Rienzi

E >> Edward Bulwer Lytton >> Rienzi


"Come in, man--come in! Why stand you there amazed and dumb? We are
hospitable revellers, and give all men welcome. Here are wine and women.
My Lord Bishop's wine and my Lady Abbess's women!

"Sing hey, sing ho, for the royal DEATH, That scatters a host with
a single breath; That opens the prison to spoil the palace, And rids
honest necks from the hangman's malice. Here's a health to the Plague!
Let the mighty ones dread, The poor never lived till the wealthy were
dead. A health to the Plague! May She ever as now Loose the rogue
from his chain and the nun from her vow: To the gaoler a sword, to the
captive a key, Hurrah for Earth's Curse--'tis a Blessing to me!"

Ere this fearful stave was concluded, Adrian, sensible that in such
orgies there was no chance of prosecuting his inquiries, left the
desecrated chamber and fled, scarcely drawing breath, so great was the
terror that seized him, till he stood once more in the court amidst the
hot, sickly, stagnant sunlight, that seemed a fit atmosphere for the
scenes on which it fell. He resolved, however, not to desert the place
without making another effort at inquiry; and while he stood without the
court, musing and doubtful, he saw a small chapel hard by, through whose
long casement gleamed faintly, and dimmed by the noon-day, the light
of tapers. He turned towards its porch, entered, and saw beside the
sanctuary a single nun kneeling in prayer. In the narrow aisle, upon a
long table, (at either end of which burned the tall dismal tapers whose
rays had attracted him,) the drapery of several shrouds showed him the
half-distinct outline of human figures hushed in death. Adrian himself,
impressed by the sadness and sanctity of the place, and the touching
sight of that solitary and unselfish watcher of the dead, knelt down and
intensely prayed.

As he rose, somewhat relieved from the burthen at his heart, the nun
rose also, and started to perceive him.

"Unhappy man!" said she, in a voice which, low, faint, and solemn,
sounded as a ghost's--"what fatality brings thee hither? Seest thou not
thou art in the presence of clay which the Plague hath touched--thou
breathest the air which destroys! Hence! and search throughout all the
desolation for one spot where the Dark Visitor hath not come!"

"Holy maiden," answered Adrian, "the danger you hazard does not appal
me;--I seek one whose life is dearer than my own."

"Thou needest say no more to tell me thou art newly come to Florence!
Here son forsakes his father, and mother deserts her child. When life
is most hopeless, these worms of a day cling to it as if it were the
salvation of immortality! But for me alone, death has no horror. Long
severed from the world, I have seen my sisterhood perish--the house of
God desecrated--its altar overthrown, and I care not to survive,--the
last whom the Pestilence leaves at once unperjured and alive."

The nun paused a few moments, and then, looking earnestly at
the healthful countenance and unbroken frame of Adrian, sighed
heavily--"Stranger, why fly you not?" she said. "Thou mightst as well
search the crowded vaults and rotten corruption of the dead, as search
the city for one living."

"Sister, and bride of the blessed Redeemer!" returned the Roman,
clasping his hands--"one word I implore thee. Thou art, methinks, of the
sisterhood of yon dismantled convent; tell me, knowest thou if Irene
di Gabrini, (The family name of Rienzi was Gabrini.)--guest of the
late Abbess, sister of the fallen Tribune of Rome,--be yet amongst the
living?"

"Art thou her brother, then?" said the nun. "Art thou that fallen Sun of
the Morning?"

"I am her betrothed," replied Adrian, sadly. "Speak."

"Oh, flesh! flesh! how art thou victor to the last, even amidst the
triumphs and in the lazar-house of corruption!" said the nun. "Vain man!
Think not of such carnal ties; make thy peace with heaven, for thy days
are surely numbered!"

"Woman!" cried Adrian, impatiently--"talk not to me of myself, nor rail
against ties whose holiness thou canst not know. I ask thee again, as
thou thyself hopest for mercy and for pardon, is Irene living?"

