeing Corinne again, after she called me her Romeo!" And tears stole down his cheeks—the first since his father's death that another sorrow had wrenched from him. He wrote to tell Corinne of the illness confining him at home, concluding with several melancholy words. Corinne had begun the day with quite misleading anticipation: enjoying the impression she had made on Oswald, and believing herself loved, she was happy because, it might be added, she was not very clear on what she wanted. A thousand things gave her great pause when she thought of marrying Lord Nelvil; and since she was more passionate than provident, ruled by the moment and caring little about the future, this day that was to cost so much pain had begun as the most pure and serene of her life.

134

Statues and Paintings When Oswald's letter came, cruel apprehension took hold of her soul. Believing him in grave danger, she immediately left on foot, crossing the Corso1 at the time when the whole city is out walking and entering Oswald's house in full view of almost the whole of Roman society. She had not taken time to think it over, and she had run so quickly that she could not catch her breath or speak a single word as she entered Oswald's room. Lord Nelvil understood full well what she had just risked to see him; and magnifying the consequences of a deed that would have completely compromised a woman's reputation in England—particularly if she were unmarried—he felt possessed with generosity, love, and gratitude. He rose and, weak as he was, pressed Corinne to his heart, exclaiming: "No, dear friend, I shall not desert you now that your feeling for me has compromised you! now that I must make up for . . . " Grasping what he meant, Corinne quickly interrupted him, gently disengaging his embrace. After she asked about his health, which had improved, she said: "You are mistaken, my Lord. I have done nothing that most Roman women would not have done in my place by coming to see you. I heard you were ill; you are a stranger here; I am the only one you know; it is right for me to take care of you. Convention is quite worthy of respect when only oneself is sacrificed in its name; but is it not meant to give way before the true, deep feeling that arises when a friend is in danger or in pain? What would a woman's lot be if the very social conventions permitting love forbade only the irresistible impulse to fly to the aid of the one she loved? But I repeat, my Lord, do not be afraid that I am compromised by coming here. My age and my talents have earned me the freedom of a married woman in Rome. I will not hide from my friends the fact that I have come to your home. I do not know whether they disapprove of my love for you, but surely they will not disapprove of my devotion since I do love you." Hearing such natural and sincere language, Oswald felt a confused mixture of contradictory reactions. He was touched by Corinne's tactfulness, but almost angry that he had been mistaken. If only in the world's view she had committed some grave error for his sake! For that very error would have put an end to his indecision by making it his duty to marry her. He was vexed by the free ways of Italy that kept his anxiety alive by allowing him great happiness without imposing 135

Book VIII any bonds. He would have wished that honor might order him to do what he wanted. These painful thoughts aggravated his illness dangerously. Despite the most frightful anxiety, Corinne managed to lavish him with charmingly gentle care. Toward evening, Oswald seemed in greater distress, and Corinne on her knees at his bedside, was holding his head in her arms, even though she was far more troubled than he. Through his suffering, he often looked up at her with a sense of happiness. "Corinne," he said in a low voice, "read to me my father's reflections on death in this collection of his thoughts." Seeing Corinne's fright, he added: "Do not think I feel threatened, but I always read these consoling words when I am ill, and I feel that I can still hear them from his lips. Besides, dear friend, I want you to know what kind of man my father was. You will understand my sorrows better, and his influence on me, and everything I plan to confide in you one day." Corinne took up the book of reflections that Oswald always carried with him, and read several pages in a faltering voice: "Beloved of God, ye righteous men will speak of death without fear; for you it can mean but a change of dwelling place, the one you leave being the least of all, perhaps. O worlds without number that to our eyes fill infinite space! Unknown communities of God's creatures; communities of his children scattered across the firmament and set in place under the canopy of heaven, may our praises join with yours! W e do not know your circumstances; w e do not know your first, your second, your final share in the generosity of the Supreme Being; but in speaking of death and of life, of time past, of time to come, w e reach, w e are in contact with interests common to all intelligent and sentient beings, whatever the places and distances that separate them. Families of peoples, families of nations, gatherings of worlds, you say with us: Glory be to the Lord of the heavens, to the King of nature, to the God of the universe! Glory and homage to Him who can at will turn sterility into fruitfulness, shadow into reality, and death itself into eternal life! "Ah! no doubt the last few moments of the righteous are a death to be desired; but few among our forebears have witnessed such a death. Where is the man who may come fearless into the presence of the Almighty? Where is the man who has loved God single-mindedly, who has served Him from youth, and who reaching an advanced age finds

136

Statues and Paintings no cause for concern in his memories? Where is the man, then, moral in every deed, who never gives a thought to praise or to the rewards of public opinion? Where is the man so rare among men, so worthy to serve as an example to us all? Where is he? Where is he? Ah! if he exists among us, may he be encompassed with our respect. And ask— you will do well to ask permission to attend his death as the most beautiful of spectacles: but arm yourself with courage that you may closely observe him on the bed of torment from which he will not rise again. He foresees it, he is certain, and serenity reigns in his gaze, and his forehead seems encircled with a celestial halo. He says with the apostle: I know whom I have believed;2 and as his strength ebbs, his features are still animated by this trust. Already he contemplates his new homeland, but without forgetting the one he is about to leave; he belongs to his Creator and his God without thrusting aside the feelings which have graced his life. "According to the laws of nature, it is his faithful wife who, first among his loved ones, must follow him: he offers consolation, drying her tears, assuring her that he will be there to meet her in that gladsome abode he cannot imagine without her. He recalls with her the happy times they have lived through together, not to break the heart of a sensitive friend, but to increase their mutual confidence in heaven's goodness. Once more he reminds his life's companion of the tender love he has always felt for her, not to quicken regrets he would like to sooth, but to delight in the sweet thought that two lives clinging to the same stem may, perhaps, by their union, become a defense, one more guarantee in that unclear future wherein the pity of a supreme God is the last refuge of our thoughts. Alas! is it possible to form a true picture of all the emotions that invade a loving soul just as a vast solitude opens up before our eyes, just as the feelings and interests which have nourished our lives in the course of our beautiful years are to vanish forever? Ah! you who must survive this being so like you, whom heaven gave you for your sustenance, this being who was your all, and whose gaze now speaks a terrifying farewell: you will not refuse to place your hand on a failing heart, so that a last beat may speak to you even when no other language is possible any longer. And would we condemn you, dear friends, had you wished your ashes to be mingled and your mortal remains reunited in the same sanctuary? God of goodness, waken them together; or, should

137

Book VIII only one of them merit this consideration, should only one of the t w o be numbered among the elect, may the other hear the tidings, may the other glimpse the splendor of the angels just as the fate of the blessed is being proclaimed, so that he or she may k n o w yet another moment of joy before falling back into the eternal night. " A h ! perhaps w e go astray w h e n w e try to describe the last days of the sensitive man, the m a n w h o sees death stride rapidly toward him, w h o sees her ready to cut him off from all the objects of his affection. "Reviving, he summons his strength for a moment to make his last words instructive for his children. He tells them: 'Do not fear to witness the approaching end of your father, of your old friend. It is nature's law that he leave this earth before you, since he was the first to come. He will show y o u courage and yet he will draw away from y o u with sorrow. He w o u l d surely have wished to help y o u with his experience for a longer time, to take a f e w more steps with you amid the perils besetting your youth, but life is defenseless when the time comes to go down into the tomb. You will go on alone n o w , alone in a world from w h i c h I shall disappear. M a y y o u reap abundantly the treasures Providence has sown! But never forget that this world is itself a transitory homeland, and that another more enduring land is calling you. W e will see each other again perhaps; and somewhere in the sight of the Lord, I shall offer m y prayers and my tears as a sacrifice in your name. Love the religion that promises so much, love religion—that final treaty of alliance between fathers and children, between death and life . . . C o m e close! . . . Let me see y o u once more, and may the blessings of God's servant be upon y o u . . .' He dies . . . O! angels in heaven, receive his soul and leave to us on earth the memory of his deeds, the memory of his thoughts, the memory of his hopes." 3 Overcome with emotion, Oswald and Corinne interrupted the reading frequently until, at last, they were obliged to give it up. Corinne w a s afraid for Oswald to w e e p so freely. Distraught at his state, she did not realize that she was herself as troubled as he. "Yes, dear friend of m y heart," said Oswald reaching out his hand to her, "yes, your tears have mingled with my own. You w e e p for him with me, for the guardian angel w h o s e last embrace I still feel, w h o s e noble grace I still see. Perhaps you are the one he has chosen to console me, perhaps . . . " "No! N o ! " Corinne cried out. "No, he did not think me worthy."

138

Statues and Paintings " W h a t did y o u say?" Alarmed at revealing w h a t she meant to hide, Corinne repeated the words that had escaped her lips, saying only: "He would not think me w o r t h y ! " The change of wording dispelled the uneasiness aroused in Oswald's heart; and he w e n t on speaking about his father. The doctors arrived and reassured her somewhat, but they absolutely forbade Lord Nelvil to speak until the broken blood vessel in his chest had healed. For six full days, Corinne did not leave his side, and kept him from uttering a single word by gently insisting on silence every time he tried to speak. She found w a y s of varying the hours with reading, music, and sometimes with a conversation where she w a s the only speaker, striving with unflagging interest to be lively in serious matters as well as in jest. All this grace and charm masked the anxiety she felt and that had to be hidden from Nelvil; but not for a moment w a s she distracted from it. A w a r e of his suffering almost before Oswald himself, she w a s never misled by his courageous efforts to conceal it. She always found a w a y to help him, hastening to ease his pain, and trying only to divert his attention as much as possible from the care she w a s giving him. Yet whenever Oswald grew pale, the color fled from Corinne's lips also, and her hands trembled as she came to his aid. But she quickly made an effort to compose herself and smile, though her eyes were filled with tears. Occasionally, she pressed Oswald's hand to her heart as if she were trying to give him her o w n life. At last her care proved successful: Oswald recovered. "Corinne," he said, w h e n she let him speak, " w h y was my friend Edgermond not here to witness the days y o u have just spent at my side! He w o u l d have seen that y o u are as good as you are admirable. He w o u l d have seen that with you, domestic life is made up of continual delights, and that y o u differ from other w o m e n only in adding to all virtues the marvels of all charms. No, this is unreasonable; w e must put an end to the struggle tearing me apart, this struggle that has just put m e at the edge of the grave. Corinne, y o u shall hear me, y o u shall k n o w all my secrets—you w h o hide your o w n from m e — a n d y o u will decide on our fate." "If y o u feel as I d o , " Corinne replied, "our fate is not to leave each other. But will y o u believe me w h e n I tell y o u that until n o w I have not dared wish to be your wife? What I am feeling is quite n e w to me.

139

Book VIII My ideas on life, my plans for the future are turned upside down by a feeling that troubles and dominates me further each day. But I do not know whether w e can join our lives in marriage or whether w e should." "Corinne, might it be that you despise me for my hesitation? Might you ascribe it to mean considerations? Have you not guessed that the painfully deep remorse tracking me and tearing me apart for almost two years is the only thing that could prompt my uncertainty?" "I did understand. Had I suspected your motives lay elsewhere than the heart's affections, you would not be the man I love. But life does not belong exclusively to love, I know that. Habit, memories, circumstances, so entwine us somehow, that even passion cannot destroy their bonds. Torn away for a moment, they would grow back, and the ivy would get the better of the oak. M y dear Oswald, let us not give each period in our lives more than it requires. What I need right now is for you not to leave me. I live in constant terror of your going, perhaps suddenly. You are a foreigner in this country: no ties bind you here. If you left, all would be said and done; the only thing left of you would be my grief. The nature, the arts, the poetry I feel with you, and now, alas! only with you—all of that would become mute to my soul. I wake each day trembling, not knowing when I see the lovely morning light whether or not it deludes me with its resplendent beams, whether or not you are still here, you the sun at the center of my life. Oswald, relieve me of my fear, and I shall see nothing beyond that delicious security." "You do know that no Englishman ever gives up his native land," he answered, "that I can be recalled by war, t h a t . . . " "Good heavens!" Corinne exclaimed, "are you trying to prepare me? . . ." and her limbs shook as if some frightful danger were approaching. "Well then! if that is the way things are, take me with you, as a wife or as a slave . . . " But suddenly regaining her composure, she said: "Oswald, you will never leave me, will you, without letting me know? Never! Do you agree? Look here, there is not one country where a criminal is not granted a few hours to put his thoughts in order before his execution. You will not send a letter. You will come yourself to tell me. You will let me know. You will hear me out before you go away." "If I did, would I be able . . ."

140

Statues and Paintings "What! You hesitate to grant what I ask!" "No, I do not hesitate. It is as you wish! Well then, I swear that if I must leave, I shall let you know and that moment will decide our lives." "Yes," said Corinne, "it will so decide." And she left.

II In the days following Oswald's illness, Corinne carefully avoided whatever might have brought about an understanding between them. She wanted to ease her friend's life as much as possible; but she did not yet want to confide the story of her life. Everything she had observed in the course of their conversation had convinced her only too well of his probable reaction when he learned both who she was and what she had sacrificed; and nothing so frightened her as this reaction which might alienate him. Thus resorting to all pleasant stratagems she normally used to divert Oswald from his passionate anxiety, she decided to engage his mind and imagination once more through the marvels of art he had not yet seen, and so put off the moment when their fate must be decided and made clear. This state of things would be intolerable to any other feeling than love, but love offers such sweet hours, casts such charm over each minute, that, requiring an indefinite future, it still revels in the present—welcoming a day as if it were a century of happiness or sorrow, so full is that day of a host of feelings and thoughts! Unquestionably, it is through love that we can understand eternity! Love muddles all sense of time; it erases the notion of beginning and end. It is so difficult to imagine living without the loved one, that we believe we have always loved him. The more dreadful the separation, the less probable it seems. Like death, it becomes a fear we talk about more than believe in, a future that seems impossible even when we know it to be inevitable. Among the innocent ploys Corinne had kept in store to vary Oswald's diversions were statues and paintings. So one day, when Nelvil was feeling well again, she proposed that together they see the most beautiful sculpture and canvases Rome had to offer. "It is shame141

Book VIII ful not to know them," she told him, smiling, "and tomorrow we must begin our tour of museums and galleries." "Your wish is my command," he answered. "But truly, Corinne, there is no need to rely on extraneous measures to keep me at your side. On the contrary, turning my eyes from you to any object whatsoever is a sacrifice made for your sake." First they went to the Vatican Museum, that palace of statues where you see the human countenance made divine by paganism, just as Christianity now makes the soul's emotions divine. Corinne called Nelvil's attention to those silent rooms where images of the gods and heroes are assembled; there the most perfect beauty, eternally at rest, seems to delight in itself. Contemplation of those admirable lines and shapes reveals an indefinable divine plan for humanity, expressed in the noble face that has been granted to man. Through this contemplation, the soul rises to the level of hope filled with enthusiasm and virtue, for beauty is one in the universe, and whatever form it takes, it stirs religious feeling in the human soul. These faces are sheer poetry, the most sublime expression is set there forever, and the greatest thoughts are clothed in an image worthy of them! In the ancient world, a sculptor sometimes made but one statue in his lifetime; it was his whole story. Each day he would perfect it; if he loved, if he was loved, if he drew some new impression from nature or the arts, he embellished his hero's features with remembrance and feeling. Thus would he be able to translate all his soul's emotion for the eye of the viewer. In our modern day, society is so cold and oppressive that suffering is man's noblest aspect, and any man who has not suffered has neither felt nor thought. But in earlier times, there was something nobler than pain; it was heroic equanimity, the sense of strength that could develop among uneqivocally free institutions. Greece's most beautiful statues have rarely suggested anything but repose. The Laocoon and Niobe alone portray violent grief; but both call heaven's vengeance to mind, and not passions born in the human heart. The moral being was so soundly organized among the ancients, air circulated so freely in their broad chests, and the political system harmonized so well with human faculties that the uneasy souls we find today scarcely existed. The soul's disquiet leads us to discover many subtle ideas but does not provide the arts—particularly sculp-

142

Statues and Paintings ture—with the bare emotion, the primitive basis of feelings that can alone be expressed through everlasting marble. Few traces of melancholy are found in their statues. A head of Apollo in the Giustiani Palace, another of the dying Alexander are the only ones to suggest musing and tormented frames of mind, but to all appearances, both sculptures date from the era when Greece was reduced to slavery. From then on, the pride and peace of soul that produced the masterpieces of sculpture and poetry out of the same spirit were no longer to be found among the ancients. When thought is no longer nourished from without, it turns in upon itself, analyzing, shaping, burrowing into the inner feelings; but no longer does it have the creative power that implies both happiness and the fullness of strength that happiness alone can provide. Among the ancients, the sarcophagus itself brings only warlike or cheerful ideas to mind: in the host of those found in the Vatican Museum, battles and games are depicted on the tombs in bas-relief. The ancients believed that the finest homage to be offered the dead was the memory of life's activity. Nothing weakened, nothing diminished this strength. Encouragement, emulation: these were the principles of the arts as of politics; there was room for all virtues as for all talents. The common run of men gloried in their ability to admire, and so the cult of genius was served by the very people who had no hope of aspiring to its crowns. Unlike Christianity, Greek religion was not consolation for unhappiness; it was not the wealth of poverty, the hope of the dying; it willed glory and triumph, and in a sense it wrought the apotheosis of man. In this cult of the perishable, beauty itself was religious dogma. Were artists called upon to paint low and savage passions, they saved the human face from shame by adding a few animal features as in fauns and centaurs. And to raise beauty to the sublime, they combined in their statues of men and women—in the warrior Minerva and the Apollo Musagetes—the charm of the two sexes: strength with gentleness, gentleness with strength, a felicitous blending of two opposite qualities, each of which would be imperfect in isolation. As Corinne went on with her remarks, she stopped a while with Oswald before sleeping statues set on tombs that show the art of sculpture in the most pleasing light. She pointed out that whenever statues

143

Book VIII are meant to depict action, the arrested motion evokes a kind of surprise that is sometimes painful. But in sleep or simply in a pose of complete rest, statues offer an image of everlasting calm that harmonizes marvelously with the usual effect of southern lands on mankind. There the arts seem peaceful spectators of nature, and the very genius that stirs up the soul in the north is but one more harmony under beautiful skies. Oswald and Corinne went on to the room displaying the sculptured images of animals and reptiles, and by chance the statue of Tiberius stands in the middle of this court: animals and emperor were unintentionally placed together, and on their own these pieces of marble have lined up around their master.4 Another room holds the sad, stern monuments of the Egyptians, a people whose statuary looks more like mummies than men, who with their silent, rigid, and servile institutions seem to have assimilated life to death as far as they could. Egyptians excelled far more in the art of imitating animals than men, for they seemed to find the domain of the soul inaccessible. Next come the porticos of the museum where at every turn another masterpiece comes into view. Vases, altars, ornaments of every kind surround Apollo, the Laocoon, the Muses. There we learn to feel Homer and Sophocles; there, revealed to the soul, is a knowledge of antiquity impossible to acquire elsewhere. It is useless to rely on history books to understand the spirit of peoples. What we see excites many more ideas in us than what w e read, and concrete objects provoke strong emotion that makes study of the past as interesting and alive as the contemporary men and events we know through observation. Amid superb porticos sheltering so many marvels, fountains flow uninterruptedly, gently reminding us of the passing time, just as they did two thousand years ago when the sculptors of these masterpieces were still alive. But the most melancholy impression in the Vatican Museum comes from contemplating the bits and pieces of statues collected there: the bust of Hercules, heads separated from bodies, a foot of Jupiter suggesting a larger, more perfect statue than any we know. W e seem to be looking at a battlefield where time has fought genius, and these mutilated limbs attest its victory and our loss. When they left the Vatican, Corinne took Oswald to the colossae

144

Statues and Paintings of Monte Cavallo—the two statues said to portray Castor and Pollux. Each of the two heroes is subduing a spirited bucking horse with a single hand. Like all the works of the ancients, those gigantic forms, that struggle of man with animals, give an admirable idea of the physical power of human nature. But there is something noble in that power no longer to be found in our social order where most physical exercise is given over to the people. What might be called the animal strength of human nature is not what catches the eye in these masterpieces. It seems that there was a closer blending of physical and moral qualities in the ancients who lived constantly in the midst of war— war that was almost hand-to-hand combat. Strength of body and generosity of soul, dignity of features and pride of character, the height of the statue and the authority of command were inseparable ideas in a time before an entirely intellectual religion placed man's power in his soul. The human form, which was also the form of the gods, seemed symbolic; and the sinewy colossus that was Hercules, and all the classical forms of that type, do not call to mind the common ideas of everyday life, but rather the all-powerful will, the divine will appearing under the sign of supernatural physical strength. Corinne and Lord Nelvil ended their day with a visit to the studio of Canova, the greatest modern sculptor.5 Since it was late, they had it shown by torchlight which set off the statues to great advantage. The ancients were of the same mind, since they often placed sculptures in their baths which were cut off from the light of day. Shadow, more pronounced by the light of torches, tones down the dazzling uniformity of marble; appearing as pale shapes, statues have a more touching quality of both grace and life. In Canova's studio, there was a fine statue intended for a tomb: it depicted the Spirit of Sorrow leaning for support on a lion, that symbol of strength. As she gazed at this statue, Corinne thought she found some resemblance to Oswald, and it struck the artist himself. To avoid attracting that kind of attention, Nelvil turned away, but he murmured to his friend: "Before I met you, Corinne, I was condemned to that eternal sorrow, but you have changed my life; and a heart that was meant to know nothing but regret any longer, is sometimes filled with hope, and always with an uneasy delight."

145

Book VIII

III The masterpieces of painting were collected in Rome at the time, and in this respect, she was vastly more wealthy than the rest of the world.6 There could be only one point of debate on the effect produced by these masterpieces: do the subjects chosen by the great Italian artists lend themselves to all the variety, to all the originality of passion and character that painting is capable of expressing? Oswald and Corinne disagreed, but their differences here as in everything else had to do with differences of nations, climates, and religions. Corinne maintained that religious subjects were the most suited to painting. She said that sculpture was the art of paganism as painting was that of Christianity, and that in these arts, as in poetry, we may discover the qualities distinguishing ancient and modem literature. The canvases of Michelangelo, painter of the Bible, of Raphael, painter of the Gospels, imply as much depth and sensitivity as may be found in Shakespeare and Racine. Sculpture can offer only a vigorous and simple existence to the eye, whereas painting suggests the mysteries of communion with the self, giving voice to the immortal soul through evanescent color. Corinne also held that events drawn from history or poetry were rarely pictorial. Painters from earlier times wrote the words their subjects were to speak on ribbons issuing from their mouths; often historical paintings would be comprehensible only if this practice had been retained. But religious subjects are immediately understood by everyone, and attention is not diverted from art to the problem of guessing what it means. For Corinne, modern painting was often theatrical, bearing the stamp of an age when unlike Andrea Mantegna, Perugino, and Leonardo da Vinci, people no longer knew that oneness of existence, that natural spontaneity, which still reflect antiquity's peace of mind. But the depth of emotion characterizing Christianity is associated with this peace. Corinne admired the artless composition of Raphael's painting, particularly his early manner. All heads are turned toward some main subject, although the artist had not planned to have the group strike a pose or to work on the effect it might produce. Corinne said that in the imaginative arts, as in everything else, this sincerity is the stamp of genius, and that when success is the motive, enthusiasm

146

Statues and Paintings is almost always destroyed. She claimed that painting like poetry has its rhetoric, and that those who did not know how to portray character compensated with incidental embellishments, combining all the prestige of a splendid object with rich costumes and striking poses. And yet a simple virgin holding her child in her arms, an attentive old man at the Mass of Bolsena, a man leaning on his stick in the School of Athens, Saint Cecilia looking up to heaven 7 made a far deeper impression through the expression of their eyes and countenances alone. This natural beauty is revealed more fully with each day, but for ostentatious paintings, the first glance is always the most striking.8 Corinne added an observation strengthening her line of thought further still: since the religious feeling of the Greeks and Romans, as well as every other aspect of their mind-set and their spirit, cannot be ours, it is impossible for us to create the way they did, to invent new ideas in what might be called their territory. They can be imitated by dint of study, but how could genius soar where memory and erudition are so vital! The situation is different for subjects belonging to our own history or to our own religion: painters can tap their own personal inspiration, feeling what they paint, painting what they have seen. They use life to imagine life, but if they project themselves into antiquity they must invent in the light of books and statues. Ultimately, in Corinne's view, nothing could replace the benefit of religious paintings for the soul. In her judgment, they suggested a holy enthusiasm in the artist that, blending with genius, renews and quickens, and alone has the power to sustain genius in the face of life's discouragements and man's injustice. In some respects, Oswald's impressions were different. First of all, he was almost shocked to see the divine countenance clothed in human features as Michelangelo conceived it. He believed that thought dare not give Him form, and that in the very depths of the human soul, there is scarcely an idea conceptualized enough, ethereal enough, to reach the level of the Supreme Being. As for paintings based on the Scriptures, it seemed to Oswald that their expression and imagery left a great deal to be desired. Like Corinne he believed that religious meditation, as the innermost feeling possible to man, presents to painters the greatest mysteries of the countenance and its expressions. But since religion represses all impulses of the heart that 147

Book VIII it does not immediately inspire, there can be little variation in the faces of saints and martyrs. So noble in heaven's eye, the feeling of humility weakens the energy of earthly passions: consequently, most religious subjects have a certain sameness. When, with his terrifying talent, Michelangelo decided to paint these subjects, he almost changed their spirit by giving a formidably powerful expression to his prophets that made them into Jupiters rather than saints. Like Dante, he often uses pagan images, mingling mythology with the Christian religion. One of the most wonderful situations in early Christianity is the lowly state of the apostles who preached it, the poverty and servitude of the Jewish people holding in trust over a long period of time the promises foretelling Christ. The insignificance of the means and the grandeur of the results are morally beautiful in their contrast; but in painting, where the means alone are visible, Christian subjects are necessarily less dazzling than those handed down from the age of heroic legends. Among the arts, music alone can be purely religious. So dreamy and vague an expression as sound could not satisfy painting. Although it is true that a happy combination of color with light and shade produces a kind of musical effect, painting represents life and is called upon to express the passions in their full strength and diversity. Clearly, the historical events chosen must be so famous that no study is required to understand them; for the pleasure offered by painting, like the other arts, depends first of all on a swift and immediate effect. And when historical events are as well known as religious subjects, they have the advantage of the variety of situations and feelings they describe. Lord Nelvil thought, too, that preference should be given to scenes from tragedy, or the most touching poetic fictions, so that all the pleasures of the imagination and the soul might be brought together. Convinced that the encroachment of one art upon another was prejudicial to them both, Corinne fought this view, however tempting she found it. In striving to reproduce the groupings found in painting, sculpture loses its special advantages, as does painting when it reaches for dramatic expression. Unlimited in their effects, the arts are limited in their means. Genius does not attempt to fight the essence of things; on the contrary, its superiority consists in apprehending what that essence is. "You, my dear Oswald, do not love the arts in themselves," said Co-

148

Statues and Paintings rinne, "but only in relation to the feelings or the mind. You are moved only by what suggests the heart's suffering to you. Music and poetry suit that temperament; while the visual arts, even in signifying the ideal, please and interest us only w h e n our soul is at peace and our imagination completely free. To savor them, we require the serenity born of a beautiful day, a beautiful climate, and not the gaiety society inspires. In the arts representing external objects, we must feel the universal harmony of nature; and when our soul is troubled, we no longer have that harmony within, for unhappiness has destroyed it." "I do not k n o w whether the only thing I look for in the arts is what can bring the soul's torment to mind, but I do know at least that I cannot bear the portrayal of physical pain. My strongest objection to Christian subjects in painting is the distress we are made to feel by the image of blood, wounds, and torture, even though the noblest enthusiasm has inspired the victims. Philoctetes is perhaps the only tragic subject admitting of physical ills. But what a host of poetic circumstances surround them! For Hercules' arrows have brought them about; the son of Aesculapius is to cure them. Indeed, the wound almost merges with the moral indignation it gives rise to in the person struck down, and so cannot excite any sense of disgust. But in Raphael's splendid Transfiguration, the possessed man's face is an unpleasant image. It is completely devoid of the dignity of the arts which must reveal to us the charm of sorrow and the melancholy of prosperity; they must portray the ideal of h u m a n destiny in each individual circumstance. Nothing so torments our imagination as bloody sores or nervous convulsions. In such paintings, it is impossible not to look for a precise imitation of reality, impossible not to dread finding it. What pleasure would come from an art made up exclusively of that kind of imitation? It is more horrible or more beautiful than nature herself from the moment its only aim is to resemble her." "You are right, my Lord, in wanting to remove distressing images from Christian subjects where they are unnecessary. But even so, admit that genius, and the soul's genius, can overcome every difficulty. Look at Domenichino's Last Communion of Saint Jerome. The venerable m a n is dying, his emaciated body is livid: it is death that is rising up, but eternal life is in the saint's expression, and all the world's woes are there only to vanish before the pure splendor of religious feeling. And yet, dear Oswald, though I do not agree with you in

149

Book VIII everything, I want to show you that even when we differ, we always have something in common. I have tried out your idea in a private gallery that some of my artist friends have put together for me and that includes some of my own sketches. There you will see the flaws and the good points of the subjects you like in painting. The gallery is in my country house in Tivoli. The weather is good enough. Shall we go there tomorrow?" Since she paused for his consent, he said: "My friend, can you have any doubt about my answer? Do I have any other happiness than you in the world, or any other idea? And my life—well, perhaps I have gone too far in freeing it of all pursuits and interests, but is it not filled exclusively with the happiness of hearing and seeing you?"

