II
The glad soul laughs, because its loves have fled, Because the conquered evil bites the dust Which into intertangled fires had thrust, As into fiery thickets, feet now led
Into the circle human sorrows tread; It leaves the treacherous labyrinths of l.u.s.t, Where the fair pagan monsters lure the just, In hyacinth robes, a novice, garmented.
Now may no Sphinx with golden nails ensnare, No Gorgon freeze it out of snaky folds, No Siren lull it on a sleepy coast;
But, at the circle"s summit, see, a fair White woman, in the act of worship, holds In her pure hands the sacrificial Host.
III
Beyond all harm, all ambush, and all hate, Tranquil of face, and strong at heart, she stands, And knows till death, and scorns, and understands All evil things that on her pa.s.sage wait.
_Thou hast in ward and keeping every gate, The winds breathe sweetness at thy sweet commands, Might"st thou but take, when with these restless hands I lay at thine untroubled feet my fate!_
_Even now there shines before me in thy meek And holy hands the Host, like to a sun.
Have I attained, have I then paid the price?_
She, that is favourable to all that seek, Lifting the Host, declares: _Now is begun And ended the eternal sacrifice!_
IV
_For I_, she saith, _am the unnatural Rose, I am the Rose of Beauty. I instil The drunkenness of ecstasy, I fill The spirit with my rapture and repose_.
_Sowing with tears, sorrowful still are those That with much singing gather harvest still.
After long sorrow, this my sweetness will Be sweeter than all sweets thy spirit knows._
So be it, Madonna; and from my heart outburst The blood of tears, flooding all mortal things, And the immortal sorrow be yet whole;
Let the depths swallow me, let there as at first Be darkness, so I see the glimmerings Of light that rain on my unconquered soul!
Die XII. Septembris MDCCCLx.x.xVI."
CHAPTER II
Schifanoja was situated on the heights at that point where the chain of hills, after following the curving coast line, took a landward bend and sloped away towards the plain. Notwithstanding that it had been built in the latter half of the eighteenth century--by the Cardinal Alfonso Carafa d"Ateleta--the villa showed a certain purity of architectural design. It was a square building of two stories, with arched colonnades alternating with the apartments, which imparted to the whole edifice a look of lightness and grace. It was a real summer palace, open on all sides to the breath of the sea. At the side towards the sloping gardens, a wide hall opened on to a n.o.ble double flight of steps leading to a platform like a vast terrace, surrounded by a stone bal.u.s.trade and adorned by two fountains. At either end of this terrace, other flights of steps interrupted by more terraces led by easy stages almost to the sea, affording a full view from the level ground of their seven-fold windings through superb verdure and ma.s.ses of roses. The special glories of Schifanoja were its cypresses and its roses. Roses were there of every kind and for every season, enough "_pour en tirer neuf ou dix muytz d"eaue rose_" as the poet of the _Vergier d"honneur_ would have said. The cypresses, sharp-pointed and sombre, more hieratic than the Pyramids, more enigmatic than the obelisks, were in no respect inferior either to those of the Villa d"Este, or the Villa Mondragone or any of the giants growing round the glorious Roman villas.
The Marchesa d"Ateleta was in the habit of spending the summer and part of the autumn at Schifanoja; for, though a thorough woman of the world, she was fond of the country and its freedom, and liked to keep open house there for her friends. She had lavished every care and attention upon Andrea during his illness; had been to him like an elder sister, almost a mother, and untiring in her devotion. She cherished a profound affection for her cousin, was ever ready to excuse or pardon, was a good and frank friend to him, capable of understanding many things, always at his beck and call, always cheerful, always bright and witty. Although she had overstepped the thirties by a year, she had lost nothing of her youth, vivacity and great personal charm, for she possessed the secret of Madame de Pompadour"s fascination, that "_beaute sans traits_" which lights up with unexpected graces. Moreover, she possessed that rare gift commonly called tact. A fine feminine sense of the fitness of things was an infallible guide to her. In her relations with a host of acquaintances of either s.e.x she always succeeded in steering her course discreetly; she never committed an error of taste, never weighed heavily on the lives of others, never arrived at an inopportune moment nor became importunate, no deed or word of hers but was entirely to the point. Her treatment of Andrea during the somewhat trying period of his convalescence was beyond all praise. She did her utmost to avoid disturbing or annoying him, and, what is more, managed that no one else should; she left him complete liberty, pretended not to notice his whims and melancholies; never worried him with indiscreet questions; made her company sit as lightly as possible on him at obligatory moments, and even went so far as to refrain from her usual witty remarks in his presence to save him the trouble of forcing a smile.