The nun was awed by the energy of the young lover, and after a moment,
which seemed to him an age of agonized suspense, she replied--

"The maiden thou speakest of died not with the general death. In the
dispersion of the few remaining, she left the convent--I know not
whither; but she had friends in Florence--their names I cannot tell
thee."

"Now bless thee, holy sister! bless thee! How long since she left the
convent?"

"Four days have passed since the robber and the harlot have seized the
house of Santa Maria," replied the nun, groaning: "and they were quick
successors to the sisterhood."

"Four days!--and thou canst give me no clue?"

"None--yet stay, young man!"--and the nun, approaching, lowered her
voice to a hissing whisper--"Ask the Becchini." (According to the usual
custom of Florence, the dead were borne to their resting-place on biers,
supported by citizens of equal rank; but a new trade was created by the
plague, and men of the lowest dregs of the populace, bribed by immense
payment, discharged the office of transporting the remains of the
victims. These were called Becchini.)

Adrian started aside, crossed himself hastily, and quitted the convent
without answer. He returned to his horse, and rode back into the
silenced heart of the city. Tavern and hotel there were no more; but
the palaces of dead princes were free to the living stranger. He entered
one--a spacious and splendid mansion. In the stables he found forage
still in the manger; but the horses, at that time in the Italian cities
a proof of rank as well as wealth, were gone with the hands that fed
them. The highborn Knight assumed the office of groom, took off the
heavy harness, fastened his steed to the rack, and as the wearied
animal, unconscious of the surrounding horrors, fell eagerly upon its
meal, its young lord turned away, and muttered, "Faithful servant, and
sole companion! may the pestilence that spareth neither beast nor man,
spare thee! and mayst thou bear me hence with a lighter heart!"

A spacious hall, hung with arms and banners--a wide flight of marble
stairs, whose walls were painted in the stiff outlines and gorgeous
colours of the day, conducted to vast chambers, hung with velvets
and cloth of gold, but silent as the tomb. He threw himself upon the
cushions which were piled in the centre of the room, for he had ridden
far that morning, and for many days before, and he was wearied and
exhausted, body and limb; but he could not rest. Impatience, anxiety,
hope, and fear, gnawed his heart and fevered his veins, and, after a
brief and unsatisfactory attempt to sober his own thoughts, and devise
some plan of search more certain than that which chance might afford
him, he rose, and traversed the apartments, in the unacknowledged hope
which chance alone could suggest.

It was easy to see that he had made his resting-place in the home of
one of the princes of the land; and the splendour of all around him far
outshone the barbarous and rude magnificence of the less civilized
and wealthy Romans. Here, lay the lute as last touched--the gilded and
illumined volume as last conned; there, were seats drawn familiarly
together, as when lady and gallant had interchanged whispers last.

"And such," thought Adrian,--"such desolation may soon swallow up the
vestige of the unwelcomed guest, as of the vanished lord!"

At length he entered a saloon, in which was a table still spread with
wine-flasks, goblets of glass, and one of silver, withered flowers,
half-mouldy fruits, and viands. At one side the arras, folding-doors
opened to a broad flight of stairs, that descended to a little garden
at the back of the house, in which a fountain still played sparkling and
livingly--the only thing, save the stranger, living there! On the steps
lay a crimson mantle, and by it a lady's glove. The relics seemed to
speak to the lover's heart of a lover's last wooing and last farewell.
He groaned aloud, and feeling he should have need of all his strength,
filled one of the goblets from a half-emptied flask of Cyprus wine. He
drained the draught--it revived him. "Now," he said, "once more to my
task!--I will sally forth," when suddenly he heard heavy steps along the
rooms he had quitted--they approached--they entered; and Adrian beheld
two huge and ill-omened forms stalk into the chamber. They were wrapped
in black homely draperies, their arms were bare, and they wore large
shapeless masks, which descended to the breast, leaving only access to
sight and breath in three small and circular apertures. The Colonna half
drew his sword, for the forms and aspects of these visitors were not
such as men think to look upon in safety.