IV The next day they left for Tivoli. Oswald himself drove the four horses that pulled their carriage, enjoying their rapid pace, a pace that seems to intensify the sense of being alive—a sweet feeling when we are beside the person we love. For fear of the slightest accident to Corinne, he drove with extreme care, showing the protectiveness that forms man's sweetest bond with woman. Unlike most women, Corinne was not easily frightened by the dangers of the road; but she was so pleased with Oswald's solicitude that she would almost have been glad to be afraid, just so that he could reassure her. As we will see later on, what gave Lord Nelvil such great influence over his friend's heart were the unexpected contrasts that lent his whole temperament a special charm. Everyone admired his intelligence and graceful countenance, but inevitably he appealed most to a person combining those qualities of constancy and change in uncommon harmony, a person w h o enjoyed impressions at once varied and stable. He never paid attention to anything but Corinne, and that very attention constantly took different forms: sometimes restraint held sway, sometimes spontaneity; sometimes perfect tenderness; sometimes a bitter gloom, proving the depth of his feeling, but unsettling the sense of security and constantly giving rise to new emotion. Inwardly disturbed, Oswald sought to control himself outwardly; and

150

Statues and Paintings the w o m a n w h o loved him was endlessly absorbed in trying to read the mystery he presented. It would seem that even Oswald's faults were made to heighten his attraction. However distinguished, no m a n would have so captivated Corinne's imagination had his character lacked contradiction and struggle. A kind of fear of Oswald held her in bondage to him, and he reigned over her soul by a power both good and evil, by his qualities and by the anxiety these ill-assorted qualities could inspire. Ultimately, there was no security in the happiness Lord Nelvil offered; perhaps the rapture of Corinne's passion must be explained by this very flaw; perhaps the only m a n she could love to such heights was the one she was afraid of losing. A superior mind, a sensibility as fervent as it is refined, could weary of everything except a truly superior m a n whose constantly turbulent soul, like the sky itself, seemed now serene, n o w covered with clouds. Although he was always genuine, always deep and passionate, Oswald was often on the point of giving up the object of his tenderness, because long experience of sorrow gave him to believe that nothing but remorse and suffering could come of the heart's affections when they were too strong. On their journey to Tivoli, Nelvil and Corinne went by the ruins of Hadrian's Palace and the vast gardens surrounding it. In this garden Hadrian had assembled the most unusual works, the finest masterpieces of the countries conquered by Rome. Scattered stones called Egypt, India, and Asia may still be seen there today. Farther along is the refuge where Zenobia, Queen of Palmyra, finished out her days. In adversity, she did not manage to die for glory like a man, nor, like a woman, to die rather than betray her friend. At last they came upon Tivoli, home to so many famous men— Brutus, Augustus, Maecenas, Catullus—but above all, the home of Horace, for it is his poetry that has made Tivoli famous. Corinne's house was built above the Teverone's clamorous waterfall. On the mountaintop, facing her garden, was the temple of the Sibyl. It is a fine idea to place temples on the heights as the ancients did. They dominated the countryside just as religious ideas held sway over all other thoughts. They inspired greater enthusiasm for nature by proclaiming both the divine source from which it comes, and the eternal gratitude to that source of the successive generations. From whatever vantage point, the countryside formed a picture with the temple as its center or

151

Book VIII its main ornament. Ruins shed a unique charm over the Italian landscape. Unlike modern structures, they do not suggest man's presence and his work; they blend with the trees, with nature; they seem in harmony with the lonely mountain stream, image of time which has made them what they are. If they bring no recollections to mind, if they bear no trace of some remarkable event, the loveliest countries of the world are devoid of interest compared to those with a history. Where in Italy could there be a place better suited for Corinne's house than the dwelling consecrated to the Sibyl, to the memory of a woman quickened with divine inspiration! Corinne's house was entrancing. It was decorated with the elegance of modern taste, and yet visitors sensed the charm of an imagination delighting in antique beauty. Evident here was an unusual understanding of happiness in the highest meaning of the word; conceived as all that enobles the soul, it stimulates thought and sharpens talent. Strolling with Corinne, Oswald noticed that the sound of the wind was melodious, scattering chords through the air which seemed to come from the sway of the flowers, from the stir of the trees, and to lend nature a voice. Corinne explained that the wind set ringing the Aeolian harps she had placed in a few grottos around the garden to fill the atmosphere with sound as well as perfume. Oswald was inspired by the purest feeling in these delightful surroundings. "Look here," he said to Corinne, "until today I felt guilty at the happiness I have known with you; but now I tell myself that my father himself has sent you to me so that I might not suffer any more on this earth. He is the one I hurt, and yet it is he whose prayers in heaven have w o n my pardon. Corinne," he exclaimed falling on his knees, " I am forgiven. I sense it by the sweetly innocent peace reigning in my soul. You can join your life to mine without fear: fate is no longer opposed." " W e l l ! " said Corinne. "Let us enjoy the peace that has been granted us for a while. Let us not tamper with destiny: she is so frightening when one tries to meddle with her, when one strives to gain more than she gives! Dear friend, since w e are happy, let us change nothing!" Corinne's response hurt Nelvil. He thought she must understand his readiness to tell her everything, to promise her everything if she

152

Statues and Paintings confided her story to him straightway, and this mode of putting it off again offended him by the distress it caused. He failed to see that Corinne's delicacy kept her from taking advantage of Oswald's emotion to bind him with a vow. Perhaps, too, it is in the nature of deep, true love to fear a solemn moment, however longed for, and only in trembling to exchange hope even for happiness. Far from seeing matters in this light, Oswald was convinced that Corinne wanted to retain her independence even though she loved him, and that she carefully kept away anything that might lead to an indissoluble union. The thought was painfully vexing; and immediately assuming a cold, constrained air, he followed Corinne through the gallery of paintings without a word. She very quickly sensed the impression she had made but, knowing his pride, did not dare tell him what she had noticed. Still, in showing her paintings and speaking on general ideas, she had the vague hope of soothing him, a hope that lent her voice a more touching charm although her words were inconsequential. Her gallery was composed of historical paintings, canvases with poetic and religious subjects, and landscapes. Not one composition showed a large number of figures: that type of painting is no doubt very difficult, but it gives less pleasure, since its beauties are too indistinct or too detailed. The focus of interest—that principle of life in art as in everything else—is necessarily broken up. The first historical painting showed Brutus, seated at the base of the statue of Rome, deep in contemplation. In the background, slaves bear away his two lifeless sons whom he himself had sentenced to death; and on the other side of the painting, the mother and sisters give way to despair: fortunately, women are not bound to the courage that makes people sacrifice the affections of the heart. Placing the statue of Rome beside Brutus is a fine idea, for it tells everything. Yet without an explanation, how could we know that it is Brutus the Elder who had just sent his sons off to be executed? 9 Nonetheless the nature of the event could not be set forth more clearly than in this picture. In the distance Rome is seen, still simple, without public buildings, unadorned, but great indeed as a fatherland since it inspires such a sacrifice. "No doubt when I mentioned the name Brutus," Corinne remarked, "you fastened on this painting with all your soul; but you could have seen it without guessing the subject. And that ambiguity is

153

Book VIII almost always found in historical paintings. Does it not mix the tension of a riddle with the pleasures of the arts which are meant to be so easy and so clear? "I have chosen this subject because it recalls the most fearful act ever inspired by love for the land of one's fathers. Its counterpart is Marius spared by the Cimbri10 who cannot bring himself to kill this great man. Marius's face is commanding; the Cimbri's clothing and facial expression are highly pictorial. It is during Rome's second period, when there were no longer any laws, but genius still held great influence over events. In the following period, talent and glory attracted nothing but insult and misfortune. The third painting you see here shows Belisarius, carrying across his shoulder the young guide who died asking alms for him. Belisarius is blind and a beggar now, for thus did his master reward him; and in a universe he conquered, his only task is to bear to the grave the sad remains of the poor child who had not deserted him. That face of Belisarius is splendid, and since the days of antiquity, scarcely any so beautiful have been done. Like the poet's imagination, the painter's has combined every kind of misfortune, and perhaps too many to inspire pity. But who tells us that Belisarius is the subject? To bring that fact to the mind, must not the painter be faithful to history, and if he is, will his work be sufficiently faithful to the aesthetic of painting? In Brutus, these pictures show virtues that are the very image of the crime; in Marius, glory as the source of misfortune; in Belisarius, service paid for by the foulest persecution—in a word, all the woes of human destiny with each recounted by history in its own way. Next to these I have hung two paintings of the old school which sooth the depressed soul somewhat by recalling the religion that has comforted the ravaged and enslaved universe, the religion that provided the depths of the heart with life when everything outside was nothing but oppression and silence. Albano did the first, painting the Christ child asleep on the cross. See how meek the face is, how serene! What pure ideas it calls to mind! How clearly it makes us feel that divine love has nothing to fear from sorrow or from death! Titian painted the second; it is Jesus falling under the burden of the cross. Catching sight of Him, His mother throws herself on her knees. How splendid a mother's respect for her son's misfortunes and heavenly virtues! What an expression there is on the face of Christ! What divine resignation and yet what suffering; and

154

Statues and Paintings through that suffering, what compassion for the heart of man! Of all my paintings, this is surely the most beautiful. It is the one my eyes always go back to, and yet the emotion it brings is never exhausted. "Next," Corinne went on, "come the dramatic paintings drawn from four great poets. Let us consider the effect they produce, my Lord. The first portrays Aeneas in the Elysian Fields, when he tries to approach Dido. The indignant shade moves off, pleased that she no longer bears in her breast a heart that might still beat with love at the sight of the guilty man. The misty color of the shades, and the pale nature around them, contrast with the lifelike air of Aeneas and the Sibyl leading him. But that kind of effect is in the artist's execution, and is necessarily inferior to the poet's description. I will say as much for the picture you see here: Tancred and the dying Clorinda. It can move one to pity, largely by calling to mind Tasso's beautiful lines when Clorinda forgives the enemy who adores her and has just stabbed her through the heart. When painting is devoted to subjects treated by great poets, it is necessarily subordinated to poetry, for the impression left by the words obliterates everything, and the situations they have chosen almost always draw their greatest strength from the eloquent development of passion. Most pictorial effects, however, are born of serene beauty, simplicity of expression, a noble attitude: in sum, a moment of repose worthy of enduring indefinitely, without the eye ever tiring of it. "Your terrifying Shakespeare has provided the subject of the third dramatic painting. It is Macbeth, the invincible Macbeth! About to fight Macduff whose wife and children he has put to death, he learns that the witches' prophecy has come to pass: Birnam Wood seems to be advancing on Dunsinane, and he is doing battle with a man born after the death of his own mother. Macbeth is conquered by fate, but not by his adversary. Desperately clutching his sword, knowing he will die, he wants to test whether human strength might not win out over destiny. Certainly that head beautifully expresses chaotic rage, disarray, and energy; but how much of the beauty of the poet's style has inevitably been forsaken! Is it possible to paint Macbeth hurled into crime by the lure of ambition offered in the guise of witchcraft? How can his terror be expressed, a terror that admits of intrepid courage? Is it possible to express pictorially the kind of superstition burdening him? the belief shorn of dignity, the hell that fatally weighs on 155

Book VIII him, his scorn of life, his horror of death? Surely the human physiognomy is the greatest of mysteries, but set into a picture, it can scarcely express more than the depths of a single emotion. Ultimately, contrast, struggle, event belong to the dramatic art. Sequence is not easily rendered in painting—a medium where neither time nor movement exists." Showing Lord Nelvil the fourth painting, Corinne went on to say that Racine's Phèdre had supplied the subject. "With all the beauty of youth and innocence, Hippolytus denies his stepmother's treacherous charges. The hero, Theseus, his conqueror's arm around his guilty wife, protects her still. Phaedra wears a chilling look of disarray that strikes the viewer with dread; and her remorseless nurse encourages her crime. Hippolytus, even more beautiful in this painting than in Racine, looks more like Meleager of old, for no love for Aricia disturbs the impression of his noble and primitive nature. But is it possible to imagine Phaedra maintaining her lie in front of Hippolytus, seeing him innocent and persecuted without falling at his feet? Spurned, a woman may scurrilously attack the man she loves in his absence; but as soon as she sees him, there is nothing in her heart but love. Once Phaedra has slandered Hippolytus, the poet never again brings them together on stage; the painter had no choice, since he needed to bring out all the beauty of contrast. But does this not prove that there is always such difference between poetic and pictorial subjects, that it is better for poets to write verse based on paintings than for painters to draw their material from poets? Imagination must always precede thought; the proof lies in the history of the human spirit." As Corinne went on explaining her paintings to Lord Nelvil, she paused from time to time, hoping he would speak. But not one word betrayed the secret of his wounded soul, except that at each sensitive idea she expressed, he would sigh and turn his head away so that she might not see how easily he was moved in his present mood. His silence weighing on her, she sat down and buried her face in her hands. For a time, Nelvil strode rapidly around the room. Then he came toward Corinne and was just about to reproach her and yield to his feelings, when an absolutely unconquerable surge of characteristic pride repressed his emotion, so that he turned back to the paintings as if he were waiting for Corinne to finish her commentary. She pinned

156

Statues and Paintings her hopes upon the very last, and making an effort to look calm herself, she rose and said: "My Lord, I have three landscapes left to show you; two allude to interesting ideas—I am not very fond of pastoral scenes that are as insipid in paintings as in romances when they make no allusion to fables or history. To my way of thinking Salvator Rosa's style is the best in this genre. As you can see in this painting, it depicts a rock, a mountain stream, and trees, without a single living creature, without even a bird in flight to suggest the idea of life. The absence of m a n in the midst of nature provokes deep reflection. What would this earth be like were it thus forsaken? A creation without purpose, yet so beautiful still, and whose mysterious emanations would speak to none but the Divine Being! "Finally, here are the two paintings where, in my opinion, history and poetry are successfully combined with the landscape. 11 One of them portrays the moment when the consuls invite Cincinnatus to leave his plough and take command of the Roman armies. In this landscape, you will see all the luxuriance of the south, its plentiful vegetation, its burning sky, all nature's smiling aspect found in the very appearance of the plant life. By way of contrast, the other painting shows Cairbar's son asleep on his father's grave. For three days and three nights he has been awaiting the bard who is to do the honors in memory of the dead. The bard is perceived in the distance, coming down from the mountain; the father's ghost hovers on the clouds; the countryside is covered with frost; stripped bare, the trees stir in the wind, and their dead branches and dried-out leaves still sway in the direction of the storm." Until that moment, Oswald held to his resentment for what had happened in the garden, but the spirit of this canvas reminded him of his father's grave and the mountains of Scotland, and his eyes filled with tears. Corinne took up her harp, and in front of this painting began to sing Scottish ballads whose simple notes seem to keep pace with the sound of the wind moaning in the valleys. She sang a warrior's farewell as he left the land of his fathers and the woman he loved, 12 and as she gave moving expression to two of the most harmonious and sensitive English words: no more, Oswald offered no resistance to the emotion weighing him down, and both of them freely gave way to their tears.

157

Book VIII "Ah! that country, my native land—does it mean nothing to your heart? Would you follow me into that refuge peopled with my memories? Would you be the worthy companion of my life, just as you are its charm and enchantment?" "I think so. I think so because I love you." "In the name of love and pity, hide nothing from me any longer." "That is your wish," Corinne interrupted. "So I consent. My promise is given. I make only one condition: that you do not ask me to keep it before the coming season of our religious ceremonies. Do I not need heaven's support more than ever at the time I am to decide my fate?" "Nonsense!" Nelvil exclaimed. "If that fate depends on me, Corinne, it is no longer in question." "Do you think so? I am not so sure; but in any case, I beg you, be generous with my weakness just as I ask." Oswald sighed, neither granting nor refusing the requested delay. "Let us leave for the city now," Corinne went on. "How could I keep anything from you in this solitude! And if what I have to tell you drives you away from me, if it were necessary, so soon. . . Let us leave, Oswald. Whatever happens, you will come back to this place; my ashes will rest here." Moved, troubled, Oswald obeyed. They scarcely exchanged a word along the way. From time to time they looked at each other with eloquent affection; still, melancholy reigned in the depths of their souls when they reached the center of Rome.

158

Book IX THE FOLK FESTIVAL AND MUSIC

I It was the day of the most uproarious merrymaking of the year, at the end of Carnival, when the Roman people are seized with some frantic urge for joy, a craze for entertainment without parallel elsewhere. 1 The whole city goes into disguise; there is hardly a person left unmasked to play spectator for those in costume. Once the gaiety begins at a designated moment on a particular day, public and personal events rarely interfere with anyone's pleasure. Here one can form an opinion on the breadth and imagination of the common people, for the Italian language is full of charm even when they speak it. Alfieri used to say that he went to the public marketplace in Florence to leam good Italian. Rome offers the same advantage, and these are perhaps the only two cities in the world where the common people speak so well that the pleasure of wit can be found on every street corner. The kind of gaiety shining in the authors of harlequinades and opera buffa is very common even among the uneducated. During Carnival, when exaggeration and caricature are accepted practice, the most comical exchanges occur between the masqueraders. Often a grotesque solemnity contrasts with the liveliness of the Italians, and their strange clothes might be said to inspire them with an

159

Book IX unnatural dignity. At other times, their costumes display such amazing knowledge of mythology that one would think the ancient stories were still popular in Rome. More often, they make fun of the different stations in society with robust, original jokes. This nation seems a thousand times more distinguished in its games than in its history. The language lends itself to all the nuances of gaiety with an ease requiring but a light inflection of the voice, a slightly different suffix to enhance or diminish, ennoble or travesty the meaning of words. It is especially graceful in the mouths of children: the innocence of the age and the mischievous quality natural to the language make a very sharp contrast. 2 Indeed this language would appear to work all by itself, putting things into words without our interference, and always wittier than the people who speak it. There is neither luxury nor good taste in Carnival. A sort of universal irrepressibility gives it the appearance of the bachannalia imagination conjures, but imagination alone; for Romans are generally temperate and even rather solemn except during the last days of Carnival. One makes all sorts of unexpected discoveries about the character of Italians, and this helps give them a reputation for cunning. To be sure, dissembling is widely practiced in this country which has borne so many different yokes; but the rapid shift from one temperament to another must not always be ascribed to deceit, for it often rises from an easily kindled imagination. Merely rational and witty peoples are predictable and easily understood; but everything having to do with imagination is unexpected. It skips over transitions; it can be wounded by a mere nothing and is sometimes indifferent to what should move it most. Its processes are independent of everything that is not itself, and its reactions cannot be predicted from knowing what stimulated them. For example, the pleasure found by the great Roman lords in riding from one end of the Corso to the other for hours on end, during Carnival or the other days of the year, is absolutely incomprehensible. Nothing is allowed to interfere with this practice. Also a number of the masqueraders walk about in the most tiresome manner, wearing the most absurd costumes; these men are sad Harlequins, taciturn Punchinellos, saying not a word the whole evening long, but satisfying their Carnival conscience by neglecting nothing in the pursuit of a good time.

160

Folk Festival and Music A kind of mask found in Rome and nowhere else is adapted from the faces of ancient statues. Seen from a distance, it gives the effect of perfect beauty: a woman often loses a great deal in taking it off. And yet this motionless imitation of life, these strolling wax faces are frightening in a way. The great lords display rather luxurious carriages on the last days of Carnival, but the pleasure of the festival is the crowd, the commotion: it is like a remembrance of the Saturnalia. All classes of Roman society mingle, with the most solemn magistrates riding diligently, almost officially, amid the mummers. All the windows are decorated; the whole city is in the streets: it is truly a folk festival. The people do not find their pleasure in either the spectacles or the banquets provided for them, or in the splendor before their eyes; they do not overindulge in wine or food. Their joy is in being set free, in being among the great lords who, in turn, enjoy being among the people. More than anything else, refinement and subtlety of pleasure set a barrier between the different classes, as well as the perfection and studied elegance of upbringing; but in Italy, social status of this sort is not marked very perceptibly, and the country is more notable for the natural talent and imagination of the whole than for the cultivation of the upper classes. Thus during Carnival there is a complete mingling of classes, customs, and minds; and the crowds and the cries, and the quips, and the great quantities of sugared almonds tossed indiscriminately into the coaches as they pass by,3 jumble all human beings together, as if no social order existed any longer. Corinne and Lord Nelvil, both of them musing and pensive, arrived in the middle of this uproar. At first they were dazed, for when the soul is completely turned inward, nothing seems stranger than the hubbub of rollicking pleasure. They stopped at the Piazza del Popolo to go into the amphitheater near the obelisk to see the horses race.4 Just as they were getting out of their coach Count d'Erfeuil saw them and took Oswald aside: "It is not right to be seen in public coming back from the country alone with Corinne: you will compromise her, and then what will you do?" "I do not think I am compromising Corinne by showing the affection she inspires. But were that the case, I would be only too happy to devote my life . . . " "Ah! as far as happiness goes," interrupted d'Erfeuil, "I do not be-

161

Book IX lieve a word of that. One is happy only when one behaves appropriately. Do what you will, society wields great power over happiness, and one must never act against its sanctions." "In that case, we would always live in terms of what society will say about us, and what w e think and feel would never serve as guide. If that were the way things are, if we had to imitate each other constantly, what would be the use of a soul and a mind for each of us? Providence could have spared herself that luxury." "That is all very well," replied the Count, "quite philosophically thought, but one is done for with that sort of precept, and when love is gone, public censure remains. To you I seem frivolous, but I will never do anything that might bring the world's disapproval down on me. One may take some small liberties, venture some nice pranks that reveal an independent way of looking at things, so long as there is no independence in the way one acts. For when it comes to important matters . . . " "But love and happiness are important matters!" interjected Nelvil. "No, no!" interrupted the Count. "That is not what I mean; I am talking about certain established conventions that must not be flouted at the risk of being thought strange, a m a n . . . well, you do understand me, a man who is not like other men." Nelvil smiled, and without irritation or discomfort, teased d'Erfeuil on his frivolous rigor. He was delighted to feel that for the first time, the Count had not exercised the slightest influence over him on a subject that moved him so greatly. From a distance, Corinne had guessed everything that was going on; but Nelvil's smile calmed her troubled heart, and far from disturbing either Oswald or his dear friend, the conversation with the Count put them in a frame of mind more in keeping with the festival. Below, they were getting ready to race the horses. Lord Nelvil expected to see something like the English races, but he was astonished to find that little Barbary horses were to run against each other by themselves, without riders. Romans are particularly drawn to this spectacle. Just as it is about to begin, the whole crowd lines up on both sides of the street. The Piazza del Popolo that had been filled with people is empty in a moment. Everyone climbs up the steps of the amphitheaters surrounding the obelisks, and a countless multi-

162

Folk Festival and Music tude of heads and dark eyes are turned toward the starting gate from w h i c h the horses are to spring forward. They arrive without bridle or saddle, a brightly colored fabric alone covering their backs, led by very well dressed grooms w h o take a passionate interest in their success. The horses are placed behind the gate, and they are wildly eager to jump clear. The grooms hold on tight: the animals rear, neigh, stamp, as if impatient for the glory they will earn on their o w n , free of man's control. The impatience of the horses, the cries of the grooms from the moment the gate falls, are sheer drama. The horses take off, the grooms scream place, place with indescribable excitement. They accompany their horses with gesture and voice as long as they can see them. Like people, the horses are jealous of each other. The paving stones throw out sparks under their hooves; their manes fly; and thus left to themselves their will to w i n the prize is such that as they reach the end, some of them fall dead from the swiftness of the race. It is astonishing to see these free horses so stirred with personal passions; it is frightening, for it is as if thought had been embodied in animals. The crowd breaks ranks w h e n the horses have gone by, and follows them in an uproar. They reach the Palazzo di Venezia at the end of the course. And you should hear the yells of the grooms with victorious horses. 5 Usually the races finish at the end of the day. Then another entertainment begins, far less picturesque, but just as uproarious. The windows are lit up. The guards too desert their stations to join in the universal joy. Then they all take up candle-ends called moccoli, each trying to snuff out the other's repeating the word ammazare (kill) with a fearful intensity (CHE LA BELLA PRINCIPESSA SIA A M M A Z Z A T A ! CHE IL SIGNORE A B B A T E SIA A M M A Z Z A T O ) ! May the beautiful princess be murdered! May the Lord Abbot be murderedl they shout from one end of the street to the other. 6 Since all horses and carriages are banned at this hour, the emboldened crowd rushes headlong in all directions. Ultimately, there is no other pleasure than the uproar and the giddiness that ensues. Yet the night moves on; gradually the noise ceases, followed by the deepest silence; and nothing is left of the evening but the idea of a confused vision that, by transforming each life into a dream, has for a moment allowed the people to forget their work, scholars, their studies, the great lords, their idleness.

163

Book IX

II Oswald had not felt strong enough to listen to music since his misfortune. He dreaded those entrancing harmonies that melancholy finds agreeable, but w h i c h do genuine harm w h e n real sorrows weigh on us. Music revives the memories w e have sought to still. As Corinne sang, Oswald listened to her words; he gazed at the look on her face; he was absorbed in her to the exclusion of all else. But if on the street, of an evening, several voices joined in singing the beautiful arias of the great masters, as often happens in Italy, he would try to stay and listen at first; then he w o u l d move off, because a feeling at the same time so sharp and so vague brought back all his grief. Yet there was to be a superb performance in Rome's concert hall, bringing together the finest singers. Corinne urged Oswald to go with her, and he agreed, hoping the presence of the w o m a n he loved would shed sweetness on all that he might feel. As she entered her box, Corinne was recognized at once, and the hall broke into resounding applause, for the memory of the Capitol added to the interest she usually inspired. On all sides, people cried: Vive Corinne! A n d the musicians themselves, galvanized by the general impulse, began to play victory fanfares, for triumph of whatever kind always reminds men of w a r and combat. Corinne was deeply touched by this universal expression of admiration and goodwill. The music, the applause, the bravos and the indescribable impression alw a y s made by a great throng of men w h e n they all express the same feeling, touched her deeply. She tried to control her feelings, but her eyes filled with tears, and the beating of her heart was revealed by the trembling fabric of her g o w n as her breast rose and fell. Feeling a surge of jealousy, Oswald came close to her and said: "Madam, y o u must not tear yourself away from such success; it is as good as love, since it makes your heart beat so hard." Without waiting for her reply, he w e n t off to take a seat at the far end of the box. Corinne w a s sorely troubled by his words that in one moment robbed her of all the pleasure she had taken in triumphs she was happy to have him witness. The concert began. Those w h o have not heard Italian song can have no idea of music. In Italy voices have the soft sweetness that

164

Folk Festival and Music calls flowers to mind, and the pureness of the sky. Nature has intended this music for this climate: each is like a reflection of the other. The world is the work of a single thought, expressed in a thousand different forms. For centuries, Italians have loved music rapturously. In the Purgatorio, Dante meets one of the best singers of his day; he asks for one delightful aria, and the souls, carried away, forget their surroundings until the guardian summons them back. Christians and pagans alike have extended the domain of music beyond death. Of all the arts, it is the one that acts most directly upon the soul. While the others lead it toward this or that idea, music alone speaks to the inner spring of existence, wresting it free of its set position. What has been said of divine grace suddenly transforming hearts, may—on a h u m a n level—be applied to the power of melody, and among the intimations of the life to come, those born of music are not to be disregarded. The very mirth aroused by buffa music is far from the vulgar exuberance that does not speak to the imagination. In the depths of the joy it offers are poetic sensations, a pleasant reverie that spoken jests could never inspire. Music is so evanescent a pleasure, you so clearly feel it slipping away even as you experience it, that a melancholy impression mingles with the gaiety it brings into being. And yet, when it expresses sorrow, it gives rise to a sweet feeling. As you listen, your heart beats faster: the satisfaction drawn from regularity of tempo awakens the need to savor time by reminding you how very fleeting it is. Emptiness and silence no longer surround you; life is full; the blood flows swiftly; you feel inside you the movement stimulated by an active life, and you have no need to fear the obstacles it may encounter outside you. Music doubles our idea of the faculties of our soul. When we hear it, we feel capable of nobler endeavors; we march to death with enthusiasm. It has the happy inability to express any t>ase feeling, any artifice, any lie. In the language of music, unhappiness itself is without bitterness, without wrenching pain, without unpleasantness. Music gently lifts the weight almost always pressing on the heart of one capable of serious and deep affection, a weight causing such uninterrupted pain that it sometimes blends in with our very sense of existence. It seems that by listening to pure and delightful sound, we are on the point of grasping the Creator's secret, of penetrating the mystery of life. There are no words to express this reaction, for words trail behind

165

Book IX the initial impression like prose translations in the tracks of poets. Only the eyes can convey some idea of it, the eyes of the loved one lingering on you for a long while, their expression gradually making its way so deeply into your heart that you must at last lower your eyes to hide from so great a happiness: thus would the light from another life consume the mortal who fixed his gaze upon it. The admirable precision of two voices harmonizing perfectly in the duets of the great Italian masters is delightfully touching, but when prolonged, the emotion could yield only a kind of pain: for this sense of well-being is too vast for human nature, and the soul vibrates like an instrument playing in unison with others, which would be shattered by a too-perfect harmony. Oswald had stubbornly remained at a distance from Corinne through the first part of the concert. But when the duet began, almost mezza voce, accompanied by wind instruments softly making sounds purer still than the voice itself, Corinne covered her face with her handkerchief, completely absorbed in her emotion. She wept without suffering, she loved without the slightest fear. The image of Oswald surely was present in her heart; but the noblest enthusiasm blended with that image, and a crowd of jumbled thoughts wandered in her soul, and to make those thoughts clear, she would have had to mark their boundaries. A prophet is said to travel through seven different regions of the heavens in a single minute. Surely he who envisioned all that a moment can embrace had heard the strains of beautiful music in the presence of the one he loved. Oswald felt its power, and his resentment gradually died away. Seeing Corinne so moved explained everything, justified everything. Quietly he drew near, and Corinne heard the sound of his breathing behind her at the most enchanting point of this heavenly music. It was too much; the most moving tragedy would not have stirred her so much as this inward feeling of deep emotion invading them both at the same time, and increasingly exalted with each new sound. The words that are sung have nothing to do with this feeling; some few on love and death guide thought intermittently, but more often, the vagueness of music lends itself to all the modulations of the soul, and each person thinks he has rediscovered in the melody, as in the serenely pure star of the night, the image of what he wishes for on earth.

166

Folk Festival and Music "Let us leave," Corinne said to Lord Nelvil, "I feel faint." "What is the matter?" he asked anxiously. "You are so pale! Come with me and get some air. Come!" And they left together. Supported by Oswald's arm, Corinne felt her strength return. As they drew near a balcony, Corinne, deeply moved, told her friend: "Dear Oswald, I am going to leave you for a week." "What's that?" he interrupted. "Every year, just before Holy Week, I spend some time in a convent to prepare myself for the Easter celebration." Oswald made no objection. He knew that at this time of year most Roman ladies devote themselves to austere practices, even though they are not seriously concerned with religion during the rest of the year. But he remembered that Corinne professed a different creed from his own, and that they could not pray together. "If only you had the same religion, the same country as I!" And then, having uttered those words, he stopped short. "Do not our souls and minds have the same native land?" Corinne answered. "That is true, but even so, I feel whatever separates us with no less pain." And the thought of that week's absence so wrenched his heart that w h e n Corinne's friends came to join them, he did not say a word all evening long.

Ill Disturbed by what Corinne had told him, Oswald went to her house early the next day. Her chambermaid came to greet him, and handed him a letter from her mistress announcing that she had withdrawn to a convent that very morning, just as she had told him, and that she would not see him again until after Good Friday. She acknowledged that she had lacked the courage to tell him it would be so soon. Oswald was surprised as by a sudden blow. This house where he had always seen Corinne, and which had become so solitary, depressed him immensely. He saw her harp, her books, her drawings, everything she

167

Book IX normally had around her. But she was no longer there. Recalling his father's room, Oswald was seized with a painful shudder, and unable to maintain his balance, he was obliged to sit down. "I might hear of her death in just this way! A wit so sparkling, a heart so alive, a face so radiant with youth and life could be struck by lightning—and youth's grave would be as silent as that of old age! Ah! How illusory happiness is! What a moment stolen from inflexible time ever keeping watch over its prey! Corinne! Corinne! you should not have left me. It was your charm that kept me from reflection. So dazzled was I by the happy moments spent with you that everything mixed together in my thoughts. N o w I am alone. Now I am myself once more, and all my wounds are about to open up again." And he called to Corinne in a kind of despair that could not be ascribed to such a short absence but rather to the customary anguish of his heart, which Corinne alone had the power to assuage. Hearing Oswald's moan, Corinne's maid came back and, touched that he missed her mistress so, she said: " M y Lord, I'd like to comfort you by betraying a secret. I hope my mistress will forgive me. Come into her bedroom. You'll see your portrait." " M y portrait!" "She did it from memory," went on Corinne's maid, Teresina, "She got up at five o'clock in the morning every day for the last week to get it done before she went off to her convent." Oswald saw the portrait which was a good likeness and painted with perfect grace: evidence of his effect on Corinne which filled him with the sweetest emotion. Opposite the portrait was a charming canvas representing the Virgin; in front of this painting was Corinne's prayer stool. This singular combination of love and religion is found in most Italian women under circumstances far more extraordinary still than in Corinne's apartments. For free as she was, the memory of Oswald was bound up in her soul with only the purest hopes and feelings. And yet it was characteristic of Italian women in general rather than of Corinne in particular to set the image of the loved one face to face with a symbol of the divine, and to prepare a retreat in the convent with a week devoted to sketching that image. Their kind of piety implies more imagination and sensibility than solemnity of soul or austerity of principle, and nothing was more opposed to Oswald's notions on how religion is to be conceived of and felt. Nevertheless, how

168

Folk Festival and Music could he have blamed Corinne at the very moment he was given such touching proof of her love! His gaze wandered ardently over this bedroom he had entered for the first time. At Corinne's bedside, he saw the portrait of an old man whose face had no characteristics of the Italian countenance. Two bracelets were fastened near the portrait. One was made of black and white hair, the other of beautiful blond: by what seemed a strange coincidence to Nelvil, it was exactly like Lucile Edgermond's hair, which had caught and held his attention three years earlier because of its rare beauty. Oswald wondered at the bracelets but said nothing, for to question Teresina about her mistress was unworthy of him. Thinking she guessed what concerned Oswald, and wanting to ward off any shadow of jealousy, Teresina hastened to tell him that in the eleven years she had been with Corinne, she had always seen her wear the bracelets, and that she knew they were made of hair from her father, mother, and sister. "You have been with Corinne for eleven years. Then you know . . ." said Nelvil, flushing as he stopped short. Ashamed of what he had been about to ask, he rushed from the house to keep from saying another word. He turned several times to glimpse Corinne's windows again as he left, but once he lost sight of her dwelling, he felt a sorrow that was new to him, the sorrow brought by solitude. He tried going into Roman society for the evening; he sought diversion, for to know the charm of reverie, you must be at peace with yourself in happiness or in misfortune. Nelvil soon found society unbearable. Seeing the void left by Corinne's absence, he understood even better the nature of the charm and interest the social world took on in her presence. He tried speaking with several women who answered with the insipid conventional sentences that do not genuinely express either their feelings or opinions, if indeed those who use them have anything of the sort to hide. Approaching several groups of men who by gesture and voice seemed to be heatedly discussing something important, he heard the most commonplace talk of the most wretched material interests. Then he took a seat and carefully observed that aimless and groundless animation found in most large gatherings. Still, in Italy, mediocrity is rather kindhearted: there is little jealousy, much goodwill toward superior

169

Book IX minds, and although it may be wearisome, at least it almost never offends through affectation. Yet it was in these very gatherings that Oswald had found so much to interest him a few days earlier. The slight hindrance the presence of fashionable society posed to conversation with Corinne, the care she took to return to him as soon as she had shown appropriate courtesy to others, the understanding between them on the observations society suggested, Corinne's pleasure in addressing to him indirectly reflections whose true meaning was clear to him alone—all these things lent such variety to conversation, that every spot in this same drawing room recalled sweet, piquant, agreeable moments which had led him to believe the gatherings were enjoyable in themselves. " A h ! " he said as he was leaving, "here as everywhere else in the world, she alone brings life. Until she returns, let us go to the most unfrequented places instead. Her absence will feel less painful w h e n nothing around me suggests pleasure."