Andrea recognised her delicacy and was profoundly grateful.
Returning from the garden with unwonted lightness of heart on that September morning after writing his sonnets on the Hermes, he encountered Donna Francesca on the steps, and, kissing her hand, he exclaimed in laughing tones:
"Cousin Francesca, I have found the Truth and the Way!
"Alleluja!" she returned, lifting up her fair rounded arms,--"Alleluja!"
And she continued on her way down to the garden while Andrea went on to his room with heart refreshed.
A little while afterwards there came a gentle knock at the door and Francesca"s voice asking--"May I come in?"
She entered with the lap of her dress and both arms full of great cl.u.s.ters of dewy roses, white, yellow, crimson, russet brown. Some were wide and transparent like those of the Villa Pamfili, all fresh and glistening, others were densely petalled, and with that intensity of colouring which recalls the boasted magnificence of the dyes of Tyre and Sidon; others again were like little heaps of odorous snow, and gave one a strange desire to bite into them and eat them. The infinite gradations of red, from violent crimson to the faded pink of over-ripe strawberries, mingled with the most delicate and almost imperceptible variations of white, from the immaculate purity of freshly fallen snow to the indefinable shades of new milk, the sap of the reed, dull silver, alabaster and opal.
"It is a _festa_ to-day," she said, her laughing face appearing over the flowers that covered her whole bosom up to the throat.
"Thanks! Thanks!" Andrea cried again and again as he helped her to empty the ma.s.s of bloom on to the table, all over the books and papers and portfolios--"_Rosa rosarum!_"
Her hands once free, she proceeded to collect all the vases in the room and fill them with roses, arranging each cl.u.s.ter with rare artistic skill. While she did so, she talked of a thousand things with her usual blithe volubility, almost as if compensating herself for the parsimony of words and laughter she had exercised up till now, out of regard for Andrea"s taciturn melancholy.
Presently she remarked, "On the 15th we expect a beautiful guest, Donna Maria Ferres y Capdevila, the wife of the Plenipotentiary for Guatemala.
Do you know her?"
"I think not,"
"No, I do not suppose you could. She only returned to Italy a few months ago, but she will spend next winter in Rome because her husband has been appointed to that post. She is a very dear friend of mine--we knew each other as children, and were three years together at the Convent of the Annunciation in Florence. She is younger than I am."
"Is she an American?"
"No, an Italian. She is from Sienna. She comes of the Bandinelli family, and was baptized with water from the "Fonte Gaja." For all that, she is rather melancholy by nature, but very sweet. The story of her marriage is not a very cheerful one. Ferres is a most unsympathetic person.
However, they have a little girl--a perfect darling--you will see; a little white face with enormous eyes and ma.s.ses of dark hair. She is very like her mother--Look, Andrea, is not that rose just like velvet?
And this--I could eat it--look--it is like glorified cream. How delicious!"
She went on picking out the different roses and chatting pleasantly. A wave of perfume, intoxicating as century-old wine, streamed from the ma.s.sed flowers; some of the petals dropped and hung in the folds of Francesca"s gown; beneath the window the dark shaft of a cypress pierced the golden sunshine, and through Andrea"s memory ran persistently, like a phrase of music, a line from Petrarch:--
_"Cosi partia le rose e le parole._"
Two days afterwards he repaid his cousin by presenting her with a sonnet curiously fashioned on an antique model and inscribed on vellum with illuminated ornaments in the style of those that enliven the missals of Attavante and of Liberale of Verona.
"Ferrara, for its d"Estes glorious, Where Cossa strove in triumphs to recall Cosimo Tura"s triumphs on the wall, Saw never feast more fair and plenteous.
Monna Francesca plucked and bore to us Such store of roses, and so shed on all, That heaven had lacked for such a coronal The little angels it engarlands thus.
She spoke, and shed the roses in such showers, And such a loveliness was seen in her, _This_ said I, _is some Grace the sun discloses._
I trembled at the sweetness of the flowers.
A verse of Petrarch mounted in the air: _She scatters words and scatters with them roses_.
CHAPTER III