"Oh!" said one, "the palace has a new guest today. Fear us not,
stranger; there is room,--ay, and wealth enough for all men now in
Florence! Per Bacco! but there is still one goblet of silver left--how
comes that?" So saying, the man seized the cup which Adrian had just
drained, and thrust it into his breast. He then turned to Adrian, whose
hand was still upon his hilt, and said, with a laugh which came choked
and muffled through his vizard--"Oh, we cut no throats, Signor; the
Invisible spares us that trouble. We are honest men, state officers, and
come but to see if the cart should halt here tonight."

"Ye are then--"

"Becchini!"

Adrian's blood ran cold. The Becchino continued--"And keep you this
house while you rest at Florence, Signor?"

"Yes, if the rightful lord claim it not."

"Ha! ha! 'Rightful lord!' The plague is Lord of all now! Why, I have
known three gallant companies tenant this palace the last week, and
have buried them all--all! It is a pleasant house enough, and gives good
custom. Are you alone?"

"At present, yes."

"Shew us where you sleep, that we may know where to come for you. You
won't want us these three days, I see."

"Ye are pleasant welcomers!" said Adrian;--"but listen to me. Can ye
find the living as well as bury the dead? I seek one in this city who,
if you discover her, shall be worth to you a year of burials!"

"No, no! that is out of our line. As well look for a dropped sand on the
beach, as for a living being amongst closed houses and yawning vaults;
but if you will pay the poor gravediggers beforehand, I promise you, you
shall have the first of a new charnel-house;--it will be finished just
about your time."

"There!" said Adrian, flinging the wretches a few pieces of
gold--"there! and if you would do me a kinder service, leave me, at
least while living; or I may save you that trouble." And he turned from
the room.

The Becchino who had been spokesman followed him. "You are generous,
Signor, stay; you will want fresher food than these filthy fragments.
I will supply thee of the best, while--while thou wantest it. And
hark,--whom wishest thou that I should seek?"

This question arrested Adrian's departure. He detailed the name, and
all the particulars he could suggest of Irene; and, with sickened heart,
described the hair, features, and stature of that lovely and hallowed
image, which might furnish a theme to the poet, and now gave a clue to
the gravedigger.

The unhallowed apparition shook his head when Adrian had concluded.
"Full five hundred such descriptions did I hear in the first days of the
Plague, when there were still such things as mistress and lover; but
it is a dainty catalogue, Signor, and it will be a pride to the poor
Becchino to discover or even to bury so many charms! I will do my best;
meanwhile, I can recommend you, if in a hurry, to make the best use of
your time, to many a pretty face and comely shape--"

"Out, fiend!" muttered Adrian: "fool to waste time with such as thou!"

The laugh of the gravedigger followed his steps.

All that day did Adrian wander through the city, but search and question
were alike unavailing; all whom he encountered and interrogated seemed
to regard him as a madman, and these were indeed of no kind likely
to advance his object. Wild troops of disordered, drunken revellers,
processions of monks, or here and there, scattered individuals gliding
rapidly along, and shunning all approach or speech, made the only
haunters of the dismal streets, till the sun sunk, lurid and yellow,
behind the hills, and Darkness closed around the noiseless pathway of
the Pestilence.



Chapter 6.III. The Flowers Amidst the Tombs.

Adrian found that the Becchino had taken care that famine should not
forestall the plague; the banquet of the dead was removed, and
fresh viands and wines of all kinds,--for there was plenty then in
Florence!--spread the table. He partook of the refreshment, though but
sparingly, and shrinking from repose in beds beneath whose gorgeous
hangings Death had been so lately busy, carefully closed door and
window, wrapped himself in his mantle, and found his resting-place on
the cushions of the chamber in which he had supped. Fatigue cast him
into an unquiet slumber, from which he was suddenly awakened by the
roll of a cart below, and the jingle of bells. He listened, as the cart
proceeded slowly from door to door, and at length its sound died away in
the distance.--He slept no more that night!