170

BookX HOLY WEEK

I Oswald spent the following day in the gardens of several monasteries. First he went to the Carthusians, and before entering he paused for a while to contemplate two Egyptian lions not far from the door. These lions have a remarkable expression of strength in repose; something in their countenance belongs neither to animal nor man: they are like some natural force, and looking at them, you understand how the pagan gods could be symbolized in this way. The Carthusian monastery is built on the ruins of the Baths of Diocletian, and the church standing at its side is decorated with the granite columns found standing there. The monks living here eagerly point them out; the world holds them only through the interest they take in the ruins. For those men able to lead it, the Carthusian way of life presupposes either an extremely limited mind, or the noblest and most unremitting exaltation of religious feeling. The regular procession of unvaried days calls to mind this celebrated line: O'er ruined worlds Time sleeps unmoved. 1 It would seem that life serves only the contemplation of death. Mutable ideas in such a uniform existence would be the cruelest torment.

171

BookX In the middle of the cloister stand four cypress trees. Dark and silent, not easily stirred even by the wind, they bring no motion to this abode. Nearby a fountain sends up a spray of water so weak and slow as to be scarcely audible. The water clock would seem appropriate for a solitude where time makes so little noise. Occasionally the moon's pale light invades this place; its absence and return are an event in this monotonous life. Yet war with all its activity would scarcely satisfy these same men if it were their accustomed routine. The different combinations of hum a n destiny on earth are an inexhaustible subject for thought. A thousand chance events take place within the soul; a thousand habits are formed, making each individual a world and its history. To know another person fully would be a lifelong study. But what is meant by "knowing" men? To rule them? That is possible, but God alone may understand them. From the Carthusians, Oswald went to the Monastery of Saint Bonaventure, built on the ruins of Nero's palace. There where so many remorseless crimes were committed, poor monks tortured by qualms of conscience inflict cruel punishments on themselves for the slightest offenses. We only hope, said one of the monks, that our sins will not exceed our penances at the hour of our death. As he entered the monastery Lord Nelvil stumbled over a trap door. They bury us through that, said one of the youngest monks, w h o was already stricken with the illness caused by the bad air. Given that southern peoples are very afraid of death, it is surprising to find institutions among them that call it so sharply to mind, but it is in our nature to love yielding to the very idea that we dread. There is a kind of intoxication of sadness which does the soul good by filling it completely. A young child's sarcophagus from ancient times serves as fountain to this monastery. The beautiful palm that is Rome's pride is in this garden, but the monks pay no attention to external objects. Their discipline is too rigorous to allow their minds any kind of freedom. Their expression is dejected, their gait slow; they no longer exercise their will in any way. They have given over charge of themselves, so exhausting to its wretched owner is this dominion! Yet, Oswald's soul was not strongly affected by this dwelling place: the imagination rebels

172

Holy Week against so manifest a will to remind us of death in all its forms. W h e n w e come upon such a reminder unexpectedly, w h e n nature speaks of it rather than man, our reaction is far deeper. Sweet peaceful feelings took hold of Oswald w h e n he entered the garden of San Giovanni et Paolo at sunset. The monks of this monastery are bound by a less strict rule and their garden overlooks all the ruins of ancient Rome. From there, the Colosseum can be seen, and the Forum, all the arches of triumph still standing, the obelisks, the columns. W h a t a lovely site for such a refuge! The recluses are consoled for their nothingness as they contemplate the monuments built by those w h o are n o longer here. From time to time, these beautiful trees cut off the view of Rome momentarily as if to double the emotion w e feel in seeing it once more. It w a s the hour of evening w h e n all the bells of Rome ring the Ave Maria: squilla di lontano Che paja il giorno piangar che si muore. DANTE 2 and the sound of brass in the distance seems to pity the dying day. The evening prayer is used to tell time. In Italy, they say: I shall see you an hour before, an hour after, the Ave Maria, and thus the parts of day or night are designated religiously. Oswald enjoyed the splendid sight of the sun at nightfall, gradually descending amid the ruins, and for a moment seeming to submit to dissolution. Oswald felt all his customary thoughts take n e w life. Corinne herself w a s too charming, promised too m u c h happiness to engage him n o w . He sought his father's shade amid the heavenly shades that had welcomed him. He felt that by dint of love, his gaze w o u l d quicken with life the clouds he was contemplating, and w o u l d bring them to take the sublime and touching form of his immortal friend. Indeed, he hoped that his prayers would secure from h e a v e n some indefinable breath—pure and salutory—that might resemble a father's benediction.

173

BookX

II Curious to k n o w and study Italy's religion, Nelvil determined to seek out some of the preachers w h o make the churches of Rome resound during Lent. He counted the days until he w o u l d be reunited with Corinne, and until then did not want to see anything connected with the arts, anything w h o s e charm derived from imagination. W h e n he was not with Corinne, he could not bear the feeling of pleasure given by masterpieces. He forgave himself happiness only w h e n it came from her; poetry, painting, music, all that embellishes life with indeterminate hope w a s painful to him everywhere but at her side. During Holy W e e k , Roman preachers are heard in the churches at night, with the lights almost out. All the w o m e n dress in black in memory of the death of Jesus, and there is something quite touching in this anniversary of mourning renewed so many times over so many centuries. Thus, genuinely moved, you reach the center of these beautiful churches where the tombs prepare you well for prayer. But almost always the preacher quickly dispels your emotion. He paces back and forth over the rather long platform that is his pulpit, his excitement offset by the evenness of his stride. He never fails to start across at the beginning of a sentence and to come back at the end, like the pendulum of a clock. And yet he makes so many gestures, he looks so impassioned that y o u would think him capable of forgetting everything. But his is a systematic frenzy, if you will, of a kind often seen in Italy, w h e r e the liveliness of outward movement frequently indicates only superficial emotion. A crucifix hangs at one end of the pulpit. The preacher takes it down, kisses it, presses it to his heart; then w h e n the time for pathos is over, coldly composed, he puts it back in place. Another device the common run of preachers often use for making an effect is the square doctor's cap they wear, taking it off and putting it back on with unbelievable rapidity. One of them was attacking Voltaire, and particularly Rousseau, for the irreligiousness of the age. He threw his cap to the middle of the pulpit, charged it with representing Jean Jacques, and in that capacity harangued it, saying: "Well then, my Genevan philosopher, what objections can you make to my arguments?" As if waiting for an answer, he stood silent a f e w moments; then since the cap said nothing, he put it back

174

Holy Week on, finishing his homily with these words: "Now that you are convinced, let us not say any more about it." Such strange scenes recur often among Rome's preachers because genuine talent in this domain is very rare. Religion is respected in Italy as an all-powerful law; it captures the imagination by its practices and ceremonies, but in the pulpit, preachers are less concerned with morality than dogma, and they never reach the depths of the h u m a n heart through religious ideas. As in many other branches of literature, eloquence is thus totally given over to commonplace ideas in the serm o n w h i c h portray nothing, w h i c h express nothing. A n e w thought w o u l d provoke a kind of uproar in minds at once so fiery and so lazy that they need uniformity to compose themselves, and they like it because they find it restful. There is a kind of prescribed code for the ideas and phraseology of sermons. They almost always appear regularly one after the other, and this order would be upset if the orator, speaking for himself, looked into his o w n soul for w h a t should be said. The Christian philosophy seeking analogy between religion and nature is as little k n o w n to Italian preachers as any other philosophy. They are so used to routine in spiritual and intellectual matters, that thinking about religion w o u l d shock them almost as much as thinking against it. The Italians like all southern nations hold the cult of the Virgin particularly dear; it seems bound in some w a y to what is purest and most sensitive in affection for w o m e n . But the same exaggerated rhetorical forms reappear in everything preachers say on the subject; and it is a wonder that their gestures and orations do not constantly turn the most serious matters into comedy. In Italy, a genuine tone, a natural word, are almost never found in the august performance at the pulpit. Wearied by that monotony most tiring of all—histrionic f e r v o r — Oswald decided to go to the Colosseum to hear the Capucin w h o w a s to speak in the open air, at the foot of one of the altars set up there for w h a t are called the Stations of the Cross. What more beautiful subject is there for eloquence than this monument, this arena where martyrs followed on gladiators! But in this respect, there is nothing to be hoped from the poor Capuchin w h o s e only knowledge of man's history lies in his o w n life. All the same, if y o u manage not to listen to his bad sermon, y o u feel m o v e d by the objects around him. Most of his audience is from the Camaldolese confraternity. During religious observances,

175

BookX they wear a sort of gray robe entirely covering the head and body, with only two holes for the eyes; in such guise might ghosts be portrayed. Thus hidden beneath their garments, these men prostrate themselves, faces to the ground, and beat their chests. When the priest falls on his knees crying mercy and pity! the people around him also fall on their knees, repeating his cry that goes echoing under the old porticos of the Colosseum. It is impossible not to feel a deeply religious emotion at that moment. Suffering's appeal to goodness, earth's to heaven, stirs the soul in its inmost sanctuary. Oswald gave a start when everyone around him knelt. He remained on his feet, unwilling to profess a form of worship not his own; but it pained him not to join in publicly with mortals bowing down before God, whoever they may be. Alas! is there indeed any invocation of heaven's pity that is not equally suited to all men? People had been struck by Nelvil's handsome face and foreign manner, but were not at all shocked when he did not kneel; no people are more tolerant than the Romans. They are used to others coming to their land to see and to observe. And whether out of pride or indifference, they do not try to impress their opinions on anyone. What is even more extraordinary still, is that during Holy Week above all, many scourge themselves, and yet do not mind that the church door is open, and that others can come in while they whip themselves. Romans do not bother about other people, they do nothing to attract attention, but refrain from nothing because they are observed. They always head straight for their goal or their pleasure without suspecting the existence of a feeling called vanity which has no other pleasure or goal than the need for applause.

Ill Much has been said about Holy Week ceremonies in Rome. All foreigners come during Lent with the express purpose of enjoying this spectacle. Since the music in the Sistine Chapel and the illumination of Saint Peter's are unique beauties of their kind, they naturally arouse great curiosity. But the ceremonies themselves do not meet ex-

176

Holy Week pectations. The dinner of the twelve Apostles served by the pope, his washing their feet, indeed, the varied customs of this solemn period all bring moving ideas to mind; but a thousand unavoidable circumstances tend to work against the interest and dignity of the spectacle. Not all those taking part are equally contemplative, equally engrossed in pious thoughts. Repeated so often, these ceremonies have become a kind of mechanical exercise for most of those concerned, and the young priests rush through the service for the major feast days with unbecoming dispatch and virtuosity. The lack of precision, the unknown, the mystery so appropriate to religion are entirely dissipated by the sort of attention inevitably attracted to the way each participant carries out his charge. The voraciousness of those who are served food, and the indifference of others to their multiple genuflections, or to prayers recited, often rob the ceremony of solemnity. The old costumes still used as ecclesiastical garb are not in keeping with modern hairstyles. With his long beard, the Greek bishop is the one whose clothing looks most worthy of respect. Such dated practices as curtsying like women, rather than bowing as men do today, are hard to take seriously. Indeed, the overall effect is not harmonious, for the old and the new are mixed together without any apparent effort to strike the imagination, or at least to avoid distracting it. Worship brilliant and stately in its external forms is surely calculated to fill the soul with the most exalted feelings; but care must be taken that the ceremonies not degenerate into a show with each one playing his role opposite the other, each learning what he must do, at what moment he must do it, when he must pray, finish praying, kneel, stand again. The clockwork regularity of court ceremonies transferred to a temple, impedes the free flight of the soul which alone gives man hope of drawing nearer to the divine. Foreigners are generally sensitive to these faults, but for the most part, Romans never tire of the ceremonies, and every year take renewed pleasure in them. Italian character is remarkable in that its instability does not lead to inconstancy, and its liveliness does not require variety. In all things, Italians are patient and persevering; imagination embellishes what they possess; it fills their lives rather than making them uneasy. They find everything more wonderful, more grand, more beautiful than it is in reality; and while elsewhere

177

BookX vanity lies in seeming blase, Italian vanity—or rather the warmth and vitality they have within themselves—leads them to take pleasure in the feeling of admiration. From w h a t Romans had told him, Lord Nelvil expected the ceremonies of Holy W e e k to affect him far more than they did. He missed the nobly simple celebrations of Anglican worship. He went home distressed, for nothing is sadder than our failure to be moved by what ought to m o v e us. W e believe our soul has dried up; w e are afraid w e have lost the p o w e r of enthusiasm without which the faculty of thought w o u l d yield only distaste for life.

IV But Good Friday soon restored all the religious feeling that, to his sorrow, Nelvil had not experienced earlier in the week. Corinne's retreat was drawing to an end; he looked forward to the happiness of seeing her again. The sweet hopes of feelings harmonize with piety, and only the artificiality of social life can fully turn us away from them. Oswald went to the Sistine Chapel to hear the famous miserere, extolled throughout Europe. 3 It w a s still daylight, and he saw Michelangelo's celebrated paintings that depict the Last Judgment with all the terrifying power of the subject and of the artist's talent. Michelangelo had immersed himself in Dante; and the painter, like the poet, portrays mythological figures face-to-face with Jesus, but he almost always gives paganism the evil role, and represents its fables through demons. On the chapel's vault are the Prophets and the Sibyls, called by Christianity to bear witness;* a host of angels surround them, and thus painted, the w h o l e vault seems to bring them closer to us. But this heaven is somber and fearsome; the light of day scarcely comes through the stained glass w h i c h casts shadows rather than light on the paintings. Already so imposing, the figures Michelangelo has drawn are further magnified by the darkness. The air is filled with incense, its perfume suggesting the funereal, and these many sensations prepare us for the deepest one of all, w h i c h music is about to produce. •Teste David c u m Sibylla. 4

178

Holy Week Absorbed in the reflections suggested by all the objects around him, Oswald saw Corinne come into the gallery for the w o m e n behind the grill separating them from the men, Corinne w h o m he had not hoped to see as yet, dressed in black, pale from fasting, and trembling so at the sight of him that she w a s obliged to lean on the railing for support. A t that moment, the miserere began. Perfectly trained in the pure, ancient chant, the voices emanate from a gallery w h e r e the vault starts to curve upward. The singers are not visible; the music seems to float on the air; with each passing moment nightfall darkens the chapel still more. This was not the sensual, passionate music Oswald and Corinne had heard a w e e k earlier; it was wholly religious music counseling renunciation of the earth. Corinne fell to her knees before the grill and remained plunged in the deepest meditation: Oswald himself disappeared from her view. She felt that one w o u l d wish to die in such a moment of exaltation if there were no pain in the separation of body and soul, if all of a sudden an angel came to bear off on his wings feeling and thought—those divine sparks returning toward their source: death would then be no more than a spontaneous act of the heart, as it were, a prayer more fervent and better answered. The miserere or "take pity upon us" is a psalm composed of verses sung antiphonally in very different styles. Heavenly music is heard alternating with recitative murmured in muffled, almost harsh tones; it w o u l d seem to be the response of hard nature to sensitive hearts, life's reality come to blight and deny the wishes of generous souls. W h e n the sweet chorus resumes, w e take heart again. But w h e n the recited verse resumes, a cold sensation seizes us once more, not from terror but from the disouraging of enthusiasm. Finally, more touchingly noble than all the rest, the last section leaves a sweet, pure impression in the depths of the soul: God grants us the same impression before w e die. The torches are snuffed out, night deepens, the figures of Prophets and Sibyls look like ghosts enshrouded in the dusk. The silence is profound: words w o u l d be unbearable to a spiritual state where all is private and inward. W h e n the last sound fades away, each person goes off slowly, noiselessly, as if afraid to return to the everyday concerns of this world. Corinne followed the procession making its w a y into Saint Peter's,

179

BookX now lit solely by a lighted cross: that sign of sorrow, alone resplendent in the august darkness of the vast building, is the most beautiful image of Christianity amid life's dark shadows. A pale and distant light is projected on the statues decorating the tombs. Compared with the images of the dead, the living crowded in under these vaults seem like pygmies. Around the cross, and illuminated by it, there is a space where the pope, clad in white, and all the cardinals arrayed behind him lie prostrate. They remain there for almost half an hour in the deepest silence, and it is impossible not to be moved by the sight. W e do not know what they ask; we do not hear their secret sighs; but they are old, they will precede us on the way to the grave. When the time comes for us to take our place in this fearful advance guard, may God grant us such grace in our old age that the close of life will be the first days of our immortality! Corinne too, the young and beautiful Corinne, was on her knees behind the procession of priests. She was pale in the soft light illuminating her face, but the radiance of her eyes was undiminished. Oswald gazed at her as at a ravishing canvas and an adored being. Her prayer finished, she rose. Respecting the religious meditation that seemed to consume her, Lord Nelvil did not yet dare go to her; but she made the first move, coming to him in a burst of happiness coloring everything she did, so that gaiety enlivened her greetings to those who spoke to her in Saint Peter's, which was suddenly become a grand public promenade where everyone made engagements to take up their business or their pleasures. Oswald was astonished at the changeability that brings such different reactions in rapid succession, and although he was happy to see Corinne's joy, he was surprised to find no trace of the day's emotions. He could not understand how, on so solemn a day, this beautiful church was allowed to be Rome's café where people met to be entertained. Watching Corinne in animated conversation with her circle of friends, giving no thought to the objects around her, he became suspicious that she might prove inconstant. Immediately aware of his reaction, she left her friends abruptly, and taking Oswald's arm to stroll with him through the church, she said: "I have never discussed my religious feelings with you. Allow me to do so today, and perhaps I shall dispel the clouds I have seen rise up in your mind."

180

Holy Week

V "The difference in our religions, my dear Oswald, is the secret of a disapproval y o u cannot help revealing. Yours is stern and solemn, ours is lively and tender. Catholicism is generally thought more rigorous than Protestantism, and perhaps that is true in countries where the t w o religions have been in conflict, but w e have never had any religious discord in Italy and y o u have experienced a great deal in England. A s a result, Italian Catholicism has taken on a mild and lenient character, while in England the Reformation armed itself with the harshest moral principles to destroy Catholicism. Like the religion of antiquity, ours quickens the arts, inspires poets, plays its part, if y o u will, in all the pleasures of our lives, while yours—set in a country where reason holds sway far more than imagination—will never deviate from the moral austerity that has come to be its hallmark. Ours speaks in the name of love, yours in the name of duty. Your principles are liberal, our dogmas are absolute; and yet in practice, our despotic orthodoxy comes to terms with individual circumstances, and your religious freedom requires that its laws be followed without exception. It is true that our Catholicism requires very harsh penance of those w h o enter the monastic life: that freely chosen state is a mysterious bond between m a n and the divine. But for Italian laity, religion is normally a source of touching emotions. Love, hope, and faith are its prime virtues, all promising and according happiness. Far from ever forbidding us the pure feeling of joy, our priests tell us that it expresses our gratitude for the gifts of the Creator. What they demand is that w e observe the practices demonstrating respect for our faith and the desire to please God: charity to the unfortunate and repentance for our frailty. But they do not refuse absolution w h e n w e ask it ardently, and here more than elsewhere, the heart's affections inspire kindness and compassion. Did not Jesus say of Mary Magdalene: Her sins which are many are forgiven, for she loved much.5 These words were spoken under heavens as beautiful as ours; this same heaven begs divine mercy for us." "Corinne," answered Nelvil, " h o w can I fight such sweet words w h e n m y heart needs them so badly! A n d yet I will do just that, because it is not for a single day that I love Corinne, because I hope to

181

BookX share with her a long future of happiness and virtue. The purest religion offers the sacrifice of our passions, and fulfillment of our duties as an unceasing homage to the Supreme Being. Man's morality is his worship of God: it debases our notion of the Creator to attribute to His relations with created beings a will disproportionate to His intellectual perfection. Fatherhood, noble image of a supremely good master, asks nothing of children except to make them better or happier. How then imagine that God would ask anything of man that does not have man himself as its object! Then too, see what a jumble results in the heads of your people from their habit of holding religious practices to be more important than moral duties. You know very well that in Rome the greatest number of murders are committed just after Holy Week. You might say that the people, feeling that Lent has supplied them with funds, squander the treasure of their penance in murders. Criminals still dripping with the blood of murders have been known to show qualms of conscience at eating meat on Fridays; and crude minds, persuaded that the greatest crime is to disobey the practices laid down by the Church, use up their conscience in compliance, and see the divinity as they do the world's governments which value submission over all other virtues. The respect inspired by the Creator as source and reward for an exquisitely scrupulous life has been replaced by a courtier's mentality. All outward show, Italian Catholicism relieves the soul of meditation and contemplation. When the show is finished, emotion stops, duty is done. Unlike the English, people here are not long absorbed in the thoughts and feelings called forth by the strict examination of their conduct and their hearts." "You are harsh, dear Oswald, as I have noticed before," replied Corinne. "If religion meant only strict adherence to morality, what more would it have than philosophy and reason? And what pious sentiments would develop in us were our main goal to stifle the heart's feelings? The Stoics knew almost as much as we do about duties and strictness of conduct, but Christianity alone brought the religious enthusiasm that unites with all the soul's affections; it is the power to love and to feel compassion; it is the religion of feeling and kindness that helps the soul soar toward heaven! What is the meaning of the parable of the Prodigal Son if not love, sincere love, put ahead of even the most exacting performance of all duties. That child had left his father's house, and his brother stayed behind. He had thrown himself

182

Holy Week into all the world's pleasures, and his brother did not for a moment stray from the prescribed order of domestic life. But he came back, but he wept, but he loved, and his father held a feast for his return. Ah! surely among the mysteries of our nature, to love, to go on loving, is what is left to us of our divine heritage. Our virtues themselves are often too tangled by life for us always to understand what is good, what is better, and what hidden feeling guides us and leads us astray. I ask my God to teach me to worship Him, and I feel the effect of my prayers through the tears I shed. But to give me strength in this frame of mind, religious practices are more necessary than you think. It means a constant relationship with the divine; it means daily acts with no connection to the business of daily life. Concrete objects are also very helpful to piety; the soul falls back upon itself if the arts, the great monuments, harmonious song do not come to give new life to that poetic genius which is also religious genius. "When he prays, when he suffers and hopes in heaven, the most ordinary man has something in him that would be expressed like Milton, like Homer, like Tasso, if education had taught him to clothe his thoughts in words. There are only two distinct classes of men on earth: those who feel enthusiasm and those who scorn it; all other differences are the work of society. This person has no words for his feelings. That one knows what must be said to hide the emptiness of his heart. But the spring that bursts forth from rock itself at heaven's call is true talent, true religion, true love. "The ceremonies of our worship, these paintings of kneeling saints whose eyes express continuous prayer, these statues placed on tombs as if to awaken one day along with the dead, these churches and their immense vaults, have a close relationship with religious ideas. I love this resounding homage offered by men to what promises them neither fortune nor power, to what punishes or rewards them through a feeling of the heart alone. At such times, I am prouder of my being, I recognize something disinterested in man, and even were religious magnificence excessive, I love this prodigality of earth's treasures for the sake of another life, of time for the sake of eternity: enough things are done for tomorrow, enough care is taken for the management of human affairs. Oh! how I love what is useless—useless, that is, if life is nothing more than painful labor for a miserable profit. But if on this earth w e are on our way to heaven, what would be better than to lift

183

BookX our souls to the point where they sense the infinite, the invisible, the eternal amid all the limits that bind them. "Jesus allowed a weak, possibly penitent woman to sprinkle his feet with the most precious perfumes. He rebuked those who advised reserving those perfumes for a more advantageous occasion: Let her alone, for me ye have not always.6 Alas! all that is good, all that is sublime on this earth is with us for a short time; age, infirmity, death will soon dry up this drop of dew that falls from heaven to alight on flowers alone. So dear Oswald, allow us to mix everything together: love, religion, genius, and sun, and perfumes, and music, and poetry. There is no atheism save in coldness, selfishness, vile behavior. Jesus said: For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.7 And what does it mean to be gathered in Your name, O Lord, if it is not to enjoy the sublime gifts of Your beautiful nature, and to do You homage in gratitude, and to thank You for life, and to thank You above all when a heart that is also Your creation responds to our own!" A heavenly inspiration illuminated Corinne's countenance at that moment. Oswald could scarcely refrain from kneeling at her feet in the middle of the temple, and he kept silent for a long while, yielding to the pleasure of recalling her words, and seeing them still in her eyes. Yet when he finally decided to reply, he refused to abandon the cause he held dear: "Corinne, allow your friend a few more words. His soul is not arid. No, Corinne, believe that it is not. And if I love austerity of principle and deed it is because that austerity deepens feeling and makes it more lasting. If I love reason in religion, that is, if I reject both contradictory dogmas and human means of affecting men, it is because I see the divine in reason as well as in enthusiasm. And if I cannot tolerate a man's being deprived of any one of his faculties, it is because all of them together scarcely suffice to know a truth; because reflection, as well as the heart's instinct, reveals the existence of God and the immortality of the soul. What can be added to these sublime ideas, to their union with virtue! What can be added that might be above them! The poetic enthusiasm that makes you so charming is not, forgive me for saying so, the most salutary form of devoutness. Corinne, with nothing but that inspiration, how could a person be expected to prepare for the innumerable sacrifices duty requires of us? Revelation 184

Holy Week came by the impulse of the soul alone when h u m a n destiny, present and future, was conveyed to the mind only through the clouds; but Christianity made it clear and real for us, so that while feeling may be our reward, it must not be our only guide. You describe the existence of the blessed, and not of mortals. The religious life is a battle and not a hymn. Were we not condemned to curb the evil inclinations of others and ourselves in this world, there would indeed be no other distinction to make except between cold and impassioned souls. But m a n is a rougher and more fearsome creature than your heart depicts for you; and reason in piety, authority in duty, are a necessary brake to his arrogant errors. "However you regard the outward pomp and manifold practices of your religion, believe me, dear friend, the contemplation of the universe and its Author will always be the primary form of worship, filling the imagination, and excluding the possibility that examination will reveal in it anything futile or absurd. Dogma that offends my reason also chills my enthusiasm. Doubtless the world, as it is, is a mystery we can neither deny nor understand; so that the man who refused to believe everything he could not explain would be quite mad. But what is contradictory is always a h u m a n creation. Mystery, as God has given it to us, is beyond the mind's understanding, but not opposed to it. A German philosopher has said: I know but two beautiful things in the universe: the starry sky above our heads, and the feeling of duty in our hearts.8 Indeed, all the marvels of creation are summed up in these words. "Before I met you, Corinne, I would have thought that far from drying up the heart, a simple, stern religion alone could concentrate the affections and make them last. I have seen the most austere and pure conduct develop unfailing tenderness in a man; I have seen him preserve into old age a virginity of soul that inevitably would have been withered by the storms of the passions and the sins they lead us to commit. Repentance is doubtless a beautiful thing, and more than anyone, I need to believe it effective, but repeated repentance tires the soul; this feeling is renewed only once. It is the redemption accomplished in the depths of our souls, and this great sacrifice cannot be renewed. When h u m a n frailty becomes inured to repentance, it loses the strength to love, for to be steadfast, love requires strength. "I shall raise the same objections to the splendor of this worship

185

BookX that has such a vivid effect on imagination, according to you: I see imagination as modest and retiring, like the heart. The emotions imposed on it are less powerful than those arising spontaneously. In the Cevennes, 9 1 saw a Protestant minister preaching deep in the mountains as night was falling. He invoked the graves of Frenchmen banished and outlawed by their brothers, and whose ashes had been brought back into this place. He promised their friends that they would meet again in a better world. He said that a virtuous life would secure us this happiness; he said: Do good unto men that God may heal the wound of sorrow in your hearts. He wondered at the rigid harshness shown by the man whose life is but a day toward the man whose life, like his own, is but a day. He seized upon the terrible thought of death that the living have understood through the power of imagination, but which they will never exhaust. In a word, he proclaimed nothing that was not moving and true. His words were in perfect harmony with nature; the mountain stream heard in the distance, the sparkling light of the stars seemed to express the same thought in a different form. Nature's magnificence was there: the only magnificence whose entertainments do not offend misfortune. And all that imposing simplicity stirred the soul far more profoundly than splendid ceremonies." On Easter Sunday, two days after their conversation, Corinne and Lord Nelvil were together on Saint Peter's Square just as the pope came out on the highest balcony of the church to ask heaven for the benediction it is to spread over the earth. When he pronounces the words "to the city and to the world" (urbi et orbi), all the people gathered there fall on their knees. Through the emotion they felt at that moment, Corinne and Nelvil sensed that all forms of worship are alike. Religious feeling binds men close when pride and fanaticism do not make it an object of jealousy or hate. Praying together in whatever language, in whatever rite, is the most touching brotherhood of hope and fellow feeling that man can establish on this earth.

186

Holy Week

VI Easter Sunday went by, and Corinne made no mention of her promise to confide the stoiy of her life to Lord Nelvil. One day, hurt by her silence, he said in her presence that people spoke highly of Naples' beauty, and he was inclined to go there. Corinne saw immediately what was going on in his soul and suggested making the trip with him. She imagined that this proof of love would satisfy him and put off the telling of her tale. And besides, she thought that if he took her away with him, it would doubtless be that he intended to devote his life to her. Thus she awaited his reaction anxiously, and her almost pleading expression asked for a favorable reply. Oswald could not resist. He had hesitated, taken aback by the suggestion at first; but seeing his friend's distress, her heaving breast, her tear-filled eyes, he agreed without realizing the importance of such a decision. Corinne was exultant, for at that moment her heart trusted Oswald's feeling completely. The date was set, and the engaging prospect of traveling together dispelled every other idea. They enjoyed arranging the details of the trip, finding each a source of pleasure. Fortunate is the temperament that finds a special charm in all life's arrangements because they are bound up with some hope of the heart! Only too soon the moment comes w h e n existence wears us down in each of its moments as well as in all of them together, w h e n every morning requires an effort to make awakening bearable and get us through to evening. Just as Nelvil left Corinne's to organize their departure, Count d'Erfeuil arrived, and she announced the plans just drawn up with Oswald. "What! You really intend to set off with Lord Nelvil even though he is not your husband, even though he has not promised to marry you! And what will become of you if he leaves y o u ? " "What I will become in all aspects of my life should he stop loving me: the unhappiest person in the world." "Yes, but if y o u have done nothing compromising, you yourself will remain intact." "I, intact!" exclaimed Corinne, " w h e n the deepest feeling in my life is withered! w h e n my heart is broken!"

187

BookX "No one would know, and if you conceal it, your reputation would not suffer in public opinion." "And why indulge public opinion, if not to be more charming in the eyes of the one you love?" "A person stops loving, but he does not stop living in society and needing its support." "Ah! if I could think the day would come when Oswald's affection was not everything in the world to me," Corinne answered, "if I could think that, I would have stopped loving him already. What kind of love is it that looks ahead, that reckons the moment it will no longer be alive? If there is something religious in this feeling, it is because all other interests disappear in its wake, and like piety, it delights in the total sacrifice of the self." "What are you telling me!" broke in the Count. "Can an intelligent person like you stuff her head with such nonsense! For us men, it is an advantage to have women think the way you do, since it gives us great influence over them. But your superiority must not be lost, it must be of some use to you." "Some use to me? Ah! I owe it a great deal, if it makes me feel everything generous and touching in Lord Nelvil's character." "Lord Nelvil is a man like any other," interjected the Count. "He will go back to his country, pursue his career: in a word, he will be reasonable. And by going to Naples with him, you jeopardize your reputation imprudently." "I do not know Lord Nelvil's intentions, and perhaps I would have done well to think about them before I loved him. But now, what does one more sacrifice matter! Does not my life still depend on his feeling for me? On the contrary, I find a certain peace in leaving myself no recourse: there never is any such thing when the heart is wounded. Yet sometimes the world may not believe that, and I like to think that even in this respect, my unhappiness would be complete if Lord Nelvil parted with me." "Does he know to what extent you are compromising yourself for him?" "I have been very careful to keep it from him, and since he is not very familiar with the ways of this country, I was able to exaggerate slightly the latitude they permit. I ask your word not to discuss the matter with him. I want him to be free, always free, in his relations 188

Holy Week with me: he cannot make me happy by any kind of sacrifice. The feeling that makes me happy is life's flower, and if it withered, neither kindness nor tact could bring it back to life. So I beg you, dear Count, not to meddle with my destiny. Nothing that you know about the heart's affections can be right for me. What you say is wise, well reasoned, quite appropriate to the common run of situations and people. But in all innocence you would do me grievous harm if you tried to judge my character according to the usual broad categories for which ready-made precepts exist. I suffer, I know pleasure, I feel in my own way, and anyone who wanted to affect my happiness would have to observe me alone." The Count's pride was somewhat ruffled by the futility of his advice, and the great sign of love Corinne was giving Nelvil. He knew very well that she did not love him; he knew too that she did love Oswald; but he found it unpleasant to have it all stated so openly. In a man's success with a woman, there is always something disagreeable for even his best friends. "I see I can do nothing about it," said d'Erfeuil, "but when you are very unhappy, you will think of me. In the meantime, I shall leave Rome since neither you nor Lord Nelvil will be here any more: it would be boring without you. I shall certainly see both of you again in Scotland or Italy, as I have developed a taste for travel until something else comes along. Forgive my advice, charming Corinne, and be assured of my devotion always." Corinne thanked him and said good-bye with a feeling of regret. She had met him and Oswald at the same time, and the memory formed a bond between them that she did not like to see broken. Then she proceeded to act just as she had told him. For a moment, Lord Nelvil's joy in accepting the idea of the journey was clouded with misgivings: he was afraid their departure for Naples might harm Corinne, and he tried to learn her secret before they left, to know for certain whether some invincible obstacle lay between them. But she declared she would explain her past only in Naples, and gently deluded him on what people would say about the course she had chosen. Oswald lent himself to the illusion: in a weak, indecisive character, love half misleads, reason half enlightens, and the feeling of the moment determines which of the two halves will be the whole. Lord Nelvil's mind was unusually broad and incisive, but

189

BookX he judged himself accurately in the past only. His current situation was never clear to him. He was liable at once to compulsiveness and remorse, passion and shyness—contrasts that did not allow his knowing himself until the event had disposed of the combat within. Corinne's friends were deeply grieved when they heard of her plans. The Prince, in particular, was distressed to such a degree that he resolved to join her in Naples before long. To be sure, there was nothing to be proud of when you followed in the wake of another man who is loved in preference to you, but what he could not bear was the dreadful emptiness left by his friend's absence; there was not one of his friends he did not meet at Corinne's, and he never went to any house but hers. The society gathered round her would inevitably scatter were she no longer there, and it would become impossible to put the pieces together again. Castel-Forte was not much given to spending time at home; although quite witty, he found study tiring; thus he would have found the weight of the whole long day unbearable without his morning and evening visits to Corinne. Now that she was leaving, he did not know what would become of him, and he secretly resolved to stay close to her as a friend who asks nothing in return, but who is always there to console in misfortune—and that friend can be sure that his time will come. Breaking with all her customary practices gave Corinne a melancholy feeling: for several years she had created an enjoyable style of life for herself; she was the center for all there was in the way of famous artists and enlightened men; perfect independence in ideas and practices lent great charm to her existence. What was to become of her now? If her destined happiness was to have Oswald as husband, he would have to take her away to England, and what would they think of her there? And how would she manage to confine herself to a kind of life so different from hers of the past six years! But these thoughts simply passed through her mind, and always her feeling for Oswald erased their slight trace. She saw him; she heard him; she counted time only by his presence or his absence. Who can argue with happiness! W h o does not welcome it when it comes! Above all, Corinne had little foresight—fear and hope were not made for her; she had no clear faith in the future, and on this score, her imagination did her little good or little harm.

