“I have found you again, and I won’t be duped by your fooleries, Marietta.—And who are you, and who begged you to interfere?” added he, turning fiercely upon the traveller, whose strong grasp had torn him from Marietta.
“An officer, as it should seem by your dress;—be pleased to know that I am also an officer, and risk my displeasure no further.”
“No officer would ill-treat a defenceless girl,” the Pole replied with quiet contempt.
At this taunt Giorgio quivered with rage. His features, handsome and regular as those of Italians generally are, became quite distorted. His hands with convulsive movements sought about his breast for the dagger that was concealed there, his dark flashing eyes fixed intently at the same time upon his adversary, as if he hoped the fiendish spirit that burned within them might previously annihilate him.
“Be on your guard—he is a perfect wretch,” cried Marietta, rushing towards her protector.
The arrival of several servants from the inn dispelled all idea of present danger: they dragged off Giorgio, telling him that, although the girl was his sister, he had no right to separate her from the corps d’opera, with whom she was travelling through Gaeta.
“E vero è verissimo,” cried Marietta with joyful triumph.
“What is it to him if I like my liberty, and prefer wandering about, singing here and there.”
“Marietta! beware! dare not to speak ill of me!” screamed the retiring Giorgio, looking back over his shoulder, and accompanying his words with a look of such frightful menace as completely subdued his sister.
She watched in anxious silence till he had disappeared, and then, with affectionate humility and a graceful quickness that allowed not of its prevention, knelt lightly down, and pressed the stranger’s hand to her lips.
“You have more than repaid me for the song I sang to you,” she said, rising and leading the way to the inn; “and, if you like it, I will sing others to you whilst you sup.”
“Are you a Pole?” inquired the traveller.
“A fine demand! how can I be a Pole? Did you not say yourself there was no longer any such country as Poland?”
“I? not that I recollect.”
“If you did not say it, confess at least that you thought it. The Poles are all become Russians, and for nothing in the world, Signor, would I be a Russian. Why in all their language they have no word that expresses honour.7 No! rather than be a Russian, much as I hate it, I would go with Giorgio.”
“Are you an Italian?”
“No—not exactly.”
“What are you, then?”
“Um! I am what I am; who can be more? But, Signor, one thing I must beg of you, do not ask me any questions about myself, nor any about Giorgio. I will sing to you, talk to you, wait upon you—anything of that kind you please, but I will not answer questions on those subjects.”
Seating herself upon a stool, in a dark corner of the traveller’s apartment, as far removed as possible from him, and all other interruptions, Marietta passed the evening in playing on her guitar and singing. She was a most accomplished singer, possessing and managing all the intricacies of the art with perfect ease, but this scarcely excited admiration in comparison with the natural beauty of her voice. There was a profound melancholy in its intense sweetness, that dissolved the soul of the traveller in grief. All that was dear to him in the memory of the past—the joys of home and childhood, the tenderness and truth of his first friendships, the glow of patriotism; every cherished hour, every endeared spot, all that he had loved, and all that he had lost upon earth, seemed again to live and again to fade, as he listened to her strains. Without paying any attention to him, and apparently without any effort to herself, she breathed forth melody after melody for her own pleasure, like some lone nightingale, that, in a home of green leaves, sings to cheer its solitude with sweet sounds. Her countenance and figure would have been beautiful had they been more fully developed. They resembled those sketches of a great artist in which there are only a few lightly-traced lines, but those so full of spirit and meaning, that you easily imagine what a masterpiece it would have been when finished.
The first visit of our traveller, on arriving, next day, at Naples was to the Princess Dashkhoff. She was a Russian lady, whose high birth, immense wealth, and talents for intrigue, had procured for her the intimacy of half the crowned heads of Europe, and had made her all-powerful at the Court of St. Petersburg. Detesting the cold barbarism of her native country, she had established herself at Naples, in a splendid mansion, near the Strada Nuova; and affecting an extravagant admiration for Italy, by her munificent patronage of the arts and artists, and by perpetual exhibitions of her own skill, in drawing and singing, dancing and acting, had obtained the name of the Corinna of the North. Her salon was the evening resort of the wise, the idle, the witty, and the dissipated. Not to know Corinna was to be yourself unknown; and not to frequent her conversazioni was, as far as society was concerned, to be banished from all that was fashionable or delightful in Naples.
It was the hour of evening reception. The Pole burned with impatience to speak to the Princess, for on her influence, at Petersburg, depended the fate of his only brother. A splendid suite of apartments, blazing with lights, crowded with company, lay open before him; without allowing himself to be announced, he entered them. When a highly imaginative mind is absorbed by some master feeling, all opposing contrasts, all glowing extremes, serve but to add depth and intensity to that feeling. The festal scene of marble columns garlanded by roses, the walls of Venetian mirror, reflecting the light of innumerable tapers, and the forms of