The sun had not long risen ere he renewed his labours; and it was yet
early when, just as he passed a church, two ladies richly dressed came
from the porch, and seemed through their vizards to regard the young
Cavalier with earnest attention. The gaze arrested him also, when one of
the ladies said, "Fair sir, you are overbold: you wear no mask; neither
do you smell to flowers."

"Lady, I wear no mask, for I would be seen: I search these miserable
places for one in whose life I live."

"He is young, comely, evidently noble, and the plague hath not touched
him: he will serve our purpose well," whispered one of the ladies to the
other.

"You echo my own thoughts," returned her companion; and then turning to
Adrian, she said, "You seek one you are not wedded to, if you seek so
fondly?"

"It is true."

"Young and fair, with dark hair and neck of snow; I will conduct you to
her."

"Signor!"

"Follow us!"

"Know you who I am, and whom I seek?"

"Yes."

"Can you in truth tell me aught of Irene?"

"I can: follow me."

"To her?"

"Yes, yes: follow us!"

The ladies moved on as if impatient of further parley. Amazed, doubtful,
and, as if in a dream, Adrian followed them. Their dress, manner, and
the pure Tuscan of the one who had addressed him, indicated them of
birth and station; but all else was a riddle which he could not solve.

They arrived at one of the bridges, where a litter and a servant on
horseback holding a palfrey by the bridle were in attendance. The ladies
entered the litter, and she who had before spoken bade Adrian follow on
the palfrey.

"But tell me--" he began.

"No questions, Cavalier," said she, impatiently; "follow the living in
silence, or remain with the dead, as you list."

With that the litter proceeded, and Adrian mounted the palfrey
wonderingly, and followed his strange conductors, who moved on at a
tolerably brisk pace. They crossed the bridge, left the river on one
side, and, soon ascending a gentle acclivity, the trees and flowers
of the country began to succeed dull walls and empty streets. After
proceeding thus somewhat less than half an hour, they turned up a green
lane remote from the road, and came suddenly upon the porticoes of a
fair and stately palace. Here the ladies descended from their litter;
and Adrian, who had vainly sought to extract speech from the attendant,
also dismounted, and following them across a spacious court, filled on
either side with vases of flowers and orange-trees, and then through a
wide hall in the farther side of the quadrangle, found himself in one of
the loveliest spots eye ever saw or poet ever sung. It was a garden plot
of the most emerald verdure, bosquets of laurel and of myrtle opened on
either side into vistas half overhung with clematis and rose, through
whose arcades the prospect closed with statues and gushing fountains; in
front, the lawn was bounded by rows of vases on marble pedestals filled
with flowers, and broad and gradual flights of steps of the whitest
marble led from terrace to terrace, each adorned with statues and
fountains, half way down a high but softly sloping and verdant hill.
Beyond, spread in wide, various, and luxurious landscape, the vineyards
and olive-groves, the villas and villages, of the Vale of Arno,
intersected by the silver river, while the city, in all its calm, but
without its horror, raised its roofs and spires to the sun. Birds of
every hue and song, some free, some in net-work of golden wire, warbled
round; and upon the centre of the sward reclined four ladies unmasked
and richly dressed, the eldest of whom seemed scarcely more than twenty;
and five cavaliers, young and handsome, whose jewelled vests and golden
chains attested their degree. Wines and fruits were on a low table
beside; and musical instruments, chess-boards, and gammon-tables, lay
scattered all about. So fair a group, and so graceful a scene, Adrian
never beheld but once, and that was in the midst of the ghastly
pestilence of Italy!--such group and such scene our closet indolence may
yet revive in the pages of the bright Boccaccio!