190

Holy Week The day she left, Prince Castel-Forte came to her house, and with tears in his eyes, said: "Will you ever come back to Rome?" "Good heavens, yes," she answered. " W e shall be back in a month." "But if you marry Lord Nelvil, you shall have to leave Italy." "Leave Italy!" Corinne exclaimed, and then sighed. "This country, where they speak your language, where they understand you so well, where you are so warmly admired! And your friends, Corinne, and your friends! Where will you be loved as you are here? Where will you find the imagination and the arts that you enjoy? Does one single feeling make a life? Is not love for our native land made up of language, customs, manners? Is not this love the source of homesickness, that dreadful sorrow of exiles?" "What are you saying?" cried out Corinne. "Have I not lived it! Did not that sorrow decide my fate!" She looked sadly at her room and at the statues decorating it, then at the Tiber flowing beneath her windows, and at the sky whose beauty seemed to invite her to stay. But just then, Oswald was crossing the Sant' Angelo Bridge on horseback, swift as a flash of light. "There he is!" Corinne exclaimed. Scarcely had she said those words than he was at the door. She ran to meet him. Impatient to set out, they hurried to get into their carriage. While Corinne's farewell to the Prince was kind, her pleasant words were lost in the air amid the coachman's cries, the whinnying of the horses, and all the noise of departure—now sad, now jubilant, depending on the fear or hope inspired by new chances destiny appears to hold.

191

Book XI _ NAPLES AND THE HERMITAGE OF SAN SALVATORE I Oswald proudly carried off his conquest. This man, whose pleasures were almost always troubled by second thoughts and regrets, did not feel the pain of uncertainty any longer. Not that he had made up his mind, but he did not worry about doing it, and he let himself go along with things as they came, hoping they would sweep him on to where he wanted to be. They crossed the Alban countryside, where people still show what they think to be the tomb of the Horatii and the Curiatii.1 They went close by Lake Nemi and the sacred woods surrounding it. It is said that Diana restored Hippolytus's life in these haunts; she forebade the horses to come near him, and, by her defense, preserved the memory of her young favorite's misfortune. In Italy, this is how poetry and history are brought to mind at almost every step, and the charming places that recall them soften all that was melancholy in the past, and seem to keep it eternally young. Next, Oswald and Corinne crossed the Pontine Marshes, countryside at once fertile and unhealthy, where not a single dwelling is to be seen although nature seems fruitful there. A few ailing men put horses to your carriage and advise you not to fall asleep as you go through the marshes where slumber is the true harbinger of death. Water buffalo—both base and ferocious looking—dragged the

192

Naples and the Hermitage of San Salvatore ploughs that foolish farmers still sometimes led across this deadly soil, and the brightest sun shines on this unhappy sight. The fearsome aspect of northern marshlands testifies to their unwholesomeness, but in the most funereal regions of the south, nature's deceptive serenity suggests a mildness that deludes the traveler. If it is truly dangerous to fall asleep while crossing the Pontine Marshes, the overwhelming tendency to doze brought on by the heat is yet another of the treacherous reactions the place provokes. Lord Nelvil watched over Corinne steadily. At times she leaned her head against Teresina, w h o was traveling with them; at times she closed her eyes, conquered by the languid air. Indescribably frightened, Oswald hastened to w a k e her, and although not naturally talkative, he had an inexhaustible fund of novel subjects for unflagging conversation to keep her from giving in for a moment to that fatal slumber. Must not w o m e n ' s hearts be forgiven the rending sorrow bound up with the days w h e n they were loved, w h e n their existence was so necessary to the existence of another, w h e n at each moment they felt supported and protected? What isolation must follow those days of delight! How fortunate are those w h o m the sacred bond of marriage has gently led from love to friendship without a cruel moment's tearing their lives apart! At last, after their disquieting journey across the Pontine Marshes, Oswald and Corinne reached Terracina, a seaside t o w n on the border of the Kingdom of Naples. There, the south truly begins. There, it greets travelers in all its magnificence. That land of Naples, that happy countryside, is as if cut off from the rest of Europe both by the sea and the dangerous region that must be crossed to reach it. Nature, it would seem, decided to m a k e it perilous of approach to keep the secret of its delights for herself. Rome, not yet the south, gives some inkling of its pleasantness, but its exclusive magic does not really begin before the territory of Naples. Not far from Terracina is the promontory chosen by the poets as Circe's abode; and behind Terracina rises M o u n t A n x u r where the Gothic king, Theodoric, set one of the fortress-castles that northern warriors strewed all over the land. There are very f e w traces of the barbarian invasions in Italy, and any signs of destruction blend with the ravages of time. The northern nations did not give Italy the warlike aspect retained by Germany. Northern nations bristle with the fortifications and citadels that the yielding soil of Ausonia could not seem to hold. A Gothic building, a feudal castle,

193

Book XI is rarely found any longer, and the memory of the ancient Romans reigns alone across the centuries despite the peoples w h o conquered them. The mountain overlooking Terracina is completely covered with orange and lemon trees that deliciously perfume the air. In our climate, there is nothing like the southern perfume of lemon trees in open country. The effect on imagination is almost the same as melodious music: it gives rise to a poetic disposition, awakens talent, and intoxicates it with nature. The aloes, the large-leafed cacti encountered at each step, have a character of their o w n which brings to mind what w e k n o w of the fearful African fertility. Looking as if they belonged to a violent, overbearing nature, these plants fill us with a kind of dread. The w h o l e aspect of the countryside is foreign. You feel that y o u are in another world, in a world k n o w n only through the descriptions of the ancient poets, w h o s h o w so m u c h imagination along with such precision in their portrayals. As the travelers drove into Terracina, children threw an immense quantity of flowers into Corinne's carriage: they picked them along the side of the road, going to get them on the mountains and, confident in nature's bounty, scattering them at random! Every day garlands of roses decorated the wagons bringing the harvest from the fields, and sometimes the children set flowers around what had been reaped: for even the people's imagination turns poetic under beautiful skies. Alongside these smiling landscapes, the ocean is seen and heard, with its w a v e s crashing furiously. It was not stirred by any storm but by rocks, the obstacle regularly resisting its waves, and provoking the ire of its majesty. E n o n udite ancor come risuona II rocco ed alto fremito marino? And do you not still hear how the rough and deep shudder of the sea resounds? W e are drawn to the shore where this grand spectacle meets our eyes: this aimless motion, this purposeless force, repeated throughout eternity without our having any w a y to k n o w either its cause or its object; w e feel somehow terrified and obliged to draw near the waves and let their uproar dull our thoughts. Toward evening, calm settled in. Corinne and Nelvil strolled

194

Naples and the Hermitage of San Salvatore slowly and with delight through the countryside. With each step they crushed the flowers underfoot, freeing the perfumes deep within. The nightingales came more readily to alight on the bushes bearing roses. Thus the purest song mingled with the sweetest odors; all nature's charms attracted one another, but what is enchanting beyond description is the softness of the air you breathe. When you gaze upon a beautiful place in the north, the climate imposes itself, always disturbing somewhat the pleasure you might taste. Those small sensations of cold or humidity, that more or less deflect attention from the view, are like a note played off-key in a concert. But you feel such perfect well-being as you approach Naples, nature offers such great friendship, that nothing spoils the pleasant sensations she brings. In our climate, all of man's relationships are with society. In the warm countries, nature puts us in touch with external objects, and feelings spread gently outward. That is not to say there is no melancholy in the south; where has human destiny failed to engender this feeling? But in that melancholy, there is neither discontent, nor anxiety, nor regret. Elsewhere, life as it is proves inadequate to the soul's powers; here the soul's powers are inadequate to life; and the extravagant profusion of sensations inspires a dreamy indolence you are hardly aware of even as you feel it. During the night, fireflies appeared in the air, so that the mountain seemed to sparkle and the scorching earth to let some of its flames escape. The fireflies flew through the trees, sometimes alighting on leaves, and the wind swung these little stars, varying their precarious light in a thousand ways. In the sand, too, were a great number of ferruginous stones shining all over: it was the fiery earth, preserving still in the depths of its womb traces of the sun whose last rays had just given it warmth. At one and the same time, this nature offers life and repose to satisfy the manifold yearnings of existence. Corinne gave herself up to the evening's charm, joyously absorbing it. Oswald could not hide his emotion. Several times he pressed Corinne to his heart, several times he moved off, then returned, then moved off again to respect the one who was to be his life's companion. Corinne was not thinking about dangers that might have alarmed her, for she held Oswald in such high esteem that had he asked the total gift of herself, she would have been certain that the request was a solemn promise of marriage. But she was very pleased

195

Book XI that, victorious over himself, he honored her with the sacrifice; and in her soul was the fullness of love and happiness that precludes further desire. Oswald was far from such tranquillity: Corinne's charm set him ablaze. Once, he violently clasped her knees and seemed to have lost all control of his passion; but Corinne looked at him so sweetly and with so much fear, she seemed to acknowledge his power so fully in asking him not to abuse it, that her humble defense inspired more respect in him than any other. Then they noticed in the sea the reflection of a torch borne along the shore by an unknown hand as someone secretly made his way to a neighboring house. "He is going to see the one he loves," said Oswald. "Yes." "And for me, the day's happiness is about to end." Corinne's eyes, raised toward heaven at that moment, filled with tears. Afraid he had offended her, Oswald knelt to win pardon for the love sweeping him away. "No," said Corinne, giving him her hand and asking him to join her in going back to town. "No, Oswald, you respect the one you love, I am aware of that. You know that from you a simple request would be all-powerful; and so it is you who answer for me, you who would forever refuse to have me as your wife if you made me unworthy." "Well then!" Oswald answered, "if you believe in the cruel dominion your will holds over my heart, why, Corinne, why are you sad?" "Alas! I was telling myself that these moments spent with you now were the happiest of my life, and as I turned my eyes thankfully to heaven, I do not know why, but a childhood superstition came back into my heart. As I was gazing at the moon, it hid behind a cloud, and that cloud had a deathly look. I have always known the sky to look paternal or angry, and I tell you, Oswald, tonight it condemned our love." "Dear friend, the only omens on man's life are his good or bad deeds; and have I not this very evening sacrificed my most fervant desires to a feeling of virtue?" "Well, so much the better if you are not included in that premonition. Indeed, it may be that this stormy sky threatens me alone."

196

Naples and the Hermitage of San Salvatore

II They reached Naples during the day, amid that immense population at once so lively and so lazy. Crossing the Via Toledo, they saw the Lazzaroni2 stretched out on the paving stones, or withdrawn into the wicker baskets they use as dwellings day and night. There is something original in the blending of this primitive state with civilization. Among them are men who do not even know their own names, and go to confession to admit anonymous sins since they cannot name the one w h o committed them. Thousands of Lazzaroni spend their lives in an underground cave, coming out only at noon to see the sun, and sleeping the rest of the day while their wives spin. In climates where clothing and food pose so few problems, only a very independent and active government could give the nation sufficient will to excel. Material subsistence is so easy for the people of Naples that they can do without the kind of enterprise needed to earn a livelihood elsewhere. Laziness and ignorance combined with the volcanic air breathed in this region might conceivably provoke ferocity when the passions are aroused, but this people is no nastier than others. They have imagination, and that could be the source of unselfish deeds, for through imagination they could be led to goodness if their political and religious institutions were good. You see Calabrians set off to work the land with a violinist leading the way—from time to time they dance as a change from walking. Every year there is a festival near Naples, devoted to the Madonna of the grotto,3 where girls dance to the beat of the tambourine and castanets, and it is not unusual for their marriage contracts to require that their husbands take them to the festival every year. In the theater in Naples, you can see an eighty-year-old actor who has been making Neapolitans laugh for sixty years in their national comic role of Punchinello. Can you imagine the nature of the soul's immortality for a man who has filled his long life this way? The people of Naples have no other idea of happiness than pleasure, but the love of pleasure is far better than arid selfishness. It is true that in all the world these people love money the most. If you ask a man of the people for directions, he holds out his hand to you after he points the way, for they are lazier with words than ges-

197

Book XI tures. But their taste for money is not at all systematic or calculated; they spend it as fast as they get it. Savages would ask for money like that if it were introduced among them. What is most lacking in this nation is the sense of dignity. They do kind and generous deeds out of the goodness of their hearts rather than from principle, for they have no gift for theoretical thinking, and public opinion carries no weight in this country. But when men and women escape this moral anarchy, their behavior is more remarkable in itself, and worthier of admiration than anywhere else, since nothing in the outward circumstances of their lives encourages virtue. They derive it entirely from their souls. Law and custom neither reward nor punish, and the virtuous person is particularly heroic in that he does not win more respect nor is he more sought out. With a few honorable exceptions, the upper classes are much like the lower; their minds are hardly more cultivated, and good manners are the only outward difference. But at the heart of this ignorance, there is such a wealth of natural intellect and aptitude for everything that it is impossible to tell what a nation of this kind would become if all the government's energies were directed toward enlightenment and morals. Since there has been little education in Naples up to now, greater originality is to be found in character than in mind. But the remarkable men of this country, such as the Abbé Galiani and Caraccioli, 4 are said to possess reflection and humor to the highest degree, a necessary combination if we are to avoid the pedantry or frivolousness that keep us from knowing the true value of things. In some respects, Neapolitans are not at all civilized, but they do not have the vulgarity of other peoples. Their very coarseness strikes the imagination. One can almost sense the African shore that borders the sea on the other side, and there is something indefinably Numidian in the wild cries heard from every direction. These tanned faces, these clothes made with a few scraps of material whose brilliant red or purple attracts the eye; these shreds of apparel, skillfully draped by this artistic people, give the rabble of Naples a picturesque quality, whereas elsewhere, the rabble manifests only the misery of civilization. A certain taste for finery and ornamentation is often found in Naples side by side with a lack of the minimal necessities or comforts. The shops are nicely decorated with flowers and fruits. Some have a festive air that has nothing to do with general affluence

198

Naples and the Hermitage of San Salvatore or happiness, but only with a lively imagination: above all, people want to offer a feast for the eye. Thanks to the mild climate, all manner of work is done out on the street: the tailors make suits; the caterers, their meals; and household chores done out-of-doors increase the activity in a thousand ways. Song, dance, noisy games provide a rather good accompaniment for the whole spectacle, and there is no country where the distinction between entertainment and happiness is more clearly felt. Finally you make your way from within the city to the quays where you see both the sea and Vesuvius, and then you forget everything you know about mankind. Vesuvius was still erupting when Oswald and Corinne reached Naples. During the day, there was only black smoke that could be taken for clouds; but as evening made its way across the balcony of their dwelling, they felt an entirely unexpected emotion. As the fiery river of lava goes down toward the sea, its flaming waves, like the water's billows, display the rapid and unending succession of tireless motion. It would seem that nature, transmuted from one element to another, still retains some traces of a single, original thought. The heart beats wildly at the phenomenon that is Vesuvius. Normally, we live in such great intimacy with concrete objects that we are hardly aware of their existence; and within our own prosaic countries, scarcely any new emotions of this kind are offered to us. But all of a sudden, the astonishment that the universe ought indeed to provoke is renewed at the sight of an unknown marvel of creation: our whole being is stirred by the power of nature from which social arrangements have distracted us for so long. W e sense that the greatest mysteries in this world do not all lie in man, and that an independent force threatens or protects him according to laws he cannot fathom. Oswald and Corinne made up their minds to climb Vesuvius, and the possible peril of the venture lent one more charm to plans they would carry out together.

Ill At that time, an English man-of-war was in the port of Naples, and religious services were held there every Sunday. The captain and the city's English community suggested that Nelvil come the following

199

Book XI day. He accepted without thinking out beforehand whether he would take Corinne, and h o w he would introduce her to his countrymen; thus all night long he was tortured by anxiety. The next morning, as he was strolling near the port with Corinne, ready to advise her not to board the ship, they saw an English longboat rowed by ten sailors dressed in white, wearing black velvet caps embroidered with silver leopards. A young officer came ashore, and greeting Corinne as Lady Nelvil, invited her aboard to go out to the ship. The name of Lady Nelvil unsettled Corinne; she blushed and lowered her eyes. Oswald looked hesitant for a moment, then suddenly taking her hand said in English: "Come, my dear." And she followed him. The noise of the waves and the silence of the admirably disciplined sailors, rapidly rowing the boat over the sea they had crossed so many times without a wasted gesture or an unnecessary word, inspired reverie. Besides, Corinne did not dare question Nelvil on what had just happened. She tried to guess at his intentions, not believing (what is always the likeliest explanation, however) that he did not have any at all, and that he simply drifted into each new situation. For a moment she fancied he was taking her to the religious services to make her his wife; and at that moment, the idea was more frightening than happy. It seemed to her that she was leaving Italy and returning to England where she had suffered greatly. The austerity of that country's morals and customs flooded back into her thoughts, and love itself could not entirely quell her unsettling memories. And yet in other circumstances h o w astonished she will be at having had such thoughts, ephemeral though they may have been! How she will forswear them! Corinne came aboard the ship where the interior was maintained with the most elaborate care and cleanliness. There was no sound but the captain's voice, resounding and echoing from stem to stern by command and obedience. The sense of rank, the seriousness, the consistency, the silence so noticeable on the ship were the image of a free and austere social order that stood in direct contrast to the city of Naples, so lively, so passionate, so tumultous. Oswald was concerned with Corinne and her reactions; but from time to time he was distracted by the pleasure of being in his native land once more. For are not ships and the sea indeed a second homeland for the English? Oswald strolled about with the Englishmen aboard to hear news of England, and to chat about his country and about politics. Meanwhile,

200

Naples and the Hermitage of San Salvatore Corinne was with the Englishwomen, come from Naples for the services. They were surrounded by their children, beautiful as the day is long, but shy like their mothers, and not a word was spoken in front of their new acquaintance. The constraint and the silence rather saddened Corinne. She raised her eyes to lovely Naples, to her flowered shores, to her animated life, and she sighed. Fortunately, Oswald did not notice; on the contrary seeing her seated among Englishwomen, her dark eyelids lowered like the blond eyelids, and falling in with their ways in every respect, he felt a great sense of joy. It is useless for an Englishman to enjoy foreign customs for a moment; his heart always comes back to his life's first impressions. If you question Englishmen sailing on a ship at the other end of the world, and ask them where they are going, they will answer "home," if they are going back to England. Their desires, their feelings are always turned toward their native land, however far from her they may be. They went down between the first two decks for the service, and Corinne soon realized that her fancy had no basis in fact, and that Lord Nelvil had no such solemn plan as she had at first supposed. So she reproached herself for her fears and felt anew the difficulty of her situation; for no one there suspected that she was not Lord Nelvil's wife, and she did not have the strength to say a word that might destroy or confirm that idea. Oswald, too, was suffering bitterly, but despite a thousand rare qualities, his character was shot through with weakness and indecisiveness. Such a person is unaware of his flaws, and in his eyes they take on a new form with every event. At one time or another, it is prudence, sensitivity, or delicacy that puts off the moment of decision, and prolongs an undecided situation. In such cases one almost never feels that the same trait presents the same problem in all circumstances. The spectacle she witnessed made a deep impression on Corinne, despite the painful thoughts occupying her mind. Indeed, nothing speaks more to the soul than the religious service held on a ship, and the noble simplicity of Protestant worship is particularly suited to one's feelings at such a time. A young man served as chaplain; he preached in a firm soft voice, and his face had the sternness of a youthfully pure soul. That sternness carries with it an idea of strength appropriate to the religion preached in the midst of war's perils. At specific moments, 201

B o o k XI the Anglican minister recited prayers and the whole congregation repeated the last words of each one with him. That hubbub of rather soft voices came at intervals to rekindle interest and emotion. The sailors, the officers, the captain knelt from time to time, above all at the words: "Lord have mercy upon us." The captain's sword, dragging beside him while he was on his knees, called to mind what makes the warrior's piety so touching: humility before God nobly united with dauntlessness against men. And while all those brave men prayed to the God of the armies, the sea could be glimpsed through the portholes, and at times the light sound of its waves, calm for the moment, seemed to say: "Your prayers are heard." The captain concluded the service with the special prayer of English sailors. They recited: May God grant us the grace of defending our happy constitution beyond our country's borders, and to find domestic happiness again when we return to our homes? What splendid sentiments are brought together in those simple words! Given the preliminary and ongoing study required by the navy and the austere life on board, the ship is a kind of military cloister in the middle of the waters, and the regularity of the most serious operations is interrupted only by peril and death. Despite their warlike habits, sailors often speak very gently to women and children when they happen to be aboard, and show them extraordinary compassion. One is all the more touched by these feelings for knowing how coolly these men risk the frightful dangers of war and sea, in the midst of which there is something supernatural about the human presence. Corinne and Lord Nelvil got back into the boat that was to take them ashore. Once more they saw the city of Naples, built in the form of an amphitheater as if to attend Nature's festival more comfortably, and putting her foot on shore, Corinne could not resist a sense of joy. Had Nelvil suspected, he would have been keenly hurt, perhaps rightly so; and yet he would have been unjust, for Corinne loved him passionately, in spite of the pain she found in her memories of a country where cruel circumstances had made her unhappy. She had a restless imagination; there were great powers of love in her heart, but talent, especially in a woman, creates a tendency to boredom, a need for diversion that the deepest passion does not entirely dissipate. The image of a monotonous life, even cradled in happiness, is frightening to a spirit that needs variety. It is when there is little wind in your sails 202

Naples and the Hermitage of San Salvatore that you can skirt the shore; but imagination wanders although sensibility remains faithful. At least this is the way things are until the moment misfortune dispels everything inconsequential, allowing no more than a single thought and no other feeling than a single sorrow. Oswald ascribed Corinne's reverie solely to the difficult position she must have been in when she heard herself called Lady Nelvil; and sharply reproaching himself with his failure to disengage her, he was afraid she suspected him of indifference. Thus to have the explanation he wanted so desperately, he began by offering to disclose his own story. "I shall speak first," he said, "and then you will confide in me." "Yes, of course, I must," Corinne answered, trembling. "Then that is what you want? What day? What time? When you have spoken . . . I will tell you everything." "You are so dreadfully upset! What! Will you always be so fearful of your friend, so mistrustful of his heart?" "No, it must be done. I have put it all in writing; if you like, tomorrow . . ." "Tomorrow we are going to Vesuvius together. I want to contemplate that astonishing marvel with you, learn to admire it from you; and if I have the strength, I shall tell you everything about my own fate during the journey itself. I must be the first to confide. My heart is resolved." "Well yes, then," Corinne answered. "You give me tomorrow: I thank you for that day. Ah! who knows whether you will still be the same for me when I have opened my heart to you? Who knows! And how is it possible not to shudder at the doubt?"

IV The ruins of Pompeii are on the same seacoast as Vesuvius, and there Corinne and Lord Nelvil began their journey. Both of them were silent, for the moment was approaching when their fate would be decided; and the vague hope they had so long enjoyed, corresponding so well to the indolence and reverie inspired by the Italian climate, was at last to be replaced by an actual destiny. Together,

203

Book XI they saw Pompeii, antiquity's most curious ruin. In Rome, little is to be found other than the public monuments recalling the political history of the centuries that have slipped away. But in Pompeii, the private life of the ancients is presented just as it was. The volcano that covered this city with ashes preserved it from the ravages of time.6 Buildings exposed to the air would never have been so well preserved, and a buried memory has been entirely restored. The paintings and the bronzes retain their pristine beauty, and everything that can serve domestic purposes is preserved in a frightening way. The amphorae are still readied for the next day's banquet; the flour that was to be kneaded is still there; the remains of a woman are still decked in the finery she was wearing when the volcano disturbed her holiday, and her dried-out arms no longer fill the jeweled bracelets that still encircle them. Nowhere else can one see so striking an image of the sudden interruption of life. Wheel tracks are visibly marked in the paving blocks of the streets, and the stones edging a well bear traces of the ropes that gradually dug grooves in them. On the walls of a guardhouse are badly shaped letters and roughly sketched figures drawn by soldiers to while away the time—as that time was advancing to swallow them up. When you stand in the middle of the intersection, you can see almost all that is left of the city in every direction, and it seems as if you are waiting for someone, that the master is about to come home at any moment; and this very appearance of life gives you a more sorrowful sense of Pompeii's eternal silence. Most of the houses were built with petrified lava, only to be buried by other lava. Thus ruins upon ruins, and tombs upon tombs. This history of the world where epochs are reckoned from remnants to remnants, this human life whose trail is followed by the light of the volcano that consumed it, fills the soul with deep melancholy. What a long time has man existed! What a long time has he lived, suffered, and perished! Where can his feelings and thoughts be found again? Does the air we breathe in these ruins still bear their trace, or are they forever lodged in heaven where immortality reigns? At Portici, some few burned leaves of manuscripts found at Herculaneum and Pompeii are being unrolled; they are all that is left for us to interpret the unfortunate victims devoured by earth's thunderbolt: the volcano. But as you pass by those ashes successfully brought back to life by art, you fear to 204

Naples and the Hermitage of Sari Salvatore breathe lest a puff of air carry off that dust, still imprinted perhaps with noble ideas. Public buildings are still rather beautiful even here in Pompeii, one of the least important cities of Italy. For the ancients, luxury almost always served the public interest. Their private houses are very small and show no pursuit of splendor, but they do reveal a noticeably keen taste for the arts. Almost the whole interior was decorated with the pleasantest paintings and paved with artistically worked mosaics. On many of these stones you find the word "greetings" (salve). Placed on the threshold as a welcome, this word was surely not simple good manners, but rather a call for hospitality. The bedrooms are exceptionally narrow and poorly lit, their windows never on the street, and almost always looking onto a gallery that is inside the house as is the marble courtyard which it surrounds. In the middle of the court is a simply decorated cistern. It is clear from the style of the house that the ancients almost always lived out-of-doors, and that this was h o w they received their guests. Nothing gives a pleasanter and more delicious idea of existence than this climate uniting m a n intimately with nature. Such a way of life would seem to give conversation and society a different cast than in countries whose severly cold weather keeps people inside their homes. Plato's dialogues are more comprehensible w h e n you see the porticos that sheltered the ancients as they strolled up and d o w n for half the day; they were constantly exhilarated by the sight of a beautiful sky. As they conceived it, the social order was no arid combination of calculation and power, but a happy set of institutions that stimulate the faculties, develop the soul, and give m a n the goal of perfecting himself and his fellow men. Antiquity inspires insatiable curiosity. Scholars concerned only with assembling a collection of names they call history are surely devoid of all imagination. For it is the imagination's never ending task to divine and discover the most wonderful secrets that reflection and study can reveal to us: to go deep into the past, to question the hum a n heart across the centuries, to grasp a fact through a word, the character and customs of a nation through an event, indeed to go back to the most remote times in the attempt to picture how the world looked to h u m a n eyes in its first youth, how men endured the gift of life—so complicated n o w by civilization. Oswald was particularly attracted to this kind of interest and occupation, and he often re205

Book XI peated to Corinne that if he did not have noble interests to serve in his o w n country, he w o u l d find life bearable only in places where history's monuments take the place of present-day existence. W e must at least miss glory w h e n it is no longer attainable. Forgetfulness alone degrades the soul, w h i c h can find refuge in the past w h e n sterile circumstances deprive acts of their purpose. Leaving Pompeii, Corinne and Lord Nelvil went back to Portici, where they were quickly surrounded by people screaming at them to come visit the mountain, as they call Vesuvius. Does it need to be named? For Neapolitans it is glory and fatherland; this marvel sets their country apart. Oswald decided that Corinne would be carried on a kind of litter as far as the Hermitage of San Salvador, half w a y up the mountain, w h e r e travelers rest before undertaking the climb to the summit. He rode beside her on horseback to supervise the men carrying her, and the more his heart was filled with the generous thoughts nature and history inspire, the more he adored Corinne. At the foot of Vesuvius, the countryside is the most fertile and intensively farmed in all the Kingdom of Naples, that is to say, in the European land most favored by heaven. The celebrated vineyard whose wine is called Lacryma Christi is located here, immediately beside ground devastated by lava. It would seem that nature made one last effort in this spot next to the volcano, and adorned herself with her most beautiful gifts before she perished. As you go higher, turning around y o u can make out Naples in the distance, and the wonderful countryside around her. The sea sparkles like precious stones in the rays of the sun, but ahead, all the splendor of creation fades away by degrees up to the land of ash and smoke that proclaims the presence of the volcano nearby. The ferruginous lava-flows of earlier years trace their broad, black furrows on the ground, and all is barren around them. At a certain height, birds fly no more, at another, plants become sparse, then even insects find nothing more to live on in this wasted nature. Finally, everything alive disappears; you enter the empire of death, and your balance is precarious with only the ash of this pulverized land rolling underfoot. Ne greggi ni armenti Guida bifolco mai, guida pastore.

206

Naples and the Hermitage of San Salvatore "Never do herdsmen nor shepherds lead their flocks or their lambs into that place." 7 A hermit lives there on the border between life and death. In front of his door stands a tree, vegetation's last farewell. Travelers usually wait for the night in the shade of its pale foliage to continue on their way, for during the day the fires of Vesuvius are seen only as a cloud of smoke, and the lava—so fiery by night—looks dark in the light of the sun. The metamorphosis itself is a beautiful spectacle, renewing every night the wonder that unbroken sameness might weaken. The impression of the place, its deep solitude, gave Lord Nelvil greater strength to reveal his secret feelings; and hoping to encourage Corinne to confide in him, he agreed to speak. Deeply moved, he said to her: "You want to read into the depths of your unfortunate friend's soul. Well then, I shall reveal everything: my wounds will reopen, I sense that; but in the presence of immutable nature, must one be so afraid of the suffering that time carries along with it?"

