Francesca Carrara/Chapter 37
CHAPTER X.
"Alas! we make
A ladder of our thoughts where angels step,
But sleep ourselves at the foot!"
L. E. L.
"And so you visited the old palazzo," said Francesca, as, leaving for a while the sick man to the sole care of Katerina, they sat down beside the hearth in the adjoining room, over which the embers of the wood-fire cast a fluctuating light; now the long shadows falling duskily around—now dispersing them with bursts of brilliant flame, as the lighter wood kindled into a short-lived blaze.
"So changed, so dreary!" replied Guido. "Do you remember our favourite windows?—yours the thick myrtle has completely filled—part of its branches creep mournfully along the discoloured wall. Mine has been broken in and shattered; and the floor is covered with earth driven in by the pelting rains, and with fragments of marble, strewed with dried leaves. The floor has its mosaic overgrown with moss and weeds; and—but I cannot tell you—the lonely wailing of the wind through the deserted chambers—I have started as from a human voice in its last extremity of anguish; and even now, I ask, is there no omen and no sympathy in sounds so like our own moan of pain—our own cry of despair? Who may say that the invisible is also the inaudible—or if the dead and the spirit world wait not in upper air?"
"I fear," returned his sister, wishing to break in upon the thread of his gloomy imaginings, "that we should find our old dwelling uninhabitable."
"And even were it not so, there, at least, I could never dwell again," interrupted Guido. "As I sat beside our favourite springs and wandered through our old accustomed walks, I was haunted with the perpetual presence of change—and the worst of all change, that in myself. I sat beside the fountain, over which the old chestnut flung its shade, itself golden with the sun; the blue violets looked out from their large leaves, and twined round the shattered marble of the wall, yet so graceful with the carved nymphs and gods from whom I had years ago cleared the moss;—there I sat, even as I had done but the very summer before—all, to the one sunbeam touching the brink, but not the dark waters below—the hour, the place, the same—all but myself. Then I leant, dreaming of the future—now, I thought only of the present. Then I gazed on the Grecian relics at my feet, and said, even such forms are sleeping in my mind—such are the lovely creations destined to be the work of my hand. I looked forward to praise and achievement; now I feel listless and dispirited—nothing seems worth its toil."
"And I," exclaimed his sister, "shame to see you give way to this unseemly despondency!"
"Ah! it is not I that give way—my imagination is beyond me; I can control its depression as little as I could create its buoyancy. Is it my fault that the beautiful no longer haunts my solitude? And you, my sister—you, who lesson me on endurance, your cheek is pale, and your step languid; even with you, how much has life lost its interest!"
"Why, Guido, should we conceal that each has suffered from bitter disappointment? We have early learnt the cold and harsh truth, that it is hard to brook the passing away of love—passing away, too, as ours has done, because it has been unworthily bestowed? Yet, surely not for that are we to fancy that existence has been given in vain. I should despise myself, could I believe that my whole future was to be coloured by the vain remembrance of one so mean, so false, as Robert Evelyn."
"Alas! my sweet sister, Robert Evelyn and Marie Mancini are but instruments in the hands of a remorseless destiny. The pain which they inflicted sinks into nothing before the knowledge which they brought. It is their work, that we are grown less kind, less trusting—that we look suspiciously on affection, knowing that it has once deceived us. It is their work, that we seek to repress the warm emotions of the beating heart, lest the encouragement lead to future agony. It is their work, that falsehood, ingratitude, and wrong, are things within our own experience; once we believed in their existence, but not as existing for us."
"But, dearest Guido, what injustice to allow these two to individualise the whole human race!"
"They are the symbols of the whole. The reflections which they first suggested have led to the inevitable conclusion, that evil is inherent in our nature. I no longer believe in happiness, because I see the fallacy of my first belief; and the examination which that induced, has shewn me the fallacy of all. Shew me a heart without its hidden wound."
Francesca did not interrupt the mournful silence that ensued—all that was sorrowful in memory rose to the surface. The image of Evelyn brought before her the little reliance that could be placed in love. The faithlessness of early friendship, how was it shown in the careless neglect of the Comtesse de Soissons!—and the mockery of worldly prosperity rose like a phantom from the yet-scarce-cold grave of Madame de Mercœur.
"Is it my fault," continued Guido, "that I can no longer deceive myself? I hold nothing in life worth desiring, because I feel that nothing in life can give happiness. Wealth brings indolence and satiety—power its own terrible responsibility, but never the enjoyment we expected; the struggle was feverish, but thereunto the possession answers not. And love!—what is it but the most subtle mockery!—with the light and vain, perishing of its own inconstancy; or, with the fond and true, betrayed by the deceit which has the gloom, but not the rest of death. As to what is called a life of pleasure and amusement, its own inanity is its own rebuke. I loathe its vapid weariness—its yawns are sweeter than its smiles. Once I had higher dreams and nobler aspirations. I looked forward to the creation of grace and beauty, and believed in the immortality I was myself to create. Alas! I feel unequal to the struggle. Happy are those who to the hope add the power! I am but one of the many who see the distant goal, but who sink at the commencement of the race."
"The gloom of those failing embers," exclaimed Francesca, "Has infected us both!" and, rising from the low settle, she lighted the lamp, and flung some smaller wood on the hearth, and a cheerful blaze kindled at once.
"How can we," said she, drawing her seat close to Guido, and laying her hand tenderly on his arm, "disbelieve in affection while we remain to each other? Once let us leave this dreary city behind, and find a home in some lonely and pleasant place, and we shall have our old content come back. I shall have enough to do in keeping—even our little household in order; and you—why, the first graceful peasant that passes, half hidden in the foliage, will conjure up in your mind a world of dryades and light-footed nymphs. Ah! of late we have been too idle."