207

Book XII LORD NELVIL'S STORY

I "I was raised in my father's house with a tenderness and goodness I admire far more now that I know men. I have never loved anything more deeply than my father, and yet it seems to me that had I known, as I do today, how unique his character was in the world, my affection would have been stronger still, and more devoted. I remember a thousand details of his life which seemed simple to me, because my father thought them so, and which affect me painfully now that I know their worth. The blame we heap on ourselves for our treatment of another person who was dear to us and w h o is no longer alive gives an idea of what eternal torment might be, if divine mercy did not come to the aid of such grief. "I was happy and peaceful at my father's side, but I wanted to travel before entering the army. In my country, there is the finest civil career for eloquent men; but I was—and I still am—so shy that it would have been very painful for me to speak in public, and I chose a military career instead. I preferred to deal with certain danger rather than possible humiliation. In every respect, my pride is more touchy than ambitious, and I have always found that men appear like ghosts to your imagination when they blame you, and like pygmies when they speak in your praise. I had a mind to go to France, where there had

208

Lord Nelvil's Story just broken out the revolution that, despite the advanced age of the human race, claimed to make over the history of the world. Having seen Paris toward the end of the reign of Louis XV, my father retained a certain bias, and found it hard to imagine that cliques could turn into a nation, pretention into virtue, vanity into enthusiasm. Still he consented to the trip I wanted because he was afraid of insisting on anything; he found it difficult to exercise his paternal authority when duty did not command him to do so. He always feared that authority might spoil the true and pure affection which depends on what is most free and involuntary in our nature, and above all, he needed to be loved. Thus, early in 1791, when I was just twenty-one, he granted me six months in France, and I left to get to know that nation, so close to us yet so different in its institutions and the way of life developed there as a result. "I thought I would never come to like the country; I shared the prejudices inspired in us by sober English pride. I feared ridicule of all the cults of heart and thought; I detested the art of deflating all impulse, of disillusioning all love. That highly vaunted gaiety seemed essentially quite sad to me, since it gave the deathblow to my most cherished feelings. At the time, I did not know any of those truly distinguished Frenchmen who combine the noblest qualities with delightfully charming manners. I was surprised by the simplicity and freedom reigning in Parisian society. The most important matters were handled with an absence of superficiality and pedantry alike. It seemed that conversation had inherited the deepest ideas, and that the whole world was in a state of revolution only to make social life in Paris more attractive. I met well-educated, highly talented men, inspired even more by the desire to please than by the need to be useful, seeking a salon's approval after winning acclaim at the speaker's rostrum, living in the society of women to be applauded rather than loved. "In Paris, everything bearing on outward happiness was perfectly arranged. There was no constraint in the details of life which was selfish at the core, but never in its outward manifestations; an activity, an interest that took up each of your days without much result, but also without ever weighing you down. It was characterized by the quickness of mind that can point out and grasp with a word what elsewhere would have required a lengthy amplification; an imitative

209

Book XII spirit that might well resist all true independence, but that brings to conversation a kind of harmony and graciousness not to be found anywhere else. In a word, Paris offered an easy way to lead one's life, to lend it variety, and to shield it from reflection without estranging it from the charms of the mind. To all these ways of numbing yourself, you must add things to see, foreigners, the news of the day, and you will have an idea of the most sociable city in the world. I am almost amazed to pronounce its name in this hermitage, in the middle of a wilderness that calls to life impressions diametrically opposed to those made by the liveliest population in the world; but I had to portray that place for you, and its effect on me. " N o w that you have known me so somber and so discouraged, Corinne, will you believe that I let myself be seduced by that intellectual whirlwind! I was very glad not to have a single moment's boredom, even though I had not one for meditation. I was pleased to dull my capacity for suffering, although it affected my ability to love. If I can judge by my own case, it seems to me that a man of serious and sensitive character can be wearied by the very intensity and depth of his reactions. He always returns to his nature, but what takes him out of it, for a short time at least, does him good. It is by raising me above myself, Corinne, that you dispel my native melancholy. It was in making more of me than I am really worth, that another woman—I shall tell you about her shortly—numbed my inner sadness. Yet though I had developed a taste for Parisian life, it would soon have proved inadequate, had I not won the friendship of a man who was the perfect model of French character with its old-fashioned loyalty, and of the French mind with its new culture. "I shall not tell you the real names of the people I am to speak of, my friend; and when you hear the rest of the story, you will understand why I must conceal them. Count Raimond came from the most renowned family in France. In his soul was all the knightly pride of his ancestors, and his rational mind adopted the new philosophical ideas when they enjoined personal sacrifice. He had not been actively involved in the Revolution, but he loved what was virtuous in each party; courage and gratitude here, love of liberty there: everything unselfish pleased him. The cause of oppressed people was just in his eyes, and his generosity of character was further heightened by the greatest carelessness of his own life. He was not exactly unhappy, but

210

Lord Nelvil's Story there was such a contrast between his soul and society as it normally is that he was put off by the daily pain it afforded. I was fortunate enough to catch the interest of Count Raimond: he sought to vanquish my natural reserve, and to conquer it, he took pains to give our friendship a truly romantic cast: nothing could keep him from doing a great service or a small favor. He wanted to take up residence in England for half of the year so that he would not have to leave me. It proved very difficult to keep him from sharing everything he owned with me. 'I have just one sister,' he told me, 'married to a very wealthy old man, and I am free to do as I want with my fortune. Besides, the Revolution will turn out badly, and I may well be killed: so help me enjoy what I have by considering it yours.' "Alas, generous Raimond foresaw his destiny too well! When a man is capable of self-knowledge, he is rarely mistaken about his fate; and more often than not, forebodings are but self-judgments not yet fully acknowledged. Noble, sincere, even imprudent, Raimond laid his whole soul bare. That sort of character was a new pleasure for me: among us, the soul's treasures are not easily exposed, and we have got into the habit of finding suspect everything that is openly displayed. But my friend's exuberant goodness was a sure and ready delight. I found none of his qualities suspect, even though they were all immediately revealed. I was not at all shy in my relationships with him, and what is better, he put me at ease with myself. Such was the lovable Frenchman for whom I felt the perfect friendship, the brotherhood of comrades-in-arms, possible only to the young, before they know the feeling of rivalry, before irrevocably set careers furrow and divide the field of the future. "One day Count Raimond told me: 'My sister is a widow, and I admit that I am not grieved in the slightest. I did not care for her marriage; she accepted the hand of an old man at a time when neither of us was well off, for I inherited my fortune only recently. But in any case, I opposed the match at the time as much as I could. I do not like people to scheme, and least of all for the most solemn act of their lives. But, when all is said and done, she behaved admirably with the husband she did not love; in the world's eyes, there is nothing more to say. Now that she is free, she is coming back to live with me. You will see her; she is a very pleasant person when you get to know her.

211

Book XII and you English enjoy making discoveries. I personally find it more enjoyable to read everything in a person's countenance. But while your reserved manners have never disturbed me, my sister's make me a little uncomfortable.' "Madame d'Arbigny, Count Raimond's sister, arrived the next morning, and that very evening I was presented to her. Her features resembled her brother's; the sound of her voice was similar, but the tone was entirely different, and her expression was subtler and more reserved; moreover, her face was very pleasing, her figure graceful, and in all her movements there was perfect elegance. She did not say an inappropriate word; she never behaved inconsiderately and yet her courtesy was in no way excessive. She flattered your pride skillfully, showing that you pleased her, without ever compromising herself: for in everything having to do with sensibility, she always spoke as if she wanted to conceal from others what was going on in her heart. I was captivated by this apparent resemblance to the women of my country. Indeed, it did seem that Madame d'Arbigny too often betrayed what she claimed she wanted to hide, and that mere chance did not offer quite so many occasions for involuntary tender emotion as arose around her; but that thought merely crossed my mind, and what I usually felt around Madame d'Arbigny was sweet and new to me. "No one had ever flattered me. In my country, we feel deeply both love and the enthusiasm it inspires, but the art of working one's way into the heart through pride is little known. Besides, I was just out of the university, and until then, no one in England had paid attention to me. Madame d'Arbigny took note of everything I said; she was constantly attentive: I do not believe she was very familiar with all I could become, but she revealed me to myself by noticing a thousand details with disconcerting shrewdness. I sometimes thought that her language was a bit artful, that she spoke too well and in too soft a voice, that her sentences were too studied; but her resemblance to her brother, the sincerest of men, banished the doubt from my mind and inclined me to find her rather attractive. "One day I told Count Raimond how this resemblance was affecting me. He thanked me, but after a moment's thought, said: " 'Still, in terms of character, my sister and I have nothing in common.' 212

Lord Nelvil's Story "He said nothing more, but recalling his words later on, along with many other circumstances, I became convinced that he did not want me to marry his sister. It is impossible to doubt that this was her plan even then, although that plan was not so evident as it became later on. W e spent our lives together, and at her side the days flowed by, often pleasantly, always untroubled. I have reflected since that she regularly adopted m y point of view; w h e n I began a sentence, she finished it, or anticipating w h a t I w a s going to say, she hastened to fall in with it. Yet in spite of this apparently perfect meekness, she ruled over me tyranically. She had a w a y of saying, "Surely, you will do thus and so, surely, you will not take such a step," that completely dominated me. It seemed to m e that I would lose all her respect if I did not live up to her expectations, and I prized that respect, which was often expressed in very flattering words. "Still, Corinne, believe me, for I thought so even before I met you: the feeling M a d a m e d'Arbigny inspired was not love. I had not told her that I loved her. I did not k n o w whether such a daughter-in-law would suit my father: it w o u l d not have occurred to him that I would marry a Frenchwoman, and I did not want to do anything without his consent. I believe my silence displeased Madame d'Arbigny, for occasionally she showed an annoyance that she passed off as sadness. Although afterward she w o u l d ascribe it to touching motives, her face sometimes looked very cold w h e n she was not on her guard. But I attributed this occasional moodiness to a relationship I too found wanting, for it is not good for us to love a little rather than completely. "Neither Count Raimond nor I talked about his sister. This was the first constraint to exist between us, but on several occasions, Madame d'Arbigny had begged me not to discuss her with her brother, and w h e n I looked surprised at her entreaty, she would say: " 'I do not k n o w if y o u are like me, but I cannot bear for a third person, even a close friend, to be involved in my feelings for another. I like privacy in all attachments.' "The explanation rather pleased me and I obeyed her wishes. At that point, I received a letter from my father, calling me back to Scotland. The six months set for my stay in France had slipped by, and with the unrest in this country steadily growing, he did not think it appropriate for a foreigner to remain any longer. At first I was sorely grieved. Nonetheless, I sensed h o w right my father was. I wanted to

213

Book XII see him very badly, but the life I was leading in Paris with Count Raimond and his sister was so pleasant that I could not tear myself a w a y from it without bitter distress. I went immediately to Madame d'Arbigny's. I showed her my letter and, as she read it, I was still so absorbed in m y distress that I did not even notice her reaction. I only heard her say a f e w words advising me to put off my departure, to write my father that I w a s ill, in short, to deal with his wishes by beating to the windward as it were. I remember that this was the term she used. I w a s about to answer and ought to have said what was in fact true—that my departure was set for the next d a y — w h e n Count Raimond entered. Discovering what was at issue, he declared unequivocally that I was to obey my father and that there was no reason to hesitate. I w a s astonished at the swiftness of his decision, I expected him to urge m e to stay; I wanted to resist my o w n regrets, but I did not think my triumph would be made so easy, and for a moment I misconstrued my friend's feelings. He understood, took me by the hand, and said: " 'Within three months I shall be in England, so w h y should I keep you in France? I have my reasons for doing nothing to hold you,' he added softly. "But his sister overheard him, and hastened to say that it was indeed wise to avoid the risks an Englishmen might run in France in the middle of the Revolution. At this point, I am certain that this was not Count Raimond's meaning but he neither contradicted nor confirmed his sister's explanation. I w a s leaving; he did not judge it necessary to say anything more on the subject. " 'If I could be useful to my country, I would remain,' he went on, 'but as y o u can see, there is no France any longer. The ideas and feelings that made one love her do not exist any more. I will still miss this soil, but I shall find my native land again w h e n I breathe the same air as you.' " H o w moved I w a s by the touching expression of so true a friendship! How far Raimond outdistanced his sister in my affection at that moment! She quickly guessed it, and that same evening I saw her in a new light. Company arrived, she proved a superb hostess, she spoke quite naturally about m y departure and generally gave the impression that, for her, it w a s the most ordinary of events. I had already noticed on several occasions that she valued other people's regard so highly

214

Lord Nelvil's Story that she never let anyone see the feelings she expressed to me in private. But this time, it was too much, and I was so hurt by her indifference that I resolved to leave before the others, and not to spend a moment alone with her. When she saw that I was asking her brother to bid me farewell the next morning before I left, she came to us saying, loud enough to be overheard, that she had a letter to give me for one of her friends in England. Very quickly and very quietly she added: " 'You are sorry only about my brother. You speak only to him and you want to cut me to the heart, going off like that!' Then she went straight back to sit in the center of her group. Troubled by her words, I was going to stay when Count Raimond took me by the arm and led me off to his room. "When everyone had gone, we heard repeated ringing from Madame d'Arbigny's apartment. Count Raimond paid no attention. I obliged him to be concerned, and we sent to find out what was the matter. We were told that Madame d'Arbigny had just been taken ill. I was deeply moved; I wanted to see her again, to go to her once more: Count Raimond stubbornly held me back. " 'Let us stay clear of that emotion,' he said. 'Women always get over things better when they are alone.' "I could not understand my friend's harshness toward his sister, for it contrasted sharply with his unfailing kindness, and the next day I parted from him with a kind of perplexity that made our farewell less affectionate. Ah! if only I had guessed the delicacy of feeling that kept him from consenting to his sister's capturing me when he did not believe she was made to make me happy; above all, if only I had foreseen what events were going to separate us forever, my farewell would have satisfied his soul and my own!"

II For a few moments, Oswald remained silent. Corinne was listening to his tale so avidly that, afraid to delay his going on, she too said nothing. "I would be a happy man," he continued, "if my relations with Madame d'Arbigny had ended there, if I had stayed with my father, if I

215

Book XII had never set foot in France again! But the fatality—perhaps I should say the w e a k n e s s — o f my character poisoned my life forever: yes, dear friend, even at your side. "I spent a year in Scotland with m y father, and our affection for each other grew deeper every day. I made my w a y into the sanctuary of that heavenly soul, and in the friendship uniting us, found those mysterious, instinctive blood ties that bound us together in every fiber of our beings. I received affectionate letters from Raimond; he told me the problems he faced in getting his fortune out of France so that he could join me, but he never stopped trying. I still loved him, but what friend could compare to my father! The respect he inspired did not keep me from speaking with him freely. I had faith in my father's words as in an oracle, and the ambivalence that is unfortunately part of my character always ceased the moment he spoke. God has formed us to love what is worthy of veneration, an English writer said. M y father did not k n o w — c o u l d not have k n o w n — t o what extent I loved him, and my fatal behavior must have made him wonder. "Yet he took pity on me; as he lay dying, he was sorry for the pain his loss w o u l d bring me. A h ! Corinne, keep my courage up; I need it to go on with this sad tale." "Dear friend," said Corinne, "take some comfort in displaying so noble and sensitive a soul to the person w h o admires and cherishes y o u most in the world." "He sent me to London on business," Nelvil went on, "and I left, never to see him again, without the slightest qualm to warn me of my misfortune. He w a s more lovable than ever in our last conversations: like flowers, the souls of the righteous yield more perfume toward evening, if y o u will. He embraced me with tears in his eyes, telling me repeatedly that at his age, everything w a s solemn. But I believed in his life as in my o w n : our souls understood each other so well, his love was so youthful that I did not think of him as old. In strong attachments, there is n o explanation for either confidence or fear. W h e n I left, my father came with me to the threshold of his castle, the castle I was to see later forsaken and ravaged like my sad heart. "I had not been in London a week, w h e n I received M a d a m e d'Arbigny's fatal letter, every word of w h i c h I remember: " 'Yesterday, on the tenth of August, my brother was slaughtered at the Tuileries, defending his king. As his sister, I am outlawed, and

216

Lord Nelvil's Story forced into hiding to escape my persecuters. Count Raimond had taken all my fortune along with his to send on to England: have you received it yet, or do you know to whom he entrusted it for you? I have only a brief note from him written from the palace itself when he realized the attack was imminent; it says only to get in touch with you to find out everything. If you can come here to take me away, it may be that you will save my life, for the English still travel freely in France, and I have no way of obtaining a passport: my brother's name makes me suspect. If Raimond's unhappy sister is of sufficient interest for you to come to her, you will find her place of refuge through M. de Maltigues, a relative who lives in Paris. But should you generously mean to help me, do not lose a moment, for they say war may break out any day between our two countries.' "Imagine how this letter affected me. My friend slaughtered, his sister in despair, and their fortune in my hands according to her, although I had heard absolutely nothing to that effect. Add to these circumstances Madame d'Arbigny's dangerous situation, and the idea that I could serve her by going to get her. It did not seem possible to hesitate, and I left immediately after sending my father correspondence that included the letter I had just received, and the promise to return in less than two weeks! By a truly cruel quirk of fate, my messenger fell ill on the way, and the second letter written from Dover reached my father before the first. Thus he heard of my departure without knowing the reasons for it, and by the time the explanation arrived, he had developed misgivings that were not to be dispelled. "I reached Paris in three days. Learning that Madame d'Arbigny had retired to a provincial town sixty leagues away, I went on to join her. We were deeply moved when we saw each other again. She proved much more likable in misfortune, because her manners were less artificial and constrained. We wept together for her noble brother and for the public disasters! I anxiously inquired about her fortune. She told me that she had heard nothing; but a few days later, I discovered that it had been returned by the banker to whom Count Raimond had entrusted it. What is stranger still, I heard it from a merchant in the town who simply happened to tell me, adding the assurance that Madame d'Arbigny could never have been really worried on that score. I was at a loss to understand, and went straight to Madame d'Arbigny's to ask what it meant. I found one of

217

Book XII her relatives there, M. de Maltigues, who was remarkably quick to tell me coolly that he had just arrived from Paris to bring Madame d'Arbigny news of her banker's return, the banker she thought was in England and w h o had not been in touch with her for a month. Madame d'Arbigny confirmed what he said, and I believed her. Still, I remembered that she constantly found pretexts for not showing me the alleged note from her brother mentioned in her letter. Since then I have come to understand that she had tricked me into worrying about her fortune. "At least it is true that she was wealthy, and in that sense had no selfish motive in wanting to marry me. But her great mistake was to turn feeling into an enterprise, to scheme when love would have been enough, to dissemble unremittingly, when it would have been better to show what she was feeling in all simplicity. For she loved me then as much as is possible to love when one plans one's acts, almost one's thoughts—managing the relations of the heart as if they were political intrigues. "Madame d'Arbigny's sadness added further to her outward charms and gave her a touching expression that I found extremely attractive. I had formally made known to her that I would not marry without my father's consent, but I could not keep from expressing the rapture her alluring face excited. And since it suited her plans to captivate me at any cost, I had the sense that she was not unalterably resolved to repel my desire. And now that I recall what happened between us, it seems to me that her hesitation had nothing to do with love, and that her apparent struggles masked a hidden design. I found myself alone with her all day long, and in spite of the resolutions called for by conscience, I could not keep from being swept away. Madame d'Arbigny imposed all duties in granting all rights. She probably displayed more grief and remorse than she actually felt, and bound me firmly to her fate by her very repentance. I wanted to take her to England with me, present her to my father, and beg his consent to our union; but she refused to leave France unless I was her husband. It may be that she was right; but knowing perfectly well all along that I could not bring myself to marry her without my father's consent, she was wrong in the means she used both to stay in France and to keep me at her side despite the duties calling me back to England.

218

Lord Nelvil's Story "When war was declared between the two countries,11 grew more anxious to leave France, and the obstacles set up by Madame d'Arbigny multiplied. At one time she could not get a passport; at another, she assured me that if I insisted on leaving alone, she would be compromised by staying in France because they would suspect her of being in correspondance with me. This woman nomally so gentle and restrained gave way to fits of despair that threw my soul into total upheaval. She used the attraction of her face and the grace of her mind to please me, and her suffering to intimidate me. "Perhaps women are wrong to exercise authority by way of tears, and thus to subjugate strength to their weakness, but when they are not afraid to use this means, it almost always works, at least for a time. No doubt feeling is weakened by the very control unjustly assumed over it; and exercised too often, the power of tears cools the imagination. But in France at that time, there were a thousand occasions to revive interest and pity. Further, Madame d'Arbigny's health seemed more fragile every day, and illness is yet another terrible means of domination for women. When they are not rightfully confident in their minds and souls like you, Corinne, or too proud and shy for pretence, like our Englishwomen, they resort to artful means of inspiring tenderness; and with them, the best one can hope for is that genuine feeling underlies their dissembling. "Unknown to me, another person was involved in my relations with Madame d'Arbigny: M. de Maltigues. She pleased him; he would have married her gladly. But a deliberate immorality left him indifferent to everything. He enjoyed intrigue as a game, even when he had no interest in the outcome, and he supported Madame d'Arbigny's desire to marry me, even though he would thwart the plan if the occasion arose to carry out his own. I had a singular antipathy to the man; scarcely thirty, his manner and external appearance were remarkably unfeeling. In England, where we are accused of being cold, I have never seen anything like the gravity of his bearing when he entered a room. I would never have taken him for a Frenchman except that he had a taste for pleasantry and a need to talk, odd in a man apparently blasé about everything, and who derived from that temperament a style of life. He claimed that, born very sensitive, very enthusiastic, he had been disabused of all that by what he had learned of men in the Revolution. He said he had observed that there

219

Book XII was nothing good in the world but wealth and power, or both together, and that friendship was generally to be considered a means, to use or discard according to circumstances. He was rather clever in acting on his views; his only error was to talk about them. Unlike the French of an earlier day, he had no desire to please, but retaining the need to make an impression in conversation, he was very imprudent. In that sense, he was very different from Madame d'Arbigny who wanted to achieve her ends but never gave herself away, like M. de Maltigues, by seeking to shine even through immorality. The strange thing about these two people was that the livelier one hid her secret well, and the unemotional man did not know how to keep quiet. "Such as he was, M. de Maltigues had a singular influence over Madame d'Arbigny; he read her clearly, or else she confided in him fully. Perhaps that secretive woman needed to act rashly from time to time as if to take a deep breath. What is certain is that whenever M. de Maltigues looked at her sternly, she was flustered; if he seemed displeased, she got up to take him aside; if he left in a bad temper, she almost immediately shut herself in to write to him. His power over Madame d'Arbigny seemed well founded to me, because he had known her since childhood, and had managed her affairs ever since she had lost her closer relatives. But that was not her main reason for treating him with such extraordinary consideration, as I discovered too late: she planned to marry him if I left her, for under no circumstances did she want to be seen as an abandoned woman. Such a resolution should give the impression that she did not love me, and yet she had no other reason to prefer me than feelings. But all her life she had combined a calculating mind with easy enthusiasm, and society's artifical claims with the natural affections. She wept because she was moved, but she also wept because that is the way one softens the hearts of other people. She was happy to be loved because she was in love, but also because it is to one's credit in society. Alone, she was capable of worthy feelings, but they gave her no pleasure if she could not turn them to the advantage of her pride or her desires. Shaped by and for high society, she was skilled at molding reality—an art often found in countries where the desire to use one's feelings to produce an effect is sharper than the feelings themselves. "It was a long time since I had heard from my father, because the war had interrupted our correspondence. By some chance, a letter 220

Lord Nelvil's Story reached me at last. He called upon me to leave France in the name of my duty and his affection. He declared categorically that if I married Madame d'Arbigny, I would cause him mortal sorrow; he asked me at least to come back to England free, and not to decide until I had heard him out. I answered immediately, pledging my word of honor not to marry without his consent, and assuring him that I would join him soon. Madame d'Arbigny used entreaty first, then despair, to hold me; and seeing at last that she was not succeeding, she resorted to trickery, I think—but h o w could I have suspected it then! "One morning she came to my rooms pale and disheveled, and throwing herself into my arms, begged me to protect her: she looked half dead with fright. Such was her distress that I had difficulty making out that the order for her arrest as the sister of Count Raimond had come, and that I had to find her shelter, a place to hide from her pursuers. At that very time, w o m e n had perished, and all terror seemed natural. I took her to the home of a merchant w h o was devoted to me, and hiding her there, thought I had saved her life. M. de Martigues and I were the only ones to k n o w the secret of her whereabouts. How could one not be deeply concerned with a woman's fate in those circumstances! How could one abandon an outlawed person! On what day, at what moment, can one tell her: 'You have counted on my support and I am withdrawing it.' Yet the memory of my father pursued me constantly, and on several occasions, I tried to obtain Madame d'Arbigny's permission to leave alone. But she threatened to give herself up to her assassins should I leave her, and twice went outside in broad daylight so dreadfully upset that I was filled with grief and fear. I followed her in the street, begging her in vain to return. Fortunately, by chance or by plan w e met M. de Maltigues each time and he brought her back, making her see the foolishness of her behavior. I then resigned myself to staying, and wrote to my father, explaining my conduct as best I could. But I blushed to be in France in the middle of the frightful events taking place, at a time w h e n my country was at war with the French. "M. de Maltigues often made fun of my scruples, but witty as he was, he did not foresee—or did not take the trouble to observe—the effect of his pleasantries, for they reawakened in me all the feelings he wanted to extinguish. Madame d'Arbigny was well aware of my reactions, but she had no influence on M. de Maltigues, w h o came to deci-

221

Book XII sions on the basis of whim for lack of better reasons. To move me, she resorted to genuine grief and to exaggerated grief; she used her fragile health as much to please as to touch me, for she was never more attractive than falling in a faint at my feet. She knew how to improve upon her beauty as on all of her other attractions, and her outward charms themselves were cleverly combined with her emotions to captivate me. "Thus I lived: always upset, always unsure, trembling when I received a letter from my father, more unhappy still when there was no letter, held by my attraction to Madame d'Arbigny, and above all, by fear of her despair. For by a strange mixture, while she was the gentlest person in the normal course of events, the most even tempered and often the most vivacious, too, she was still capable of the most violent scenes. She wanted to bind me with happiness and fear, and so was always turning her natural disposition into a means of acting upon me. "One day, during the month Of September 1793, when I had already been in France for over a year, I received a letter from my father. It was brief, but its few words were so somber and sorrowful that you must spare me, Corinne, from repeating them to you; they would do me too much harm. My father was already ill, but held back by his scrupulousness and pride, he did not tell me. Yet his whole letter conveyed so much pain both at my absence and at the possibility of my marriage to Madame d'Arbigny, that I still cannot imagine how I did not foresee the misfortune threatening me as I read it. Nevertheless, I was sufficiently moved to hesitate no longer, and I went to Madame d'Arbigny, absolutely determined to take leave of her. She quickly saw that my mind was made up and collecting her thoughts, suddenly rose and said: " 'Before you leave, you must know a secret I blush to admit to you. If you abandon me, it is not only my death you will cause; the fruit of my shame and guilty love will perish in my womb along with me.' "Nothing can express what I felt; that sacred duty, that new duty, took possession of my entire soul, and I was as obedient to Madame d'Arbigny as the most devoted slave. I would have married her as she wished if there had not been the greatest obstacles to an Englishman's marrying in France, necessarily declaring his name to the registrar.21

222

Lord Nelvil's Story put off our union until such time as w e could go to England together, and I resolved not to leave Madame d'Arbigny before then. Once reassured on the immediate danger of my departure, she was appeased; but soon she began to complain again, and to act in turn hurt and unhappy that I had not overcome all the difficulties standing in the way of marriage. I would have ended up giving in to her will. I had fallen into the deepest melancholy; I spent whole days in my rooms, unable to go out; I was prey to an idea, never acknowledged but always harassing me. I had a premonition of my father's illness and I did not want to believe in my premonition, taking it for weakness. By an oddity resulting from the my fright at Madame d'Arbigny's grief, I fought my duty like a passion, and what one might have thought a passion tortured me like a duty. Madame d'Arbigny wrote incessantly, urging me to come to her. I would go, not speaking of her condition when I saw her, because I did not like to recall what gave her rights over me. It seems to me n o w that she, too, spoke of it less than she should, but I was suffering too much at the time to notice anything. Finally, w h e n I had spent three days in my rooms consumed with remorse, writing my father twenty letters and then tearing them all up, M. de Maltigues appeared. Given our mutual antipathy, he rarely came to see me, but he had been delegated by Madame d'Arbigny to wrest me from my solitude although he was hardly interested in the success of his mission. Entering, he noticed my tear-stained face before I had time to hide it. " 'What is the good of all that sorrow, my dear fellow? Leave my cousin or go ahead and marry her,' he said. 'Both courses are equally good, because they will put an end to it.' " 'There are situations in life where even sacrifice does not seem to fulfill all one's duties,' I replied. " 'The point is that there is no need to sacrifice oneself,' went on M. de Maltigues. 'For my part, I know of no circumstances where it is necessary: with a bit of skill, one can get out of any difficulty; ingenuity is queen to the world.' " 'It is not ingenuity that I covet. Let me repeat: what I want is to avoid grief for the person I love by resigning myself to unhappiness.' " 'Believe me,' said M. de Maltigues, 'do not mix up feelings with the difficult work of living; they make it even more complicated. They

223

Book XII are an illness in the soul that attacks me at times as it does everyone else, but w h e n that happens, I tell myself that it will pass, and I always keep my word to myself.' " 'But,' I replied—trying to speak in general terms as he did, for I neither could nor w o u l d confide in h i m — ' e v e n if one could set feeling aside, honor and virtue w o u l d always remain, and they often oppose our desires in every domain.' " 'Honor! W h e n y o u say honor, do you mean fighting w h e n one is insulted? O n that score there is no question; but in all other respects, h o w is it in one's interest to let oneself be fettered by a thousand useless scruples?' " 'One's interest!' I interrupted. 'It seems to me that is the wrong word.' " 'Seriously speaking, f e w words are so clear in meaning. I k n o w very well that they used to say: an honorable misfortune, a glorious setback. But today w h e n everyone is persecuted, rogues along with what are commonly called good people, the only difference in this world is between the birds caught in the net, and the ones that have gotten away.' " 'I believe in another difference: prosperity scorned and setbacks honored by the respect of good men.' " 'Find them for me, those good men w h o comfort your pain with their courageous respect. On the contrary, it seems to me that most so-called virtuous people forgive y o u if you are happy, and love you if y o u are powerful. It is surely to your credit that y o u do not k n o w h o w to act against your.father's will, though by this time he should not be meddling in your affairs. But in any case, you should not be wasting your life here for that reason. For my part, whatever happens to me, I want to spare m y friends the distress of watching me suffer, and myself the sight of consolation's long face.' "Cutting in sharply, I said: 'I thought that the point of a gentleman's life was the virtue that serves others, rather than the happiness that serves him alone.' " 'Virtue, virtue . . .' said M. de Maltigues, hesitating slightly before he made up his mind to go on, 'that is the language of the c o m m o n herd w h i c h the augurs 3 cannot speak among themselves without laughing. There are some good souls still stirred by certain words, certain harmonious sounds, and it is for them that one has the instrument

224

Lord Nelvil's Story played. But all that poetry called conscience, devotion, enthusiasm was invented to console people w h o have not managed success in the world; it is like the de profundis sung for the dead. W h e n things are going well, the living are not at all interested in that kind of homage.' "His words so provoked me that I could not help an arrogant reply: 'If I had any rights over M a d a m e d'Arbigny's household, I would be angry to have her receive a m a n w h o takes such liberties of thought and expression.' " ' W h e n the time comes, y o u can decide what y o u please on that score, but if m y cousin takes my advice, she will not marry a man w h o seems so unhappy at the possibility of their union. As she can tell you, for a long time n o w I have taken her to task for her weakness and all the means she takes to an end that is not worth the bother.' " A t these words, made still more insulting by their tone, I beckoned M. de Maltigues to go out with me, and on the w a y I must say that he went on developing his doctrine with the greatest composure imaginable; and though he faced the possibility of death in a few moments, he said not a w o r d that might be construed as religious or sensitive: " 'If I had been inclined to the nonsense of you young people, do you think I w o u l d not have been cured by what is happening in my country? W h e n have y o u seen principles like yours serve any useful purpose?' " 'I agree that in your country, right n o w , they are less useful than elsewhere, but in t i m e — o r beyond time—everything has its reward.' " 'Yes, w h e n y o u bring heaven into your reckoning.' " 'And w h y not?' I said. 'One of us may soon k n o w h o w matters stand.' " 'If I am the one to die,' he w e n t on, laughing, 'I am quite sure I will k n o w nothing about it; and if it is you, y o u will not come back to enlighten my soul.' " O n the w a y , it occurred to me that if I were killed by M. de Maltigues, I had taken no measures to inform my father of my fate or to give M a d a m e d'Arbigny the share of my fortune that presumably was hers by right. As I w a s considering these possibilities, w e came to M. de Maltigues' house, and I asked his permission to go in and write t w o letters. He agreed, and w h e n w e continued on our w a y out of the town, I gave them to him, speaking of M a d a m e d'Arbigny with great interest, and commending her to him as to a trusted friend. He was

225

Book XII touched by this proof of confidence, for it must be noted to the glory of uprightness, that the men who most openly profess immorality are very flattered if, by some chance, they are given a mark of respect. The situation was grave enough for M. de Maltigues to be moved, perhaps, but as he would not have wanted it to be seen for anything in the world, he said jokingly what I believe was inspired by more serious feelings. " 'You are a decent creature, my dear Nelvil, so I want to do something generous for you. They say it brings good luck, and generosity is indeed such a childish trait that it is probably rewarded in heaven rather than on earth. But before I do you a service, the conditions must be clear: whatever I tell you, we will fight anyway.' "I agreed with high disdain, finding the precaution oratorical, or at least unnecessary. M. de Maltigues went on in a tone that was both cavalier and incisive: " 'Madame d'Arbigny is not for you: her character has nothing in common with yours. Besides, your father would be dreadfully upset if you went through with the marriage, and you would be dreadfully upset at distressing him. So if I live, it would be better if I married Madame d'Arbigny; and if you kill me, it would still be better if she married someone else. For the fact is that my cousin is a person of great wisdom, and even in love she always takes wise precautions against the eventuality that she may be loved no longer. You will learn all about it from her letters; I am leaving them to you and you will find them in my writing desk. Here is the key. I have been close to my cousin since she has been in the world, and you know that while she may be very mysterious, she hides none of her secrets from me. She thinks I say only what I want to say. It is true that nothing carries me away, but I do not attach importance to anything much either; and I think w e men owe it to each other not to keep secrets where women are concerned. Indeed, if I die, this accident will happen to me for Madame d'Arbigny's pretty face, and although I am prepared to die for her willingly, I am not very grateful for the situation she has put me in with her double plot. Besides, there is nothing to say that you will kill me.' And with these words, since we were outside the town, he drew his sword, and took his guard. "He had spoken with unusual heat, and his words left me disconcerted. Instead of troubling him, the approach of danger made him

226

Lord Nelvil's Story more spirited still, and I could not tell whether he was betraying the truth or forging a lie for revenge. In spite of my uncertainty, I was very careful with his life. He was less adroit than I, and I could have plunged my sword into his heart ten times, but satisfied myself with wounding him in the arm and disarming him. He seemed sensitive to my behavior, and, as I took him home, I reminded him of our conversation just before w e fought. Then he said: " 'I am annoyed that I betrayed by cousin's confidence. Danger is like wine, it goes to the head. But then again, I am not sorry, for you would not have been happy with Madame d'Arbigny, she is too crafty for you. I myself do not mind it, for while I find her charming and thoroughly enjoy her wit, she will never do me any harm, and w e will be very useful to each other in every way, because marriage will join our separate interests. But you are a romantic: you would have been taken in. You could easily have killed me and I owe you my life, so I cannot refuse you the letters I promised you for after my death. Read them, leave for England, and do not be too anxious about Madame d'Arbigny's distress. She will weep, because she loves you; but she will be comforted, because she is a sufficiently reasonable w o m a n not to want to be unhappy, and above all not to look it. Within three months, she will be Madame de Maltigues.' "Everything he said was true, as the letters he showed me proved. I was convinced that Madame d'Arbigny was not in the state she had blushingly pretended to disclose to force me into marriage, and that she had shamefully deceived me on that score. Doubtless she loved me, because she said so in her letters to M. de Maltigues himself. But she flattered him so artfully, she allowed him so much hope, and to please him displayed a character so different from the one always shown to me, that it was impossible to doubt she had humored him so that he would marry her if her union with me did not come about. Such was the woman, Corinne, w h o has forever cost me peace of heart and conscience! "I wrote to her w h e n I left and did not see her again. And I have learned since that she married M. de Maltigues just as he had predicted. But I was far from anticipating the misfortune awaiting me. I thought I would w i n my father's forgiveness. I was sure that he would love me all the more w h e n I told him how I had been fooled, since he would k n o w I was the more to be pitied. After traveling

227

Book XII through Germany day and night for almost a month, I reached England, confident in a father's unfailing goodness. W h e n I disembarked, Corinne, a newssheet 4 informed me that my father was no longer! Twenty months have gone by since that moment, and it is still there before me, haunting me like a ghost. The letters forming the words: Lord Nelvil has just died—those were flaming letters; the volcano's fire there before us is less fearsome than they. That is not all; I learned that he died profoundly distressed by my stay in France, afraid that I might give up my military career; afraid that I might marry a w o m a n he did not much care for, and that by settling in a country at war with my own, I would forfeit my reputation in England. W h o knows whether these painful thoughts did not cut short his life! Corinne, Corinne, am I not an assassin? A m I? Tell me!" "No," she exclaimed. "No! you are only unhappy. Goodness and generosity led you astray. I respect you as much as I love you; judge yourself in my heart, take it for your conscience. Sorrow misleads you: believe the one w h o holds you dear. Ah! Love as I feel it is no illusion; it is because you are the best and most sensitive of men that I admire and adore you." "Corinne, your tribute is undeserved, but it may yet be that I am not so guilty: my father forgave me before he died. In the last thing he wrote, addressed to me, I found kind words; a letter from me had reached him justifying me to some extent; but the harm was done, and the pain that came from me had broken his heart. " W h e n I returned to his castle, w h e n his old servants surrounded me, I refused their consolation. Accusing myself openly, I went to prostrate myself on his tomb; and as if there were still time to make amends, I swore there that I would never marry without my father's consent. Alas! what was I promising him w h o was no more? What was the meaning of those words of my delirium! I must at least consider them a commitment to do nothing he would have disapproved of during his life. Corinne, dear friend, w h y do my words trouble you? M y father could ask the sacrifice of an artful w o m a n w h o owed the fancy she inspired to her cleverness alone. But w h y would heavenly beings want to separate me from the truest, the most natural and most generous person, the one for w h o m I have felt my first love, the one w h o purifies the soul instead of leading it astray? " W h e n I entered my father's room, I saw his coat, his armchair, his

228

Lord Nelvil's Story sword still there as in the past; still there, but his place was empty and my cries summoned him in vain! This manuscript, this collection of his thoughts is the only thing that answers me. You already know a few passages," said Oswald handing it to Corinne. "I always carry it with me. Read what he wrote on the duty of children to their parents. Read, Corinne. Perhaps your sweet voice will help me get used to these words." Obeying Oswald's wish, Corinne read the following passage: "Ah! how little it takes to make a father, a mother of advanced years, mistrustful of themselves. They readily believe that they are superfluous on earth. Of what use can they think they are to you who ask their advice no longer? You live entirely in the present moment; you are confined there by a dominating passion, and you find everything extraneous to the moment old-fashioned and antiquated. Indeed, you are so involved in your own person, heart, and mind that thinking of yourself alone as a fixed point in history, you fail to notice the eternal similarities between time and men; and the authority of experience seems fictitious to you, or else a useless guarantee of old people's credibility, and the last pleasure to be enjoyed by their pride. How mistaken you are! The vast theater of the world does not change actors. It is always man who is displayed on the stage. But man is not renewed; he is simply variable, and since all the forms he takes hinge on a few main passions whose route has long since come full circle, it is rare that experience—the science of the past—is not a fertile source of the most useful teachings for the small arrangements of private life. "Honor, then, to fathers and mothers, honor to them, honor and respect if only for their bygone reign, for the time when they alone were masters and which will never come again; if only for the years forever lost and whose majestic mark is worn on their foreheads. "Here is your duty, presumptuous children, impatient, it would seem, to race life's road alone. Those parents, so slow to make way for you, will be off: you cannot doubt it. The father, whose discourse tinged with a sternness that still offends you; the mother whose old age imposes cares that inconvenience you: they will be off. Those who watched closely over your childhood, those who actively protected your youth: they will be off, and in vain you will look for better friends. They will be off, and as soon as they are no longer, you will see them in a new light; for time that ages people who are present to

229

Book XII our sight makes them younger for us once death has made them vanish. Time then lends them a luster that war. unknown to us; w e see their portrait done by eternity where there is no more age as nothing changes by degrees. And if they left on earth a memory of their virtues, our imagination would ornament them with heavenly beams, our gaze would follow them into the abode of the righteous, w e would contemplate them in those dwelling places of glory and felicity; and next to the vivid colors we use to paint their blessed halo, we would find ourselves obliterated in the very midst of our golden days, in the midst of the triumphs that most dazzle us."5 "Corinne," exclaimed Nelvil with wrenching pain, "do you think he wrote those eloquent complaints against me?" "No, no," Corinne answered. "You know that he cherished you, that he believed in your affection; and you have told me yourself that these reflections were written long before you made the mistake for which you hold yourself to blame. Listen instead," Corinne went on, glancing through the book still in her hands. "Listen to these reflections on making allowances, written a few pages farther on:" " W e walk forth in life with an unsteady gait, surrounded by snares. Our senses offer no resistance to deceptive and seductive lures. Our imagination leads us astray with false glimmers, and each day our reason itself receives from experience the degree of light that it lacked and the confidence that it needs. So many dangers together with such great weakness; so many different interests, with limited foresight; such meager ability: in a word, so many unknowns, and so short a life. Do not all these circumstances, all these conditions of our nature, warn us of the high importance of making allowances in the realm of the social virtues! . . . Alas! where is the man free of weakness? Where is the man who is blameless? Where is the man who can look back on his life without any remorse or any regret? Only the man who has never examined himself, who has never dwelt in the solitude of his conscience, is a stranger to the ferment of a timorous soul."6 "These are the words your father speaks to you from the heights of heaven," Corinne went on. "These are the ones meant for you." "That is true," said Oswald. "Yes, Corinne, you are the angel of consolation, you do me good. But if I could have seen him for a moment before his death, if he had known from me that I was not unworthy of

230

Lord Nelvil's Story him, if he had told me he believed it, I would not be disturbed by remorse like the most criminal of men; I would not act indecisively, nor would I have this troubled soul that promises no happiness to anyone. Do not accuse me of weakness; but how could courage triumph, when it cannot even hold out against conscience which is its source. Right now, with the darkness coming on, I seem to see trailing in the clouds the thunderbolt that threatens me. Corinne! Corinne! Give heart to your unfortunate friend, or leave me stretched out upon this earth; perhaps it will open at my cries, and let me go down to the abode of the dead."

231

Book XIII VESUVIUS AND THE CAMPANIA

I For a long time after the cruel account that had shaken his entire soul Lord Nelvil was sunk in exhaustion. Corinne tried gently to bring him back to himself. The river of fire falling from Vesuvius, made visible at last by the night, sharply struck Oswald's troubled imagination. Corinne took advantage of his reaction to tear him away from his disturbing memories, and hastened to lead him off to the shore of ashes alongside the blazing lava-flow. The terrain they crossed to reach it gave way underfoot, and seemed to push them back from land hostile to all living things: on this site, nature is no longer in touch with man. He can no longer believe he is her master; she escapes her tyrant through death. The torrent's fire has a funereal hue; nevertheless, when it burns vines or trees, a clear and brilliant flame shoots up. But the lava itself is dark, just as you would imagine a river in hell; it rolls on slowly like sand, black by day, red at night. As it approaches, you hear a small sound of sparks, all the more frightening for being slight, and for the feeling that guile is joined with strength: thus does the royal tiger arrive in secret with measured tread. The lava advances without haste, without losing a moment; if it meets a high wall or any sort of building in its path, it stops and piles up black, bituminous torrents in front of the ob-

232

Vesuvius and the Campania stacle to bury it at last under its burning waves. The flow is not so rapid that men cannot flee before it; but like time, it overtakes the unwary and the aged who, seeing its silent, lumbering approach, suppose that escape is easy. So fiery is the glare of the lava, that for the first time earth is reflected in the sky, giving it the look of continual lightning; in turn, the sky is repeated in the sea, and nature is set ablaze by this triple image of fire. The wind makes itself heard and seen in the swirling flames in the abyss giving rise to the lava. W e fear what goes on in the bowels of the earth, and we sense that a strange fury makes it tremble under our feet. There is a hellish quality to the colors of the sulphur and bitumin covered rocks around the lava's source. The livid green of the rocks, the brownish yellow, the dark red create a kind of dissonance for the eye and torture one's sight, as hearing would be rent by the shrill sounds of witches at night, calling upon the moon from earth. Everything that surrounds the volcano calls hell to mind, and the poets' descriptions are no doubt borrowed from these places. Standing there, you understand how men came to believe in an evil genius thwarting the designs of Providence. As they gazed at such a place, they must have wondered whether goodness alone presided over the phenomena of creation, or whether some hidden principle forced nature, like man, to savagery. "Corinne, does suffering spring from these infernal shores?" exclaimed Lord Nelvil. "Does the angel of death take flight from this summit? If I did not see your heavenly gaze in this place, I would lose even the memory of the divine works that decorate the world. And yet, ghastly as it is, I find this sight of hell less frightening than the heart's remorse. All dangers can be faced, but how can a person who exists no more free us from the wrongs we have done him and from our self-reproach? Never! Never! Ah! Corinne, that word is iron and fire! The tortures invented by dreams of suffering, the endlessly turning wheel, the water that recedes as one tries to draw near it, the stones that fall back down as fast as one lifts them, are but weak images of that terrifying thought: the impossible and the irrevocable!" A profound silence reigned around Oswald and Corinne; even their guides had withdrawn to a distance. And since there was neither animal, nor insect, nor plant near the crater, nothing was heard but the crackling of the restless flames. Yet one noise reached all the way

233

Book XIII from the city into this place; it was the sound of the bells, traveling on the air. Perhaps they were solemnizing death, perhaps they were announcing a birth; no matter, they brought the travelers a sweet emotion. "Dear Oswald," said Corinne, "let us leave this barren land, let us go down toward the living; my soul is uneasy here. All other mountains bring us closer to heaven, and so they seem to lift us above earthly life; but here I feel only anxious and afraid. My sense is that we are seeing nature treated like a criminal and condemned, like a vicious being, never more to feel the benevolent breath of its Creator. This is surely not the abode of the righteous. Let us go away." It was raining heavily as Corinne and Oswald went back down to the plain. Their torches were constantly ready to go out. Lazzaroni went alongside them, uttering repeated cries that might terrify anyone unaware that this was their usual practice. But these men are sometimes stirred by an excess of life they do not know what to do with, because they combine equal measures of laziness and violence. Their countenance, more marked than their character, suggests a liveliness that in no way involves the mind or the heart. Anxious that their light might fail, that the rain might harm Corinne, that indeed she might be exposed to danger, Oswald paid no attention to anything but her; and this very tender concern gradually restored his soul from the turmoil aroused when he had confided his secret. They found their carriage waiting at the foot of the mountain. They did not stop at Herculaneum, which has been more or less buried anew so as not to tear down Portici, a town built on top of the ancient city. They reached Naples at midnight, and as she left Nelvil, Corinne promised the story of her life for the following day.

II Indeed, the next morning Corinne decided to make herself do as she had promised, and although the greater insight she had gained into Oswald's character doubled her anxiety, she left her room carrying the letter, trembling but nevertheless resolved to give it to him. She entered the sitting room of the inn where both of them were stay-

234

Vesuvius and the Campania ing; Oswald was there and had just received mail from England. One of the letters was on the mantelpiece, and Corinne was so struck by the handwriting that, extremely perturbed, she asked who had sent it. "It is from Lady Edgermond," Oswald replied. "You correspond with her?" interrupted Corinne. "Lord Edgermond was my father's friend, and since chance has brought me to mention her, I shall not hide from you the fact that my father thought it might suit me one day to marry her daughter, Lucile." "Good heavens!" exclaimed Corinne and, half fainting, she fell into a chair. "Why this strong emotion?" said Nelvil. "What is there to fear from me, Corinne, when I worship you? If my father had asked me to marry Lucile with his dying words, no doubt I would not consider myself free, and I should have gone far away from your irresistible charms. But he only suggested the marriage, writing that he himself could not judge Lucile because she was no more than a child at the time. I saw her only once myself when she was barely twelve. I came to no agreement with her mother before I left. Still, the uncertainty, the confusion you may have noticed in my behavior came solely from my father's wish. However fleeting that wish may have been, I wanted to comply before I knew you, as a kind of expiation, as a way of extending the power of his will beyond death. But you have triumphed over that feeling, you have triumphed over all of myself, and my only need is that you forgive whatever must have seemed weak and indecisive in my behavior. Corinne, one does not ever fully get over the pain I have felt: it withers hope, it makes one feel painfully and achingly shy. Fate has been so hard on me that at the very time she seems to offer me the greatest good, I distrust her still. But these concerns are dispelled, dear friend. I am yours! I am yours forever! I tell myself that had my father known you, it is you he would have chosen for my life's companion. It is you . . . " "Stop," Corinne cried out, dissolving in tears, "I beg you, do not say such things to me." "Why object to my pleasure in linking you to my father's memory in my thoughts, thus mingling in my heart all that is dear and sacred to me?"

235

B o o k XIII

"You cannot do that/' interrupted Corinne. "I know too well that you cannot do it." "Good heavens! What do you have to tell me? Give me that paper where your life's tale is surely written. Give it to me!" "You shall have it, but I beg you, eight days more of grace, only eight days. Given what I have learned this morning, I must add a number of details." "What's that?" Oswald said. "What connection do you have . . . ?" "Do not insist on an answer now," Corinne interrupted. "Soon you will know everything, and perhaps that will be the end, the terrifying end of my happiness. But before that time, I want us to see the happy countryside around Naples together, with feelings still sweet, with souls still open to nature's enchantment. In this beautiful place, I want to find some way to consecrate the most solemn period of my life. You must preserve a last memory of me as I was, as I would have been always, had my heart shielded itself from loving you." "Ah! Corinne, what news are you trying to break with these ominous words? You cannot possibly have anything to say that might chill my affection and my admiration. Then why prolong for another week the anxiety, the mystery, that seem to raise a barrier between us?" "Dear Oswald, this is my wish. Forgive me a last act of authority. Soon you will decide for us both. I shall be ready to hear my fate from your lips without complaint if it is harsh, for I have neither feelings nor ties on this earth that condemn me to outlive your love." With these words, she left, gently pushing Oswald away with her hand as he tried to follow her.

Ill Corinne resolved to offer Lord Nelvil an entertainment during the week's respite she had requested, and for her the idea of an entertainment blended with the most melancholy feelings. Examining Oswald's character, she could only be apprehensive about his reaction to what she had to tell. To forgive Corinne's sacrifice of rank, fam-

236

Vesuvius and the Campania ily, country, and name to enthusiasm for talent and the arts, one had to judge her as a poet, as an artist. Lord Nelvil doubtless had all the intelligence necessary to admire imagination and genius; but he believed that social relationships had to outweigh everything else, and that the primary function of women—and even men—was not the exercise of intellectual faculties, but the performance of their individual duties. His cruel remorse when he deviated from the line of conduct he had mapped out for himself further strengthened his innately austere principles. In many respects, he was rather tightly bound by English morality, by the customs and opinions of a country where one feels all the better for the most scrupulous respect of duty as well as law. In short, the despondency born of deep sorrow leads us to love what is in the natural order of things, what goes without saying, and so requires no new resolution or any decision contrary to what fate has marked out for us. Oswald's love for Corinne had altered his whole way of feeling, but love never erases character entirely, and Corinne glimpsed this character behind the passion that triumphed over it. And perhaps Nelvil's charm came largely from this contrast between his nature and his feelings, a contrast giving new value to all his expressions of tenderness. But the time was coming when the fleeting worries Corinne had constantly brushed aside, and which had infused but a slight dreamy uneasiness into her bliss, would decide her fate. Her soul, accustomed to the ever changing sensations of talent and poetry, wondered at the bitter fixedness of pain; and then her whole being was shaken by a shudder unknown to women long resigned to suffering. However, in the middle of the cruelest anxiety, she was secretly preparing one more splendid day to spend with Oswald. Thus her imagination and sensibility romantically joined forces. She invited the English community in Naples and a few Neapolitan men and women whose company she enjoyed. And on the morning of the day chosen to be both a party and the eve of an avowal that could destroy her happiness forever, a strange disquiet animated her features, giving them an entirely new expression. Unobservant eyes might have taken so lively an expression for joy; but her restless, rapid gestures, her eyes settling on nothing, showed Oswald only too well what was going

237

Book XIII on within her soul. In vain he tried to calm her with the tenderest protestations. " Y o u will tell me those things in t w o days if they still hold true," she said. " A t the moment, those sweet words only hurt me." And she withdrew. As the day ended, the sea wind rose, refreshing the air and allowing man to contemplate nature. Just then the carriages arrived for the company Corinne had invited. The first stop on their drive was Virgil's tomb, w h e r e they paused before going through the grotto of Posilippo. The tomb is set in the world's most beautiful spot, looking out on the Gulf of Naples. The view is so restful and magnificent that one is tempted to believe that Virgil chose it himself. This simple line from the Georgics might have served as his epitaph: 1 Illo Virgilium me tempore dulcis alebat Parthenope. . .*

His ashes still rest there, and the memory of his name brings the homage of the universe to this place. On earth this is all that m a n can wrest from death. Petrarch planted a laurel on this tomb, and Petrarch is no more, and the laurel is dying. Crowds of foreigners, come to honor Virgil's memory, have written their names on the walls surrounding the urn. Those intrusive names seem to have no other purpose than to disturb the peaceful idea of solitude inspired by this place. Petrarch alone was worthy of leaving an enduring trace of his journey to Virgil's tomb. Recalling the thoughts and images hallowed forever by the poet's talent, one comes silently back d o w n from this funereal retreat of glory. How splendid is the conversation with the races of the future, perpetuated and renewed by the art of writing! What are you then, shades of death? A man's ideas, feelings, and expressions go on living: then h o w can w h a t w a s he exist no longer! No, such a contradiction is impossible in nature. "Oswald," said Corinne, "the impressions you have just had

*In those days sweet Parthenope welcomed me. 1

238

Vesuvius and the Campania scarcely create a festive mood. But," she added, a kind of exaltation in her eyes, "how many revels have been held not far from tombs!" "Some secret grief is troubling you, dear friend," Oswald replied. "Tell me what it is. I owe you the six happiest months of my life; perhaps during that time, I have made your days sweeter, too. Ah! who could blaspheme happiness! Who could deny himself the supreme satisfaction of doing good to a soul like yours! Alas! to feel needed by the humblest of mortals is important; but, do believe me, to be needed by Corinne is too glorious, too delightful to give up." "I believe in your promises," Corinne assured him, "but are there not times when something violent and strange takes hold of the heart, painfully quickening its beat?" They went through the grotto of Posilippo by torchlight, necessary even at noontime, for the path—almost a quarter of a league in length—is hollowed out of the mountain, and from the middle you scarcely make out the light of day at either end. Extraordinary reverberations are heard beneath this long vault; the horses' hoofbeats, their drivers' cries make a deafening noise that does not leave a coherent thought in one's head. Corinne's horses were pulling her coach amazingly fast, and yet she was still not satisfied with their speed, saying to Lord Nelvil: "My dear Oswald, they are going so slowly! Do make them hurry." "Why so impatient, Corinne? In the past, you made no effort to hasten time when we were together, you enjoyed it." "Everything must be decided now, everything must come to its appointed end, and I feel a need to hurry everything—even if it were my own death." Emerging from the grotto, one feels a lively sensation of pleasure in finding nature and the light of day again: and how splendid is the nature presented to the eyes! What is often missing in the Italian countryside are trees; here they are plentiful. Besides, the earth is covered with so many flowers that here one can most easily get along without the forests that are nature's greatest beauty in every other land. The weather is so hot in Naples that you cannot go about during the day, even in the shade. But at night, this open country, surrounded by the sea and the sky, offers itself wholly to the eye, and you breathe in fresh, cool air from every direction. In the Kingdom of Naples, the air is so transparent, the pictorial sites so varied, and the mountains so

239

Book XIII picturesquely shaped that painters sketch its landscapes in preference to others. In this country, nature has a power and originality that cannot be explained by any of the charms one seeks in other places. "I am taking you along the shores of Lake Avernus, near the Phlegethon," Corinne told her company, "and you see before you the temple of the Cumaean Sibyl. We are going through the region celebrated as 'the delights of Baiae'; but I do not plan to have you stop here now. We shall put together the memories of history and poetry surrounding us here when we reach a spot where we can see them all at once." It was at Cape Miseno that Corinne had arranged for dance and music. Nothing was more picturesque than the composition of this entertainment. All the sailors from Baiae were dressed in vivid contrasting colors. Several Orientals from a Levantine ship then in port were dancing with peasant women from the nearby islands of Ischia and Procida, whose clothing still had some resemblance to Greek apparel. Voices perfectly in tune were heard in the distance, and the instruments answered each other behind the rocks, echoing, echoing, as if the sounds were vanishing into the sea. The air was delightful to breathe, filling the soul with a joy that gave new life to everyone there and even took hold of Corinne. Asked to join the peasants' dance, she was delighted at first; but scarcely had she begun when the most somber feelings made all these diversions hateful, and she quickly left the dance and music to sit at the far end of the cape on the shore of the sea. Oswald hastened to follow her, but as he came near, their company joined them immediately to beg Corinne for an improvisation in this beautiful place. She was so troubled that, unable to reflect on what they expected of her, she let herself be led back to the hill above, where her lyre had been placed.

IV Still, Corinne longed to have Oswald hear her once more as she had been that day at the Capitol, with all the talent she had received from heaven. If that talent were to be lost forever, she wanted its last rays to shine for the one she loved before they went out. Through that de-

240

Vesuvius and the Campania sire, she found the inspiration she needed, in the very ferment of her soul. Her lyre w a s ready, and all her friends impatient to hear her. Even the c o m m o n people w h o k n e w her by reputation, the people w h o in southern lands have the imagination to be good judges of poetry, surrounded the enclosure where Corinne's friends were placed, and all those Neapolitan faces expressed the liveliest attention through their animated countenances. The m o o n was rising on the horizon but its light w a s pale in the last of the day's light. From the top of the little hill jutting into the sea to form Cape Miseno, you could make out perfectly Vesuvius, the Gulf of Naples, the islands scattered in its waters, and the countryside extending as far as Gaeta: indeed, the land most abundantly marked of the w h o l e universe by voléanos, history, and poetry. With one accord, all of Corinne's friends asked her to take as subject for the verses she would sing, the memories recalled by these places. She tuned her lyre and began in a faltering voice. Her expression w a s lovely, but anyone w h o k n e w her as did Oswald could discern her soul's anxiety. She tried to contain her distress and, for a m o m e n t at least, rise above her personal situation.

Corinne's Improvisation in the Countryside of Naples "Nature, poetry, and history challenge each other for grandeur in this place where a single glance embraces all times, all marvels. "I glimpse Lake Avernus, extinct volcano, w h o s e waves inspired terror long ago; the Acheron, the Phlegethon—compelled to boil by a subterranean flame—rivers of the hell Aeneas went to see. "Fire, the ravenous life that creates and consumes the world, was all the more horrifying for being little understood. In the days of old, nature revealed her secrets to poetry alone. "The city of Cumae, the Sibyl's grotto, the temple to Apollo, were on these heights. Here are the woods where the golden bough was plucked. 2 All around y o u is the land of the Aeneid where w e still seek traces of fictions that, consecrated by genius, have become our memories. "Into these waves, a Triton plunged the reckless Trojan w h o dared defy the gods of the sea with his song: 3 these hollow echoing rocks are as Virgil described them. Imagination is faithful w h e n it is all p o w -

241

Book XIII erful. Man's genius is creative when he feels nature, imitative when he thinks he is inventing her. "Amid these fearful masses, aged witnesses of creation, a new mountain is seen: the volcano gave it birth. Here the earth is tempestuous like the sea, but unlike the sea does not go peacefully back within its boundaries. The heavy element heaved up by the tremors of the abyss, hollows out valleys, raises mountains, and its petrified waves bear witness to the tempests tearing its womb apart. "If you strike this ground, the subterranean vault resounds. The inhabited world might be thought a surface about to gape open. The Neapolitan countryside is the image of human passions: sulphurous and fertile, its pleasures seem born of these flaming volcanoes that give the air so much charm, and cause the rumbling of thunder beneath our feet. "Pliny studied nature, the better to admire Italy; he praised his country as the most beautiful of lands, when he could no longer honor her on any other grounds. Pursuing science as a warrior pursues conquest, he set forth from this very promontory to observe Vesuvius through the flames, and those flames consumed him. "Oh! memory, noble power, thou art sovereign in these places! Strange destiny! across the centuries, man laments what he has lost. It would seem that times gone by are, each in turn, repositories of a bygone happiness. And while thought, glorying in its progress, springs forward into the future, our souls seem to long for a former homeland that the past brings closer. "Did not the Romans, whose splendor we envy, themselves envy the virile simplicity of their ancestors? In earlier times, they looked with scorn upon this land, and its delights tamed none but their enemies. See Capua, off in the distance: it conquered the warrior whose unyielding soul resisted Rome longer than did the universe. "In their turn, the Romans came to live in these places: when spiritual strength served only to feel shame and sorrow more acutely, they grew soft and did not care. At Baiae, they were seen to wrest a shore from the sea for their palaces. They hollowed mountains to tear columns from them. The masters of the world, slaves in their turn, subjugated nature as a consolation for their own subjugation. "Cicero lost his life near the promontory of Gaeta we see so clearly from here. Unmindful of posterity, the triumvirs robbed it of the

242

Vesuvius and the Campania thoughts this great m a n might have conceived. 4 The triumvirs' iniquity endures. It is against us still that their heinous crime is committed. "Cicero succumbed to the tyrants' dagger. Less fortunate, Scipio was banished by his country w h e n it was still free. He ended his days not far from this shore, and the ruins of his tomb are called the Torre di Patria: touching allusion to the memory possessing his great soul! "Marius took refuge in the swamps of Minturnae, near Scipio's home. 5 Thus throughout the ages, nations have persecuted their great men, w h o are nonetheless consoled by their apotheoses; and the heavens that the Romans still believed they commanded, receive Romulus, Numa, Caesar among their stars: n e w stars that intermingle rays of glory and celestial light for our gaze. "As if misfortunes were not enough, traces of all crimes are found here. See the Isle of Capri, at the far end of the gulf, where old age disarmed Tiberius; where that soul at once cruel and sensual, violent and weary, became bored even with crime and determined to plunge into the basest pleasures, as if the exercise of tyranny had not yet degraded him enough. "Agrippina's tomb is on these banks, facing the Isle of Capri; it w a s built only after Nero's death: the assassin of his o w n mother proscribed even her ashes. For a long time that emperor lived in Baiae amid memories of his heinous crimes. W h a t monsters chance assembles before our eyes! Tiberius and Nero look upon each other. "The islands brought forth from the sea by volcanoes were used, almost from birth, for the crimes of the old world. The unfortunate people banished to these solitary rocks in the middle of the waters gazed from afar at the land of their fathers, trying to breathe its perfumes in the air; and sometimes after long exile, the death sentence told them that their enemies at least had not forgotten them. "Oh! earth all bathed in blood and tears, thou hast never ceased producing both fruits and flowers! Hast thou then no pity for man? A n d does his dust return into thy maternal w o m b without making it shudder?" At this point Corinne paused for a few moments. All those gathered together for the party threw branches of myrtle and laurel at her feet. In the soft, pure moonlight, her face was lovelier than ever. The fresh sea w i n d picturesquely ruffled her hair, and nature seemed

243

Book XIII pleased to adorn her. Yet as she reflected on the enchanting scenes around her this heady evening, Oswald who was there and who might not be there forever, Corinne was suddenly gripped by an irresistible surge of emotion, and her eyes flooded with tears. Even the common people, come to applaud with so much noise, respected her feeling, and everyone silently awaited the words that would share it with them. For some time she played a prelude on her lyre; then no longer dividing her song into octaves, she gave way to verses without the usual intervals. "Some memories of the heart, some names of women, also lay claim to your tears. It was in Miseno, precisely where we are now, that Pompey's widow, Cornelia, nobly mourned for the rest of her life. On these shores, Agrippina long wept for Germanicus, and one day the assassin w h o had robbed her of her husband found her worthy to follow him. 6 The isle of Nisida stood witness to the last farewell of Brutus and Porcia. "Thus the woman w h o was friend to a hero saw the death of the one she adored. In vain did she long follow in his footsteps. One day she had to part with him. Porcia kills herself; Cornelia presses to her heart the sacred urn that no longer answers her cries; for several years, Agrippina vainly baits her husband's murderer. Wandering like ghosts along the ravaged banks of the eternal river, these unfortunate creatures yearn to cross to the other side. During their long solitude, they inquire of the silence, asking from all of nature, from the starfilled sky as from the deep sea, for the sound of a cherished voice, an accent they will hear no more. "Love! the heart's supreme power, mysterious enthusiasm embracing poetry, heroism, and religion: what happens when destiny separates us from the one w h o held the secret to our soul, the one who had given us the life of the heart, the heavenly life? What happens when absence or death leaves a woman alone on earth? She languishes, she falls. How many times have the rocks around us offered their cold support to those forsaken widows who once leaned on a friend's breast, on a hero's arm! "Sorrento lies before you. Tasso's sister lived there when he came as a pilgrim to ask refuge from princely injustice of this humble friend. His mind was almost deranged by his long suffering. He had nothing left but genius; only his knowledge of things divine was left intact, all

244

Vesuvius and the Campania images of the earth were blurred. Thus talent, appalled by the wilderness all around, wanders thoughout the universe without finding anything like itself. Nature provides it no echo; and the common herd takes for madness the disquiet of a soul that does not breathe enough air in this world, enough enthusiasm, enough hope. "Fate," went on Corinne with ever heightening emotion, "does not fate pursue exalted souls, poets whose imagination stems from the power to love and to suffer? They are exiles from some other region; universal goodness was not meant to set things right for the few elected or proscribed. What did the ancients mean when they spoke of destiny with so much terror? What can this destiny mean for ordinary, peaceful beings? Following the seasons, they submissively pursue the normal course of life. But the priestess who announced the oracles felt shaken by a cruel power. I know not what force independent of will hurls genius down into misfortune. Genius hears the sound of the spheres that mortal organs are not made to apprehend; it sees into mysteries of feeling unknown to other men, and its soul harbors a God that it cannot constrain! "Sublime Creator of nature's splendor, protect us! Our impulsive outbursts are impotent, our hopes illusory. The passions rule us with a tumultuous tyranny allowing neither freedom nor repose. Perhaps our fate will be decided by what we do tomorrow. Yesterday, perhaps, w e spoke a word that nothing can redeem. When our minds rise up to the loftiest thoughts, we feel, as atop some tall building, a dizziness that muddles all the objects we lay eyes on. Even then, Sorrow, dreadful Sorrow, does not vanish into the clouds but, ploughing through, opens them partway. Oh! dear God, what does she mean to tell us? . . . " With these words, Corinne grew mortally pale; her eyes closed, and she would have fallen to the ground had Lord Nelvil not come immediately to support her.

V Corinne came to herself, and the sight of Oswald's touching expression of concern and anxiety restored some of her composure. The Nea245

Book XIII politans were surprised by the dark strain in Corinne's poetry. While they admired the harmonious beauty of her language, they would have wished her verse inspired by a less sad frame of mind: for they saw the arts—and poetry above all—as a mere distraction from the troubles of life, and not as a means of digging deeper into its terrifying secrets. But the English w h o had heard Corinne were filled with admiration. They were delighted to see melancholy feelings expressed with the Italian imagination. This lovely Corinne whose lively features and animated expression were meant to convey happiness, this daughter of the sun stricken with hidden sorrows, was like those flowers still fresh and sparkling, but threatened with an untimely end by the black dot of a fatal sting. The whole company set off by boat for the return to Naples and, given the prevailing warmth and calm, deeply appreciated the pleasure of being at sea. In a delightful ballad, Goethe portrayed our fondness for water in sultry weather. The river nymph praises the charm of the waves to the fisherman, she invites him to taste their refreshing coolness, and gradually seduced, he plunges in at last.7 The water's magic power is rather like the serpent's gaze, attracting us through the terror it inspires. The billow that rises in the distance, swells gradually, and hastens as it approaches the shore, seems the image of some secret desire of the heart that, starting out gently, becomes irresistible. Corinne was calmer, her soul reassured by the delights of the fine weather. She had tucked up the long strands of her hair the better to feel any breeze around her; and thus framed, her face was more charming than ever. The wind instruments following in another boat created a captivating effect. They harmonized with the sea, the stars, and the heady mildness of an Italian evening, but they called up a more touching emotion still: they were heaven's voice in the midst of nature. "Dear friend," said Oswald softly, "dear friend of my heart, I shall never forget this day: can there ever be one happier?" And as he spoke these words, his eyes were filled with tears. A beguiling charm in Oswald was the ready yet restrained emotion that often brought tears to his eyes despite his efforts: at such moments, his expression was irresistible. At times, even in the middle of a mild joke, he was

246

Vesuvius and the Campania visibly moved by some secret feeling that, blending with his gaiety, lent him a noble charm. "Alas! no," Corinne replied, "I no longer hope for another day like this. May it be blessed, at least, as the last of my life if it is not—if it cannot be—the dawn of enduring happiness."

VI The weather began to shift as they reached Naples. The sky grew dark; already, the storm brewing in the air was vigorously stirring the waves as if, from the depth of the waters, the sea's storm was answering the one in the sky. Nelvil went ahead for torches to ensure Corinne's safety when he took her home. As he crossed the dock, he saw a collection of Lazzaroni screaming: Ah! the poor man, he won't make it. We have to be patient. He '11 perish.

"What's that?" exclaimed Lord Nelvil impetuously. "Whom are you talking about?" A poor old fellow. He was swimming over there, not far from the dock, but the storm caught him and he's not strong enough to fight the waves and get back to shore.

Oswald's first impulse was to jump into the water, but considering how that would frighten Corinne when she came by, he offered all the money he had on his person and promised twice as much to anyone w h o would jump in to pull the old man out. The Lazzaroni refused, saying: We're too afraid. It's much too dangerous. It can't be done.

Just then the old man disappeared under the billows. Hesitating no longer, Oswald leaped into the sea although the waves were over his head. Fighting them successfully, he reached the old man, and not a moment too soon he seized him and took him back to shore. But the cold water, the violent exertion in the turbulent sea, were so hard on Oswald that the moment he brought the old man to safety he fainted and looked so deadly pale that one could only think he was no longer alive. 8 By then Corinne was approaching, with no reason to guess what

247

Book XIII had just happened. She noticed a large crowd gathered, and hearing people scream he is dead, she was about to move away out of the terror inspired by those words, w h e n one of the Englishmen in her party hurriedly broke through the crowd. She followed, and after a few steps, the first thing to strike her eyes was the coat Oswald had left on the beach w h e n he jumped into the water. Believing it was the only thing that w a s left of him, she seized it with convulsive despair. At last she came upon Oswald himself, and though he seemed lifeless she threw herself on his motionless body with a kind of rapture. It is not possible to describe her happiness w h e n , clasping him fervently in her arms, she heard the beating of his heart, revived perhaps by her presence. "He is alive!" she exclaimed. "He is alive!" And in that moment, she recovered a strength and courage hardly to be found in those w h o were simply Oswald's friends. She summoned all kinds of help, k n e w h o w to administer it herself: she supported the head of the unconscious Oswald, covering it with her tears. Despite the c r u d est distress, she forgot nothing, lost not a second, and her care was not interrupted by her grief. Although Oswald seemed a little better, he still had not recovered his senses. Corinne had him carried to her rooms and, kneeling at his side, she surrounded him with perfumes to revive him, called to him in such tenderly passionate tones that life had to come back at such a voice. Oswald heard, opened his eyes, and pressed her hand. Is it possible that they had to feel the anguish of hell to enjoy such a moment as this? Poor human nature! W e k n o w infinity only through suffering, and in all the pleasures of life, nothing can compensate for the despair of seeing the death of the one w e love. "Cruel, cruel m a n ! " exclaimed Corinne, " w h a t have you done?" "Pardon," replied Oswald, in a shaking voice. "Pardon. Believe me, dear friend, w h e n I thought m y last moment had come, my only fear was for y o u . " Admirable expression of shared love, of love in its happiest moment of mutual confidence! Corinne was deeply touched by these delightful words, and to the last day of her life could not recall them without the emotion that, for a few moments at least, grants everything forgiveness.

248

Vesuvius and the Campania

VII Oswald's second impulse was to put his hand on his chest to find his father's portrait; it was still there, but so damaged by the water that it was scarcely recognizable. Bitterly distressed, Oswald exclaimed: "Dear God! You have taken his image away from me!" Corinne begged Nelvil to let her restore the portrait. Without much hope, he consented. What was his astonishment when three days later she brought it back not only mended, but a much more striking likeness than before. "Yes," said Oswald, enchanted, "yes, you have guessed his features and his countenance. You have been chosen to share my lot by a miracle of heaven, since it reveals to you the memory of the one who must ever dispose of my fate. Corinne," he went on, falling at her feet, "reign over my life forever. Here is the ring my father gave his wife, the holiest, most sacred of rings, offered in the noblest good faith, accepted by the most faithful heart. I take it from my finger to place it on your own. And from this moment on, I am not free so long as you keep it; I am not free. I make this solemn commitment before I know who you are: it is your soul I believe in, for your soul has disclosed everything to me. The events of your life must be noble like your character if they come from you; if they come from fate, and you have been their victim, I thank heaven for being charged to put them right. Therefore, my dear Corinne, tell me your secrets; you owe it to him whose promises have come before you confided in him." "Oswald, your touching emotion is born of an error, and I cannot accept this ring without dispelling it. You believe I divined your father's features through the heart's inspiration, but I have to tell you that I saw him several times." "You saw my father," Nelvil exclaimed. "How? In what place? Good Lord! Can that be? Who are you, Corinne?" "Here is your ring," she said, stifling her emotion. "Already I must give it back to you." "No," Oswald replied after a moment's silence, "I swear that so long as you do not send back this ring, I will never be husband to another. But forgive the uneasiness you have just prompted in my soul. Confused ideas come back to mind. My anxiety is painful."

249

Book XIII "I see that, and I shall cut it short. But already your voice is not the same, and your words are different. Perhaps when you have read my tale, perhaps the horrifying word farewell. . ." "Farewell!" Nelvil exclaimed. "No, dear friend, only on my deathbed will I be able to say that word to you. Do not fear it before that time." Corinne left, and a few minutes later Teresina entered Oswald's room to give him the letter from her mistress which follows.

250

Book XN CORINNE'S STORY

I Oswald, I shall begin by disclosing what must surely decide my fate. When you read my letter, should you find it impossible to forgive me, do not even finish; turn your back on me and go. But if everything between us is not shattered when you discover my name and the life I chose to give up, what follows here will perhaps excuse me in your eyes. Lord Edgermond was my father. I was born in Italy to his first wife, a Roman; and Lucile Edgermond, whom they intended for your wife, is my half sister on my father's side, the fruit of his second marriage to an Englishwoman. Now hear me out. Brought up in Italy, I lost my mother when I was barely ten, but since my mother's dying wish was for me to finish my education before going on to England, my father left me with an aunt of hers in Florence. My talents, my tastes, my character itself were formed by the time my father sent for me, a decision he was brought to by my aunt's death. He lived in a small town in Northumberland; I do not think it can give any real idea of England, but it was all I knew for the six years I spent there. From my earliest childhood, my mother kept telling me what a misfortune it would be to live outside of Italy, and my aunt often repeated that my mother had died of a

251

Book XIV broken heart, terrified of leaving her country. My aunt was a simple soul, convinced that a Catholic living in a Protestant country was damned, and even though I did not share that particular fear, I dreaded the idea of going to England. There are no words to describe my sadness at leaving Italy. The woman who came for me knew no Italian. In private of course, I went on exchanging a few words in that language with my poor Teresina, w h o had agreed to come with me even though her tears never stopped as she went farther and farther away from her native land. But I had almost to unlearn those harmonious sounds, so enchanting even to foreigners, whose charm for me was inseparable from my childhood memories. As I made my way north, how sad and gloomy I felt without having any clear notion of why. I had not seen my father for five years when I reached his home. And then I could hardly recognize him, for it seemed to me that his face had taken on a more solemn cast. In any case, he welcomed me with affectionate concern, telling me how much I looked like my mother. Then they brought my little sister to meet me; at the time she was three years old and had the palest face, the blondest silky hair I had ever seen. Since there are almost no such faces as hers in Italy, I gazed at her with amazement, but from that first moment, I took great interest in her. That very day I took a lock of her hair to make a bracelet: I have kept it ever since. At last my stepmother came in. During the six years I was to spend with her, the impression she made the first time I saw her was to be constantly intensified and reinforced. To the exclusion of everything else, Lady Edgermond loved the province into which she had been born; dominated by her, my father had sacrificed living in London or Edinburgh. Cold, dignified, taciturn by nature, her eyes softened when she looked at her daughter. But otherwise both her expression and her conversation were so matter-of-fact that it seemed impossible to get her to hear any idea, even the merest syllable unfamiliar to her mind. She welcomed me quite correctly, but it was easy to see that everything about me surprised her, and that she planned to make changes if she could. Not a word was exchanged at the dinner table, although a number of people from neighboring homes had been invited. I was so bored with the silence that in the middle of dinner, I found myself trying to chat with an elderly man seated beside me.

252

Corinne's Story The English I had learned from my father as a child was rather good, and in the course of the conversation, I quoted a few verses in Italian; they were very pure, very elegant, but their subject was love. My stepmother, who knew a little Italian, looked at me, blushed, and a bit earlier than usual, signaled to the women that it was time to withdraw and prepare tea, leaving the men alone at table for dessert. I did not know the first thing about this practice, so startling to Italians who can imagine no pleasure in social interchange without women; and for a moment, I thought my stepmother was so indignant that she would not stay in the same room with me. I quickly took heart though, because she beckoned me to follow her and did not speak a single word of reproach throughout the three hours we spent in the living room waiting for the men to join us. At supper, my stepmother rather gently explained to me that according to custom young ladies were not to speak, and that above all else it was improper for them to quote verse where the word love appeared. "Miss Edgermond," she concluded, "you must try to forget everything that has to do with Italy. It would have been far better had you never known that country." My heart weighed down with sadness, I wept all night. In the morning I went for a walk. The fog was so dreadful that I could not make out the sun which at least would have reminded me of my homeland. Along the way, I met my father who came toward me. "My dear child," he confided, "things here are not as they were in Italy; among us, household duties are a woman's only vocation. Your talents can help pass the time when you are alone; perhaps you will find a husband who will enjoy them; but in such a small town as ours, whatever attracts attention stirs up envy, and you would never find anyone to marry you if people thought your tastes were foreign to our customs. Our way of life here is subject to the age-old habits of a remote province. The twelve years I spent in Italy with your mother give me the sweetest memories, for I was young then, and I enjoyed novelty. But now I have settled down comfortably into my pigeonhole. A regular life makes the time go by peacefully, even if it seems monotonous. But you must not fight the customs of the place where you live: if you do you will inevitably suffer. The fact is that in a town as small as ours, nothing is secret, everything is repeated from mouth

253

Book XIV to mouth; and that excites jealousy rather than emulation. Far better to tolerate a little boredom than constantly to meet those shocked and malicious looks that call you to account without letup for whatever you are doing." No, my dear Oswald, you cannot imagine my suffering as I listened to my father speak those words. From childhood, I remembered him graceful and lively, and now I saw him bent under the coat of lead that Dante describes in hell and that mediocrity casts over the shoulders of those who fall under its yoke. Everything was retreating from my sight: enthusiasm for nature, for the arts, for feelings; and so my soul tormented me like a useless flame, devouring me for lack of fuel from without. Since by nature I am gentle, my stepmother had no reason to complain of my behavior, and my father still less, since I loved him dearly and the only pleasure left to me was talking with him. He was resigned but he was aware of it, whereas most of our country gentlemen, all the while drinking, hunting, and sleeping, believed they were living the wisest and fairest of all possible lives. Their peace of mind so troubled me that I began to wonder if I were not the one whose way of thinking was awry, and if their stolid existence, eluding all pain along with all thought, feeling along with reverie, was not preferable to my temperament. But where would such a sorry conclusion have led me? To have to mourn my talents as if they were misfortunes, whereas in Italy they were considered a gift from heaven. Some of the people we saw were not without wit, but they smothered it like an unwelcome glimmer of light; and usually, when they were around forty, this bit of mental activity grew sluggish along with the rest of them. Late in autumn, my father would often go hunting, and we used to wait up for him, sometimes until midnight. While he was away, I stayed in my room most of the day to develop my talents. Annoyed, my stepmother would say: "What good is all that? Will it make you any happier?" That last word would reduce me to despair. "What else is happiness but the development of our abilities," I thought to myself. "Is not killing yourself morally the same as killing yourself physically? And if mind and soul must be smothered, what is the point of going on with a wretched life that stirs me up to no purpose?" But I took good care not to talk that way to my stepmother. Once or twice I had tried; her

254

Corinne's Story response to me was that women were made to watch over their husbands' households and their children's health, that all other ambition was harmful, and that her best advice for me was to hide any ambition I might have. Commonplace as they were, her words left me speechless: for emulation, enthusiasm, all the powers that propel genius and soul, have a singular need for encouragement: like flowers, they wither under sad and ice-cold skies. Nothing can be easier than to put on high moral airs and pass judgment on whoever aspires to a loftier outlook. Duty is the noblest of human purposes, but like any other idea it can be distorted into a weapon of attack in the hands of narrow-minded people pleased with their own mediocrity. They will use it to silence talent, to get rid of enthusiasm, genius, indeed all of their enemies. To hear them, you would think that duty meant sacrificing one's superior abilities, and that having a mind is a fault to be expiated by leading exactly the same life as people do who have none. But can it be true that duty prescribes the same rules for everyone? Do not people capable of great thoughts and generous feelings owe it to the world to share them? Is not every woman, as much as every man, obliged to make her way according to her own character and talents? And must we forever imitate the instinct of the bees, one swarm following another, without progress and without change? No, Oswald, forgive Corinne her pride, but I believed I was made for another destiny. I feel as submissive to what I love as the women around me then w h o allowed neither their minds to love nor their hearts to desire, and were it your wish to spend your life in remotest Scotland, I would be happy to live and die there at your side. But far from renouncing my imagination, I would use it to enjoy nature more fully, and the farther my mind's dominion spread, the more glory and happiness I would find in declaring you its master. My ideas were almost as disturbing to my stepmother as my behavior. She was not satisfied with my leading the same life as she, I had to have the same reasons for leading it as well; for she insisted that the abilities she lacked be considered a disease and nothing more. Living quite close to the seashore, we often felt the north wind in our castle: at night I used to hear it whistle through the long hallways, and by day it marvelously fostered our silence when we were together. The weather was so damp and cold that I could rarely go out without

255

Book XIV painful sensations: there w a s something hostile in nature that made me bitterly miss its kind mildness in Italy. In winter w e w e n t back to the city, if a place with no entertainment, nor buildings, nor music, nor paintings can rightly be called a city. It was a gathering place for gossip and annoyance, at once varied and monotonous. The entire history of our world consisted of births, marriages, and deaths, w h i c h differed one from the other far less there than elsewhere. Try to picture w h a t it w a s like for an Italian like me to sit at table for hours every day after dinner in my stepmother's circle. It was made up of the seven most solemn w o m e n in the province, t w o of w h o m were maiden ladies as timid at fifty as they had been at fifteen, but much less full of fun. One lady w o u l d say to another: My dear, do you think the water is scalding hot enough to pour over the tea? My dear, another w o u l d reply, I think it would be too soon to pour as the gentlemen are not ready to come in yet. Will they stay at table for a long time today? the third would say. What do you think, my dear? I do not know, the fourth w o u l d answer. If I am not mistaken, the parliamentary elections are set for next week, and they might want to stay and discuss them. No, the fifth w o u l d go on, I think they are probably talking about the fox hunt, the one that kept them so busy last week and that is to start up again Monday next. I dare say though, that dinner will soon be over. Oh, I hardly expect so, the sixth would say with a sigh, and the silence w o u l d take over again. Since the Italian convents I had been to seemed full of life next to this circle of w o m e n , I could not imagine what was to become of me. Every quarter of an hour, a voice would be heard asking the dullest question, only to get the most unresponsive answer; boredom would lift briefly, only to fall back d o w n on these w o m e n all the more heavily. You might have thought them unhappy, except that they had learned from childhood to put up with everything. At last the gentlemen came back in, and that long awaited moment did not bring m u c h change to the w o m e n ' s ways: the men went right on with their conversation around the fireplace, while the w o m e n remained at the far end of the room, serving cups of tea. W h e n it came time to leave, they

256

Corinne's Story all went off with their husbands, ready to begin right over the next day lives differing from the day before solely by the date on the calendar, and by the traces stamped on their faces by the passing years just as if they had really lived during that time. I can scarcely imagine h o w my talent managed to survive the mortal chill around me; for there is no hiding the fact that there are t w o sides to every w a y of looking at things: y o u can speak highly of enthusiasm, y o u can censure it; motion and rest, variety and sameness can be attacked and defended with diverse arguments. You can plead the cause of life, and yet there is much to be said in favor of death—or what resembles it. So it is not true, then, that you can simply scoff at w h a t mediocre people say. In spite of you, they will see to the bottom of your thoughts; whenever your superiority brings you grief, they are right there waiting to say: What did you expect? Even though it may sound very calm and reasonable, it is actually the harshest thing you can hear. For jealousy can be tolerable only in countries where it is excited by the admiration talent inspires. But what greater misfortune is there than living where superiority gives rise to jealousy without any compensating enthusiasm! In such a place, even were y o u weaker than a creature of humble rank, y o u would be hated as a person of great power. Such w a s my life in that cramped world. The commotion I made annoyed practically everyone, and I could not meet superior m e n there as I might have done in London or Edinburgh: men w h o truly understand h o w to judge and to k n o w about everything; the kind of m e n w h o feel a need for the inexhaustible delights of mind and conversation, and w h o would have found some pleasure in speaking with a person from another land, even if she did not conform to the austere w a y s of their country. Sometimes, I w o u l d spend w h o l e days in my stepmother's circle without hearing a single w o r d that had anything to do with thought or feeling. Even a gesture w a s forbidden w h e n you spoke; the faces of the girls with their flawless complexions and high color were perfectly still: w h a t a contrast they provided between nature and society! Entertainment w a s identical for every age: you took tea, you played whist; and w o m e n grew old doing the same thing over and over, alw a y s in the same place. Time would not let them slip by, he k n e w where to find them. In even the smallest Italian towns, there is a theater, music,

257

Book XIV improvisors, great enthusiasm for poetry and the arts, beautiful sunlight: y o u feel alive there. But in the provinces where I lived, I had almost completely forgotten all that; I think that I could have sent d o w n a minimally perfected mechanical doll to take my place: she could surely have performed my social duties as well as I. Since all over England, many different interests are pursued which do honor to humanity, it is clear that men can always manage to use their leisure time to advantage; but in the isolated corner of the earth where I was living, the lives of w o m e n were unutterably dull. Yet there were some few w h o , by temperament or reflection, had developed their minds, and I discovered scattered intonations, glances, words in an undertone, w h i c h strayed from the beaten path; but in this tiny locality, the small-minded view of a small circle smothered all such incipient growth. Y o u w o u l d have seemed a rebel, a w o m a n of questionable virtue, had y o u indulged in talk or in any w a y asserted yourself. What was worse than all these drawbacks was that there was absolutely nothing to be gained if y o u did. In the beginning, I tried to bring this slumbering society to life: I suggested reading poetry, making music. Once a date was even set; but all of a sudden one w o m a n remembered that three weeks earlier she had been invited to supper at her aunt's, another that she w a s in mourning for an old cousin she had never seen and w h o w a s three months dead, finally another recalled that she had some household matters to settle. It w a s all very reasonable, but it was always the pleasures of the mind and the imagination that got sacrificed; and I heard the words it cannot be done so often that in the midst of so many negatives, the best one in my eyes might almost have seemed not being alive at all. As for me, after struggling for while, I gave up my useless efforts; not that m y father forbade t h e m — h e had even urged my stepmother not to interfere. But innuendos and knowing looks w h e n I was talking, a thousand tiny penalties like the bonds the pygmies used to tie up Gulliver, made it impossible for me to budge, and I ended up like all the others, with one difference alone: deep in my heart I was dying of boredom, impatience, and loathing. I had already spent four of the most tedious years imaginable in this w a y , but what grieved me even more w a s feeling my talent wither. Against my will, trivialities filled my head: for in a world w h e r e there is n o interest in science, litera-

258

Corinne's Story ture, painting, or music, where imagination is no one's concern, conversation necessarily consists of trifling facts and petty criticism. When activity and reflection are alien to the mind it tends to be narrow, easily offended, and cramped, so that social relationships become both painful and flat. There is no enjoyment to be had there beyond a certain systematized regularity just right for people who want to obliterate every form of superiority and so bring the world down to their level. But for those natures called to a destiny that is theirs alone, such uniformity means endless pain. The bitter enmity I provoked in spite of myself joined forces with the weight on my heart that came from the emptiness around me, making it hard for me to breathe. There is no use telling yourself, this man is unworthy to judge me, that woman is incapable of understanding me. The human face wields great power over the human heart; and when you read secret disapproval on that face, it will always make you anxious, whatever you do. Ultimately, the circle you live in hides the rest of the world from you; the tiniest object in front of your eye cuts off the sun. The same thing happens in the society where you live: neither Europe nor posterity can make you insensitive to the mischief-makers next door. Whoever wants to be happy then, and perfect his genius, must take special care in choosing the atmosphere of his immediate surroundings.

II I had no other pastime than to teach my little sister. Although my stepmother did not want her to learn music, she allowed me to teach her Italian and drawing. I am convinced that she still remembers them both, for in all justice I must say that she showed real intelligence in those days. Oswald, Oswald! if it is for your happiness that I have taken such pains, then I am glad; I shall be glad of it in my grave. I was almost twenty when my father decided it was time for me to marry, and it was then that my appointed destiny started to unfold. Our fathers, yours and mine, were close friends, and it was you, Oswald, you who my father hoped would be my husband. Had we met then and had you loved me, our common fate might have been clear

259

Book XIV and unclouded. You had been spoken of so highly that—call it premonition or call it pride—the hope of marrying you thoroughly pleased me. You were really too young for me, since I am eighteen months older, but then you were said to be well ahead of yourself in intellect and in your taste for study. And the life I imagined with someone having all the qualities ascribed to you was so sweet and good that these visions completely effaced my prejudices against the way Englishwomen lived. Besides, I knew you wanted to make your home in Edinburgh or London, and I was sure I would find the most distinguished society in each of those cities. I thought then what I still believe today: my whole misfortune was to live in a small town buried in a remote nothern province. Only big cities are right for people who depart from the common run, if they still want to live in society. Since life there is varied, it is novelty that pleases; but where a gentle monotony rules, people do not want to enjoy themselves one day, only to discover that every other day is dull. I love telling you over and over, Oswald, that although I had never seen you, I was in a decided state of anxiety as I waited to meet your father w h o was to come spend a week with mine. At that time, there was so little basis for the feeling that it had to be a warning of my fate. When Lord Nelvil arrived, I wanted to please him; perhaps I even wanted it too much, and I tried infinitely harder than I should have, displaying all my talents: I sang, I danced, I improvised for him; and my wit held in check for so long was perhaps over lively when it burst its chains. In the seven years that have gone by since then, experience of life has calmed me. I am less eager to show myself off; I am more at ease with myself, more patient; probably I am less sure that other people think well of me, but I do not crave their acclaim so much either. When all is said and done, there may have been something odd about me in those days. The very young are so passionate, so reckless! They rush headlong into life! However exceptional the mind, it cannot substitute for experience, ever, and even though it leads you to speak knowledgeably about men, you still do not act in the light of what you know. There is something fevered about our ideas that does not allow us to act according to our own reasoning. I think, though I cannot be certain, that I seemed too lively to Lord Nelvil, for while he was very kind to me during the week he spent with us, he wrote to my father afterwards that, on reflection, he

260

Corinne's Story thought his son too young to settle on the marriage in question. How important will this disclosure be to you, Oswald? I could have concealed this detail of my life. I have not done so. Could it condemn me in your eyes? I have improved over the last six years, I know that. And would your father not have been moved at the sight of my affection and enthusiasm for you? Oswald, he loved you; we would have come to an understanding. My stepmother then worked out a plan to marry me off to her older brother's son, Mr. Maclinson, a local landowner. At thirty he was rich, handsome, well born, and respectable, but he was a man so thoroughly convinced of a husband's authority over his wife, and the submissive domestic role of the woman, that the slightest doubt on that score would have revolted him as much as if honor or integrity were at stake. He found me rather attractive, and what was said in town about my wit and my strange character did not bother him at all, for his home was so well ordered, everything in it was done so methodically, at the same time, in the same way, that no one could possibly have changed anything about it. The two elderly aunts who supervised his household, the servants, even the horses, would not have known how to do a single thing differently from the day before, and the furniture itself, which had stood witness to this life for three generations, would have moved of its own accord had anything new come into sight. So Mr. Maclinson was rightly unafraid of my coming into that place: habit weighed so heavy there that any small liberties I took might have helped him pass the time for a quarter of an hour a week, but they surely would have had no other effect. He was a good man, incapable of hurting anyone; but for all that, had I told him about the innumerable griefs that can torment an active, sensitive soul, he would have thought me vaporish and quite simply would have advised me to go horseback riding and get some fresh air. He wanted to marry me precisely because he was unaware that mind and imagination have needs, and because he was attracted to me without understanding me. If he had had any idea what a distinguished woman was like, of her advantages and drawbacks, he would have been afraid of not being lovable enough in my eyes; but misgivings of the sort did not even enter his head. Just imagine my aversion to a marriage like that! I firmly refused! My father stood behind me; my stepmother, however, was deeply resentful. Tyrannical

261

Book XIV at heart, she was often too shy to make her wishes known, but she would be annoyed when you did not guess what she wanted; and the more it cost to break through her accustomed reserve to express herself, the less willing she was to forgive you if you resisted her will. The whole town emphatically denounced my decision. "Such a suitable match!" "Such a well set-up fortune!" "Such a fine man!" "Such a respected name!" This was the hue and cry. I tried to explain why that very suitable match did not suit me: it was a waste of time. Occasionally I might make myself understood when I spoke, but as soon as I left, conventional ideas filled up my listeners' heads again, and what I had said left absolutely no trace; indeed they took fresh pleasure in the old ideas I had momentarily displaced. One day when I had spoken out even more sharply than usual, I was taken aside by a woman much wittier than the rest, though to all appearances she had conformed to the local way of life. Her words impressed me deeply: "You are taking a lot of trouble, my dear, to do something that cannot be done: you will never change the way things are. A small town in the north, isolated from the rest of the world, unconcerned with art or literature, can only be what it is. If you have to live here, give in; if you can, go away—there are no other choices." This line of argument was unmistakably correct. With tastes similar to my own, this woman had managed to resign herself to a destiny I found intolerable, and I had to respect her more than I respected myself. For while she loved poetry and the pleasures of the ideal world, she judged the force of circumstance and the obstinacy of men far more realistically than I. Wanting to see her again, I sought her out, but it was useless: her mind might go beyond the circle, but her life was shut within its limits and I even suspect that she was a little afraid of reawakening her natural superiority by our conversation, for what could she have done with it?

Ill Had my father lived, I would have spent my whole life caught up in that woeful situation, but he was suddenly carried off by an accident.

262

Corinne's Story With him gone, I had lost my protector, my friend, the only person who could still listen to me in that wilderness filled with people; and despairing, I had no more strength to resist. I was twenty when he died, and there I was with no other sustaining strength, no other relative than my stepmother, and though we had lived together for five years, I was no closer to her than the day I came. She soon began talking about Mr. Maclinson again, and though she had no right to order me to marry him, he was the only man she invited to her home, and she made it clear enough that she would look kindly on no other marriage. Not that she was particularly fond of Mr. Maclinson, even though he was a close relative, but sensing some contempt in my refusal, she sought to make common cause with him rather in defense of mediocrity than out of family pride. Every day my position became more unbearable. I was seized with homesickness, the most disquieting sorrow that can take hold of the soul. For lively and sensitive temperaments, exile is sometimes a far crueler torture than death. Your imagination dislikes everything around you: climate, country, language, customs, life in general, life in its details. Each moment like each situation takes on its peculiar suffering, for our native land gives us a thousand pleasures we are not even aware of until w e lose them: . . . La favella, i costumi L'aria, i tronchi, il terren, le mura, i sassi!* To be shut off from the scenes of your childhood is heartbreak enough, for the memories of that time have a special enchantment that keeps the heart feeling young and yet softens the idea of death. The tomb set close by the cradle seems to cast its shadow evenly over a whole lifetime, while the years spent on foreign soil are like rootless branches. There the older generation has not known you from birth; for you, it is not a generation of fathers and protectors. A thousand interests you share with your compatriots are incomprehensible to foreigners; with them you have to explain everything, interpret everything, say everything, instead of enjoying the easy interchange, the free outpouring of thought that starts up the instant you meet your T h e language, the customs, the air, the trees, the earth, the walls, the stones! 1

263

Book XIV compatriots. I could never recall the warm-hearted expressions of my country without being moved. Cara, Carissima: I would speak these words to myself sometimes as I walked alone, reproducing for myself the friendly greeting Italian men and w o m e n use; I would compare that welcome with the one given me in the north of England. W h e n I wandered through the Italian countryside, I would hear harmonious airs sung every evening in perfect tune; here only the crows' screams echoed in the clouds. Mists took the place of my country's splendid sun, its soft air. Fruits scarcely ripened; I saw no vineyards; flowers grew listlessly, few and far between; like a black cloak, fir trees covered the mountains all year long. A n ancient building, a single painting—one beautiful painting—would have lifted my spirits, but in vain w o u l d I have searched thirty miles in every direction. All around me w a s lifeless, all w a s dreary, and what dwellers and dwellings there were only served to strip solitude of the poetic horror that makes the soul shudder with a certain pleasure. People were well-off—there was some business and farming around u s — i n a word, enough for people to tell you: You should be happy: you have everything you need. A stupid judgment, bearing on the surface of life, whereas the real source of happiness and suffering is hidden in the most secret and private sanctuary of the self! At twenty-one, I w a s to come into my mother's fortune and what my father had left me as well. Once, during my solitary daydreams of the time, it occurred to m e that since I was an orphan, I might go back to Italy and lead an independent life, entirely devoted to the arts. W h e n the notion entered my head, I went wild with happiness, and at first did not imagine any possible objection. But once my fever of hope calmed d o w n a little, such an irrevocable decision frightened me; and imagining w h a t everyone I k n e w would think made a project that had seemed so workable at first appear completely out of the question. Nonetheless I had formed so delightful and detailed an image of a life among paintings, music, and all that remained of antiquity that I took a n e w loathing to the boredom of my life. Close study of English literature had fostered the talent I feared to lose. Your poets' depth of thought and feeling had strengthened my mind and soul without at all weakening the liveliness imagination seems to take on among people of our southern lands alone. Thanks

264

Corinne's Story to the rare combination of circumstances that had given me a dual education and if you will, two nationalities, I could think myself destined for special privileges. I remembered how my first attempts at poetry had won praise from a very few but well-qualified judges in Florence. I exulted in the fresh successes I might win one day; in the long run, I tended to expect a good deal of myself, but is that not youth's first and noblest illusion? The universe would be mine, I thought, the day I no longer felt the parching breath of malicious mediocrity. But when it came to making the decision to leave—to take flight in secret—I found myself bound by a public opinion that held me in awe far more in England than it does in Italy; for although I disliked the small town where I lived, I respected the country as a whole. Had my stepmother been willing to take me to London or Edinburgh, had she thought of marrying me to a man with enough wit to value mine, I would never have given up either my name or my life, even to go back to my former homeland. For however hard it was to live under my stepmother's rule, I might have never have had the strength to change things without a host of circumstances that converged as if to force my uncertain mind. With me was my Italian chambermaid, Teresina, whom you know. She is Tuscan, and even though she is uneducated, she uses the noble and harmonious language that makes our people's most inconsequential talk so graceful. Only with her could I speak my language, and I was bound to her by this tie. I often noticed that she was sad, and I did not dare ask why, suspecting she missed our country as I did, and afraid I would not be able to keep my own feelings in check were they excited by the feelings of another. There are troubles that can be soothed by talking about them, but the ills of the imagination are aggravated when confided; above all they are aggravated when you see pain very like your own in someone else. Then they seem invincible, and you no longer try to fight them. Suddenly my poor Teresina fell seriously ill, and hearing her moan night and day, I made up my mind at last to ask why she was so unhapppy. How astonished I was to hear her tell me almost everything that I had felt! She had not reflected as thoroughly as I had on the cause of her suffering: she blamed local situations, specific people more than I; but the bleakness of nature, the dullness of the town we lived in, the coldness of its peo-

265

Book XIV pie, the constraints imposed by their ways—all this she felt though she could not put it into words and could only cry endlessly: "Oh, my country! Won't I ever see you again?" And yet she still insisted that she did not want to leave me, and with a bitterness that tore at my heart, she wept because she could not reconcile her beautiful Italian sun and the pleasure of hearing her mother tongue with her attachment to me. Nothing affected me more than this reflection of my own impressions in a completely simple person who had maintained her Italian character and tastes intact in all their original liveliness, and I promised her that she would see Italy again. "With you?" she answered. I kept silent. Then tearing out her hair, she swore she would never leave, but as she spoke those words, she seemed ready to die before my eyes. In the end I impulsively assured her that I would go back too. Spoken only to calm her, these words were to become a solemn pledge through the inexpressible joy they provoked and her confidence in them. From that day on, taking it upon herself to strike up an acquaintance with a few local merchants, she would tell me exactly when a ship was leaving the neighboring port for Genoa and Leghorn. I would listen and say nothing; though she imitated my silence, her eyes would fill with tears. M y own health suffered still more every day from the climate and from my distress. My spirit craved movement and gaiety: as I have often told you, sorrow would kill me; too much within me struggles against it: I must give in or die. Of course I often came back to the idea I had been considering since my father's death, but I loved Lucile very much. She was nine then, and I had been taking care of her like a second mother since she was six. One day it occurred to me that if I were to leave in secret, I would damage my reputation so badly that my sister's name would suffer, and for a time that fear led me to give up my plan. One evening, however, when my relations with my stepmother and society had distressed me more than ever, I happened to be alone with Lady Edgermond at supper. After an hour-long silence, in the face of her imperturbable coldness, I suddenly became so upset that I started a conversation by complaining about the life I was leading—perhaps more to make her talk than to reach any resolution concerning myself. But coming to life as I spoke, I began to speculate on the possibil-

266

Corinne's Story ity of leaving England forever. Undisturbed, my stepmother spoke to me with a curt composure I shall not forget so long as I live. "You are twenty-one years old, Miss Edgermond. Your mother's fortune and the money your father left now fall to you. Therefore you are free to behave just as you like. However, should you decide on a course of action that will dishonor you in public opinion, you owe it to your family to change you name and pass for dead." Hearing these words, I impulsively stood up and left the room without answering. Her harsh scorn prompted the sharpest indignation in me, and for a moment I was seized with a need for vengeance quite alien to my character. I got hold of myself, but the firm belief that no one cared about my happiness severed all the ties still binding me to my father's house. Undoubtedly I did not care much for Lady Edgermond, but I did not share the total indifference that she showed me. Her affection for her daughter touched me. I thought I had won her interest through the way I cared for her child, though perhaps this very care had excited her jealousy; the more sacrifices she imposed on herself in every direction, the more passionately involved she was in that single affection she allowed herself. Although her heart was curbed by reason in every other aspect of her life, where her own daughter was concerned, her character showed itself fervently alive. Teresina came in as my heart was still churning with resentment at my conversation with Lady Edgermond. Her voice full of emotion, she told me that a ship from Leghorn itself had just entered the port only a few miles away, and that on board were merchants she knew who were the most honorable people in the world. "They're Italian, all of them," she said weeping. "They only speak Italian. In eight days they're going to sea again, and they're heading straight for Italy, and if Madam has made up her mind . . . " "Go back with them, my dear Teresina," I answered. "No, Madam," she cried out, "I'd rather die here!" And she left my room. But I stayed there, thinking about my duty to my stepmother. It seemed clear to me that she did not want me with her any longer; she did not like my influence on Lucile—she was afraid my reputation for being exceptional might prove harmful when the time came to arrange her daughter's marriage. After all, by suggesting I pass for dead,

267

Book XIV she had confessed her heart's hidden wish; and that bitter advice, so revolting at first, sounded reasonable enough at second thought. "Yes! Why not?" I exclaimed. "In this place where my life is no more than a troubled sleep, let them think me dead. With nature, with the sun, with the arts, I shall come alive again; and in this lifeless world, the cold letters of my name engraved on an empty tomb will surely take my place as well as ever I could." Yet my soul's impulse toward freedom still lacked the strength of firm resolve. There are times you imagine yourself powerful enough to act on your own wishes and others when the normal order of things must get the better of all the soul's feelings. I might have gone on wavering forever, since nothing around me forced me to decide, when toward evening on the Sunday after the conversation with my stepmother, I heard some Italian singers under my window; they had come from Leghorn, and Teresina had brought them to me as a happy surprise. I cannot describe my feelings. A flood of tears covered my face, all my memories came alive again; for evoked by music, the past simply reappears like the ghosts of those dear to us, clothed in its veils of melancholy and mystery. The musicians sang the delicious words Monti composed in exile. 1 Bella Italia, amate sponde, Pur ve turno a riveder Trema in petto e si confonde L'alma opressa dal piacer.* In a kind of ecstasy, I felt for Italy everything that love inspires— desire, enthusiasm, longing. I was no longer in control: everything in me was swept off toward my native land. I needed to see her, breathe her, hear her; every beat of my heart was a summons to my beautiful land, to my smiling countryside! Were life offered to the dead in their graves, they would not lift off their tombstones with greater impatience than I felt to cast off my shrouds, and repossess nature, my imagination, and my genius! Enraptured by the music, I was still far from making up my mind, for the chaos of my feelings made it impossible for me to think clearly. That very moment, my stepmother came •Lovely Italy, cherished shores, I am to see you once more; my soul trembles and gives w a y to the excess of this pleasure.

268

Corinne's Story in and asked me to put an end to the song, saying that it was scandalous to hear music on Sunday. I tried to protest: the Italians were leaving the next day, and it was six years since I had last enjoyed that kind of pleasure. My stepmother would not listen to me; claiming that above all else one must respect the conventions of the country one lives in, she went over to the window and ordered her servants to send my poor compatriots away. They left, and as they went off, they sang over and over again a farewell that broke my heart. I had reached the limit of my endurance. The ship was to leave the next day, and without telling me Teresina had gotten everything ready in case I decided to go. Lucile had been staying with one of her mother's relatives for the past week. Since my father had left orders to build a tomb on his land in Scotland, his ashes did not rest on the estate where we lived. Without a word to my stepmother I went away at last, leaving a letter to tell her of my decision. I went away in one of those moods that come over us when we put ourselves in the hands of destiny, when anything seems better than servitude, loathing, tedium, when impetuous youth relies on the future and sees it shining in the heavens like a star that promises good fortune.

IV As the coast of England disappeared from sight, more worrisome thoughts took hold, but when we reached Leghorn I was soon comforted by all of Italy's charm, for I had left no strong attachments behind. Telling no one my real name, just as I had promised my stepmother, I took only the name of Corinne, after the poet and friend of Pindar I had come to love when I learned her story.3 My face had changed so much in maturing that I was sure not to be recognized. Having originally lived a rather isolated life in Florence, I relied on no one in Rome knowing w h o I was, which in fact is what happened. My stepmother gave me to understand that she had spread word of my death on a trip to the south prescribed by the doctors for my health. There was nothing else in her letter. With scrupulous accuracy she had my whole fortune sent on to me—and it is quite considerable—but she did not write to me again. From that time until I met

269

Book XIV you, five years have gone by, five years of considerable happiness. I came to settle in Rome, my reputation has grown, literature and the arts have brought me even more in the way of private pleasure than public success. And until I met you, I was unaware of the power feeling could wield. From time to time imagination would lend color to my illusions and then take it away without causing any sharp pain. No overwhelming affection had ever taken hold of me. Admiration, respect, love have in no way bound and chained the faculties of my soul. Even when I loved, I imagined more qualities and more charm than I actually found; ultimately, instead of being completely enslaved by my own feelings, I tended to remain aloof from them. Do not ask me to explain how two men whose passion for me was only too irresistibly apparent successively filled my life before we met. To convince me now that anyone but you could have interested me would mean doing violence to my inner conviction; as it is, I feel as much regret as pain. I shall repeat only what you have already heard from my friends: I so enjoyed my independent life that twice, after long hesitation and difficult scenes, I broke the ties that the need to love had led me to accept, and which I could not bring myself to make irrevocable. A great German lord wanted to marry me and take me off to his country where his rank and fortune called him. An Italian prince offered me the most brilliant life in Rome itself. The first one managed to please me by inspiring my highest regard, but as time went on, I realized that he had but few intellectual resources. When we were alone, it cost me a great deal of effort to keep our conversation going and to hide from him his own inadequacies. For fear of making him uneasy when we talked together, I never dared show myself as I can be. I foresaw that his feeling for me would surely weaken the day I gave up humoring him, and that on the other hand, it is hard to maintain enthusiasm for people one constantly humors. The allowances a woman makes for any kind of inferiority in a man always imply more pity than love, and the kind of calculation and reflection required withers the heavenly character of spontaneous feeling. The Italian prince was utterly charming and had a creative mind. He wanted to settle in Rome, shared all my tastes, and liked my way of life; but at a critical moment, I realized that he did not have spiritual strength, and that in life's difficult situations, it would be up to me to lend him support and to buttress him. At that point there was

270

Corinne's Story no further question of love, for women need sustaining strength, and nothing chills them like having to provide it. Twice, then, my feelings were enlightened, not by misfortune or errors, but by an observing mind that revealed what imagination had hidden. I thought I was destined never to love with the full power of my soul; at times the idea was painful, more often I was pleased with myself for being free. I was afraid of my own capacity for suffering, of the passionate nature that threatens my happiness and my life. Mindful that it is hard to win over my judgment, I kept on reassuring myself, and refused to believe that anyone could ever correspond to my idea of the character and mind of a man. I kept hoping to elude the absolute power an emotional attachment wields by noticing some defects in anyone who might please me. I did not realize that there are defects capable even of enhancing love through the anxiety they produce. The melancholy and perplexity of mind that so totally dishearten you, Oswald, the austerity of your views, unsettle me without chilling my feeling. I often think that this feeling will not make me happy—but then I would stand judged, not you. You know the story of my life now: England abandoned, my change of name, my inconstant heart—I have hidden nothing. Doubtless you will think that imagination has often misled me, but if society did not bind women with all manner of chains while men go unshackled, what would there be in my life to keep anyone from loving me? Have I ever betrayed anyone? Have I ever done any harm? Have vulgar interests ever withered my soul? Sincerity, goodness, self-respect— will God ask more from the orphan who found herself alone in the universe? Fortunate are the women who meet the man they will always love as they take their first steps in life! But am I less deserving because I met him too late? Still I will speak frankly, my Lord, and you will take me at my word. If I could spend my life at your side without our marrying, I would prefer not to be joined to you in marriage, although it would mean losing a great happiness as well as an honor that in my eyes is the highest of all. It may be that this marriage is a sacrifice for you; it may be that one day you will come to regret having given up my beautiful sister Lucile, w h o m your father chose for you. She is twelve years younger than I and her name is as spotless as the first flower of spring. My name would have to be brought back from the dead in England. I

271

Book XIV k n o w Lucile has a pure and gentle soul; if I judge by her childhood, she may be capable of giving y o u understanding as well as love. Oswald, y o u are free. W h e n y o u wish, your ring will be returned to you. Perhaps before coming to a decision, y o u will w a n t to k n o w what will happen to me if y o u leave. I cannot say: at times my soul is shaken by a turmoil stronger than my reason, and I would not be responsible if it made life completely intolerable for me. It is equally true that my capacity for happiness is very great. Sometimes I feel within m e a kind of passion for thought that quickens my blood. Everything interests me. I love to talk. I delight in other people's wit, in the interest they show me, in the marvels of nature, and in works of art not done to death by affectation. But were I never to see you again, w o u l d it be within my power to go on living? It is for you to judge, Oswald, since y o u k n o w me better than I k n o w myself. I am not responsible for w h a t I may feel; it is for the one w h o drives home the dagger to judge whether he has inflicted a fatal wound. But even if that were the case, Oswald, I ought to forgive you. M y happiness depends entirely on the feeling you have shown for me these past six months. I defy all the power of your will and tact to fool me on the slightest change in that feeling. Set aside all notions of duty. In love I recognize neither promises nor guarantees. Divine power alone can bring a flower back to life once it has withered in the wind. The merest intonation or glance will be enough for me to k n o w that your heart has changed, and I would hate everything you might offer me in place of your love—that divine beam of light, my celestial halo. Be free then, Oswald, n o w and every day, free even if you were my husband: for if y o u no longer loved me, I would free y o u by my death of the indissoluble ties that bound you to me. As soon as y o u have read this letter, I must see you. M y impatience will bring me to you, and the moment I catch sight of you, I shall k n o w my fate; for misfortune moves swiftly, and w e a k as it is, the heart will not mistake the fatal signs of an irrevocable destiny. Farewell.

272

Book XV FAREWELL TO ROME AND JOURNEY TO VENICE I Oswald had read Corinne's letter with deep emotion. He was shaken with confused and conflicting griefs. At times he was hurt by her picture of an English province, telling himself in despair that such a woman could never be happy in domestic life. Then he pitied her suffering, and could not keep from loving and admiring the directness and simplicity of her account. He felt jealous, too, of the attachments she had known before they met, and the more he tried to conceal that jealousy from himself, the more it tortured him. Last, and most important, his father's role in her tale grieved him bitterly, and such was his soul's anguish that he no longer knew what he was thinking or what he was doing. He rushed outside at noon under a burning sun: no one is on the streets of Naples at that hour, dread of the heat holds all living creatures in the shade. He went off in the direction of Portici, walking aimlessly where his feet took him, and the scorching rays beating down on his head, at once stimulated and muddled his thoughts. After several hours had gone by, Corinne could not resist the need to see Oswald. She entered his room, and not finding him in that crucial moment, was struck with mortal terror. She saw the pages she had written on Lord Nelvil's table, and certain that he had gone out af-

273

Book XV ter reading them, she imagined that he had left for good, and that she would not see him again. Seized with unbearable grief, she tried to wait, and each moment was exhausting. She paced up and down in his room, stopping suddenly for fear of missing the slightest noise that might announce his return. At last, resisting her anxiety no longer, she went down to ask if they had seen him pass by and in what direction. The innkeeper replied that Lord Nelvil had walked off toward Portici, adding that he had surely not gone far, since at that time of day sunstroke would be a serious danger. This new fear compounded with all the others sent Corinne off aimlessly through the streets of Naples, with nothing on her head to protect her from the burning heat of the day. The broad white paving stones of Naples, those stones cut from lava and set there as if to multiply the effect of heat and light, burned her feet and blinded her with the reflected rays of the sun. She did not plan to go as far as Portici, but impelled by suffering and anxiety, she kept on walking faster and faster. There was no one to be seen on the main road. At that hour the animals themselves stayed hidden, in awe of nature. The air filled with a horrid dust at the slightest breeze or passage of the lightest cart on the road. At every turn Corinne felt about to drop; she did not come upon one tree to lean against, and her reason faltered in that blazing desert. There were only a few more steps to the King's Palace, where she would have found refreshing shade and water under the porticos, but her strength failed. In vain she tried to walk on, she no longer saw her way: dizziness flashed a thousand lights before her eyes, more vivid still than those of the day. Suddenly the lights were followed by a cloud that wrapped her in an unrefreshing darkness. She was consumed with a burning thirst. She met a Lazzaroni, the only human creature able to brave the climate's noontide power, and begged him to get her a little water; but seeing a woman alone on the road at that hour, a woman so remarkable both for her beauty and her elegant clothes, he did not doubt that she was mad and drew away from her in terror. Fortunately, Oswald was just then retracing his steps, and from a distance a few sounds of Corinne's voice struck his ear. Beside himself, he ran to her, catching her in his arms as she fell unconscious; he carried her under the portico of the palace and his tender care brought her back to life. 274

Farewell to Rome and Journey to Venice As soon as she recognized him, she said, still distraught: "You promised not to leave without my consent: I may seem unworthy of your affection now, but your promise—why do you hold it in contempt?" "Corinne, the idea of leaving you has never come close to my heart. I simply wanted to reflect on our future, and collect my thoughts before I saw you again." "Well, then!" Corinne said, trying to look calm. "You have had time during these mortal hours that almost cost my life. You have had time. Speak then, and tell me your decision." Corinne's voice betrayed her emotion and, frightened, Oswald knelt before her and said: "Corinne, your friend's heart is unchanged. What have I learned that might disillusion me? But listen." And as her trembling grew even more visible, he went on urgently: "Listen without dread to one who cannot live knowing you to be unhappy." "Ah! You speak of my happiness, already yours is not central any longer. I do not decline your pity—just now I need it, but do you think I want to live on that alone?" "No, both you and I will live on my love. I will come back . . ." "Come back?" Corinne interrupted. "Ah! Then you mean to leave! What has happened? What has changed since yesterday? Unhappy woman that I am!" "Dear friend! Calm your troubled heart and let me disclose what I am feeling, if I can. It is less than you fear, far less. But I must," Oswald said, straining for control so that he could go on with his explanation, "yet I must know what reasons my father might have had for opposing our union seven years ago. He never mentioned it to me, I know nothing about it, but his closest friend is still alive in England and may know his motives. If, as I believe, they are only a matter of unimportant circumstances, they will be of no consequence. I shall forgive you for leaving your father's land and mine—that noble fatherland. I shall hope that love will bind you to it again, and that you will prefer domestic happiness, and the sensitive natural virtues, even to the luster of your genius. I shall hope everything, I shall do everything; but if my father pronounced against you, Corinne, I will never be the husband of another woman, but neither could I ever be yours." Such was the effort Oswald needed to speak those words that his head ran with a cold sweat. Corinne did not answer for a while, con-

275

Book XV cemed only with his visible distress. Then, taking his hand, she said; "What! you are leaving? What! you are going to England without me?" Oswald said nothing. "Heartless man!" cried Corinne, despairing. "You give me no answer. You do not dispute what I say. Ah! then it is true! Alas! even as I said it, I still did not believe it." "Thanks to your care, I recovered the life I was on the brink of losing; that life belongs to my country in wartime. If I can marry you, w e will not part again, and I will give you back your name and make it possible for you to live in England. Were that too-happy fate denied me, I would return to Italy when peace came; I would remain at your side for a long time, changing nothing in your lot except to give you one more faithful friend." "Ah! you would change nothing in my lot now that you have become my sole interest in the world, now that I have tasted of the heady cup that brings happiness or death! But tell me, at least, your leaving, when will it be? How many days do I have left?" "Dear friend," said Oswald, pressing her to his heart, "I swear I will not leave you for another three months, and perhaps even then . . ." "Three months," Corinne exclaimed. "So I still shall live for all that time. It is a great deal—I did not expect so much. Come along now, I feel better. Three months: they make up a future," she said with a mixture of sadness and joy that moved Oswald deeply. Together, then, they silently got into the coach that drove them to Naples.

II When they got back, they found Prince Castel-Forte waiting at the inn. Rumor held that Lord Nelvil had married Corinne, and while the Prince was sorely grieved at the news, he had come to find the truth for himself, and to remain somehow in his friend's company, even were she bound forever to another. Although he was deeply anxious about Corinne's melancholy and the despondency he saw in her for the first time, he did not dare question her, for she seemed to shun all discussion of the subject. There are times when the soul's state makes

276

Farewell to Rome and Journey to Venice us fearful of confiding in anyone; it would take but a word spoken or heard to dispel the illusion that makes existence bearable; and in passionate feelings of whatever kind, illusion has the special quality of leading us to humor ourselves as we would a friend whom we fear to distress by enlightening him, so that unawares, we place our own sorrow under the protection of our own compassion. The following day, Corinne, the most natural person in the world, did not want to parade her suffering and tried to seem joyous, to be cheerful again, thinking too that the best way to hold Oswald was to prove as pleasant as in the past. Thus she would eagerly start an interesting conversation, only to be suddenly absent, her eyes wandering aimlessly. For all her extraordinary gifts of language, she would hesitate over the choice of words, occasionally using an expression without the slightest connection to what she meant to say. Then she would laugh at herself, her eyes filling with tears through the laughter. Desperate at the suffering he was causing, Oswald wanted to speak with her in private, but she carefully avoided being alone with him. "What do you want me to tell you?" she said one day when he grew insistent. "I miss what I was: that is all there is to say. I was rather proud of my talent, I enjoyed the success, the glory; my ambition sought approval even from people of no importance to me. But now I do not care about anything, and if I am detached from these useless pleasures, it is not through happiness but because I am profoundly disheartened. I do not blame you, it comes from me. Perhaps I will master it! So many things happen in the depths of the soul that we can neither foresee nor control. But I do you justice, Oswald, I see you suffering from my pain. I pity you, too. Why does that feeling not suit us both? Alas! it can apply to everything that breathes without making very many mistakes." By then, Oswald was no less unhappy than Corinne. He loved her, but her tale had hurt him in his affections and in his way of thinking. It seemed clear that his father had foreseen everything, judged everything for him ahead of time, and that to take Corinne as his wife would be to scorn those warnings; yet he could not give her up, and so was plunged back into the doubts he had hoped to leave behind when he heard his friend's story. For her part, she had not wanted the marriage tie to Oswald, and had she been certain he would never 277

Book XV leave her, she would have been happy with that alone; but she knew him well enough to k n o w that he conceived of happiness only within domestic life, and that he could never renounce the ideas of marriage without loving her less. His departure for England seemed a sign of death to her: she knew h o w greatly he was influenced by the customs and opinions of that country. It was useless for him to make plans for spending his life with her in Italy; she was sure that once he was back in his native land, the idea of leaving it again would prove intolerable. She sensed that in the long run, her charm was the source of all her power, and what power could it exert in her absence? What do memories and imagination mean when one is closed in on all sides by the force and reality of a social order that dominates all the more for being founded on noble and pure ideas? These thoughts tortured Corinne, and she longed to assert some control over her feeling for Oswald. She attempted to discuss the things that had always interested her with Prince Castel-Forte: literature and the arts; but w h e n Oswald entered the room, all her plans fell apart under the dignity of his bearing, and the melancholy glance he gave Corinne that seemed to say: Why do you want to give me up? Twenty times Corinne decided to tell Lord Nelvil that she was offended by his indecisiveness, that she was determined to go away. But then she would see him leaning his head on his hand like a man weighed down by painful feelings, or breathing with difficulty, or dreaming on the seashore, or raising his eyes to heaven when harmonious sounds were to be heard. These very simple actions, whose magic she alone perceived, would abruptly upset all her efforts. The tone, the countenance, a certain grace in each gesture reveal the soul's most intimate secrets to love, and it was true, perhaps, that an apparently cold nature like Lord Nelvil's could be fathomed only by the w o m a n w h o loved him: for divining nothing, objectivity cannot judge what is displayed to the eye. In the silence of her reflections, Corinne tried what had formerly served her well when she thought she was in love: she summoned the powers of observation that astutely disclosed the slightest weakness. She strove to prod her imagination to show Oswald in a less attractive light: but there was nothing in him that was not noble, touching, and simple; and how could she undo in her o w n eyes the charm of a perfectly natural character and mind!

278

Farewell to Rome and Journey to Venice Only artifice can occasion those sudden awakenings of the heart, astonished that it has loved. Further, Oswald and Corinne shared a singular, all-powerful empathy. Their tastes were distinctly unlike, their opinions rarely tallied; and yet in the depths of their souls were similar mysteries, emotions drawn from the same source, indeed an inexplicable hidden ressemblance implying the same nature, even though shaped differently in each by all the outward circumstances of life. Thus, to her terror, Corinne realized that she had heightened her feelings for Oswald still further by observing him anew, judging him in detail, struggling vigorously against the impression he made on her. She invited Prince Castel-Forte to join them for the journey back to Rome; and Lord Nelvil sensed that she wanted to avoid being alone with him. Though saddened, he raised no objections: he was intimidated by the thought that he no longer knew whether what he could do for Corinne would assure her happiness. Corinne, however, would have been pleased to see him refuse to have the Prince travel with them, but she said nothing. Their situation was no longer simple; there was still no dissembling between them, and yet Corinne suggested what she would have wanted Oswald to refuse, and for the first time there were clouds in the affection that had daily given them six months of almost unalloyed happiness. Returning by way of Capua and Gaeta, seeing once more the places that had given such delight just a short time ago, Corinne's memories took on a bitter cast. Beautiful nature now called her to happiness in vain, doubling her sadness. When that lovely sky does not dispel grief, its laughing aspect intensifies suffering by contrast. They reached Terracina at night: it was delightfully cool, and the same sea broke against the same rocks. After dinner, Corinne disappeared. Uneasy when she did not return, Oswald went out, and his heart, like hers, led him to the spot where they had rested on their way to Naples. From a distance, he could make out Corinne, kneeling before the rock they had sat on; and looking at the moon, he saw that it was covered by a cloud just like the one two months before at the same hour. As Oswald drew near, Corinne rose and pointed to the cloud: "Was I right to believe in the omen? But is it not true that heaven

279

Book XV shows a certain compassion? Then it warned me of the future, today it wears mourning for me. Do not forget to notice, Oswald, whether the same cloud passes over the m o o n w h e n I die." "Corinne! Corinne! do I deserve to die of grief at your hands? You can make that happen, I assure you. Speak like that once more, and you will see m e fall lifeless at your feet. But what is my crime? Your w a y of thinking makes y o u independent of public opinion; you live in a country w h e r e that opinion is never harsh, and even if it were, you would rule it, for your genius would prevail. C o m e what may, I want to spend my days at your side. I am determined, so w h y do y o u grieve? If I could not become your husband without offending a memory that reigns with you over m y soul, do you not love me enough to find happiness in my affection, in the devotion of my whole life to you?" "Oswald, if I believed w e would never part, I would wish nothing more, b u t . . . " "Do y o u not have the ring, the sacred pledge? . . . " "I shall give it back to y o u . " "No! Never!" " A h ! I shall give it back to y o u w h e n y o u want to take it; and if y o u stop loving me, the ring itself will tell me. Does not an ancient belief hold that the diamond is more faithful than man, and that it grows tarnished w h e n the one w h o gave it betrays us?" 1 "Corinne, y o u dare speak of betrayal? Your mind is wandering; y o u do not k n o w m e any more." "Forgive me, Oswald, forgive me! But in the deep passions, the heart is suddenly endowed with a miraculous instinct, and all suffering is an oracle. What is the meaning of the painful palpitation that makes m y breast heave n o w ? A h ! my friend, I would not fear it, if the only thing it foretold were my death." With these words, Corinne rushed off, afraid of a prolonged conversation w i t h Oswald. She took no pleasure in suffering, and struggled to disperse her feelings of sadness, but they returned all the more violently for being repulsed. The next day, as they crossed the Pontine Marshes, Oswald's care w a s even more tender than the first time; she accepted it w i t h sweet gratitude, but in her expression was something that said: Why do you not let me die?

280

Farewell to Rome and Journey to Venice

III How utterly deserted Rome seemed when they returned from Naples! Entering the city through the gate of Saint John Lateran, you cross long, lonely streets. The noise of Naples, its population, the liveliness of its people accustom you to a certain level of movement that, by contrast, makes Rome seem particularly sad at first. Once you have been there for a while, you enjoy it again; but when you become used to a life of diversion, withdrawing into yourself again, even if you enjoy it, involves a melancholy sensation. Further, it is quite dangerous to stay in Rome at that season of the year, the end of July. The bad air makes certain neighborhoods uninhabitable, and the infection often spreads over the entire city. That year in particular, anxiety was more intense than usual, and every face bore the stamp of hidden terror. There was a monk on Corinne's doorstep when she arrived, who asked permission to bless her house to save it from contagion. Corinne agreed, and the priest went through all the rooms, sprinkling holy water, and offering prayers in Latin. Nelvil smiled slightly at the ceremony, but Corinne was moved, saying: "For me, there is an indefinable charm in all things religious, I would even say superstitious— when there is nothing hostile or intolerant in the superstition: divine help is so necessary when thoughts and feelings depart from the ordinary sphere of life! As I see it, distinguished minds need supernatural protection more than any others." "No doubt the need is real," Nelvil replied, "but is that the way to satisfy it?" "I never refuse a prayer that joins with my own, wherever it comes from." "You are right," Nelvil agreed. And he gave his purse as an offering for the poor to the timid old priest who went off blessing them both. As soon as Corinne's friends heard she had arrived, they hastened to visit. No one was surprised that she had not returned as Lord Nelvil's wife, at least no one asked what might have prevented the marriage: the pleasure of being together again erased every other idea. Corinne did her best to seem unchanged, but she could not carry it off. She went to gaze at the masterpieces that once brought her such

281

Book XV keen pleasure, and there was grief at the core of everything she felt. First she strolled around the Villa Borghese, then near the tomb of Cecilia Metella, and the sight of places so loved in former days brought her pain. She no longer had a taste for the sweet reverie that lends all pleasures a still more touching character by leading us to sense their precariousness. One fixed painful thought filled her mind; nature, speaking only in vague terms, is of no help when w e are ruled by justified misgivings. There was now a wholly painful constraint in the relations between Corinne and Oswald: it was not yet unhappiness, which sometimes relieves the heart's burden through the deep emotions it provokes, bringing forth a flash of lightning through the storm that may lay everything bare. It was mutual discomfort, it was vain efforts to evade the circumstances crushing both of them and prompting a certain dissatisfaction with each other: for is it possible to suffer without casting blame on the one w e love? Would it not take but a glance, a tone of voice to erase everything! But that glance, that tone of voice does not come when expected, does not come when needed. In love, nothing has any motivation, it seems that a divine power thinks and feels inside us without our being able to exercise any control. A contagious malady suddenly spread through Rome, its like had not been seen for a long time.2 A young woman was stricken, and the friends and family who refused to leave died along with her; the neighboring house suffered the same fate. Every hour there passed through the streets of Rome the veiled, white-clad brotherhood that escorts the dead to church: it is as if ghosts bear the dead, who lie on a kind of litter, their faces uncovered, wtih only a pink or yellow satin cloth thrown over their feet; and children often amuse themselves playing with the icy hands of the person who is no longer alive. The spectacle, at once terrifying and ordinary, proceeds to the somber, monotonous murmur of a few psalms: an unmodulated music in which already the accent of the human soul is no longer felt. One evening, when Nelvil was alone with Corinne, deeply pained by the grieved constraint he sensed in her, he heard under her windows the slow, long sounds that announce a funeral. For some time he listened in silence, then he said: "Perhaps tomorroyy I, too, will be stricken with this illness that allows no defense, and you will be sorry you did not say a few sensitive words to your friend on a day that

282

Farewell to Rome and Journey to Venice might be the last of his life. Corinne, death threatens both of us closely; is not nature's mischief enough? Must we also tear at each other's hearts?" Corinne was immediately struck by the danger Oswald ran in the middle of the contagion, and she pleaded with him to leave Rome. When he categorically refused, she proposed that they go to Venice together. He agreed happily, since it was for Corinne that he trembled as he watched the sickness gather new strength daily. Their departure was set for two days later, but when that morning came, Nelvil received a letter from Corinne. Detained by an English friend who was leaving Rome, he had not seen her the night before. She wrote that a sudden and urgent matter obliged her to leave for Florence, and that she would join him two weeks later in Venice. She begged him to go by way of Ancona to take care of something that sounded important. Her style, moreover, was sensitive and calm: since Naples, Nelvil had not found her language so serenely tender. Thus he believed what the letter said, and was preparing to set out when he was moved to see Corinne's house once more before he left Rome. He goes there and, finding it closed up, knocks on the door. The old woman left in charge refuses to say one word more in answer to his questions after telling him that all her mistress's servants left with