On seeing Adrian and his companions approach, the party rose instantly;
and one of the ladies, who wore upon her head a wreath of laurel-leaves,
stepping before the rest, exclaimed, "well done, my Mariana! welcome
back, my fair subjects. And you, sir, welcome hither."

The two guides of the Colonna had by this time removed their masks; and
the one who had accosted him, shaking her long and raven ringlets over a
bright, laughing eye and a cheek to whose native olive now rose a slight
blush, turned to him ere he could reply to the welcome he had received.

"Signor Cavalier," said she, "you now see to what I have decoyed you.
Own that this is pleasanter than the sights and sounds of the city we
have left. You gaze on me in surprise. See, my Queen, how speechless
the marvel of your court has made our new gallant; I assure you he
could talk quickly enough when he had only us to confer with: nay, I was
forced to impose silence on him."

"Oh! then you have not yet informed him of the custom and origin of the
court he enters!" quoth she of the laurel wreath.

"No, my Queen; I thought all description given in such a spot as our
poor Florence now is would fail of its object. My task is done, I resign
him to your Grace!"

So saying the lady tripped lightly away, and began coquettishly sleeking
her locks in the smooth mirror of a marble basin, whose waters trickled
over the margin upon the grass below, ever and anon glancing archly
towards the stranger, and sufficiently at hand to overhear all that was
said.

"In the first place, Signor, permit us to inquire," said the lady who
bore the appellation of Queen, "thy name, rank, and birth-place."

"Madam," returned Adrian, "I came hither little dreaming to answer
questions respecting myself; but what it pleases you to ask, it must
please me to reply to. My name is Adrian di Castello, one of the Roman
house of the Colonna."

"A noble column of a noble house!" answered the Queen. "For us,
respecting whom your curiosity may perhaps be aroused, know that we six
ladies of Florence, deserted by or deprived of our kin and protectors,
formed the resolution to retire to this palace, where, if death comes,
it comes stripped of half its horrors; and as the learned tell us that
sadness engenders the awful malady, so you see us sworn foes to sadness.
Six cavaliers of our acquaintance agreed to join us. We pass our days,
whether many or few, in whatever diversions we can find or invent. Music
and the dance, merry tales and lively songs, with such slight change of
scene as from sward to shade, from alley to fountain, fill up our time,
and prepare us for peaceful sleep and happy dreams. Each lady is by
turns Queen of our fairy court, as is my lot this day. One law forms the
code of our constitution--that nothing sad shall be admitted. We would
live as if yonder city were not, and as if (added the fair Queen, with a
slight sigh) youth, grace, and beauty, could endure for ever. One of our
knights madly left us for a day, promising to return; we have seen him
no more; we will not guess what hath chanced to him. It became necessary
to fill up his place; we drew lots who should seek his substitute;
it fell upon the ladies who have--not, I trust, to your
displeasure--brought you hither. Fair sir, my explanation is made."

"Alas, lovely Queen," said Adrian, wrestling strongly, but vainly,
with the bitter disappointment he felt--"I cannot be one of your happy
circle; I am in myself a violation of your law. I am filled with but one
sad and anxious thought, to which all mirth would seem impiety. I am a
seeker amongst the living and the dead for one being of whose fate I
am uncertain; and it was only by the words that fell from my fair
conductor, that I have been decoyed hither from my mournful task. Suffer
me, gracious lady, to return to Florence."

The Queen looked in mute vexation towards the dark-eyed Mariana,
who returned the glance by one equally expressive, and then suddenly
stepping up to Adrian she said,--

"But, Signor, if I should still keep my promise, if I should be able to
satisfy thee of the health and safety of--of Irene."

"Irene!" echoed Adrian in surprise, forgetful at the moment that he had
before revealed the name of her he sought--"Irene--Irene di Gabrini,
sister of the once renowned Rienzi!"

"The same," replied Mariana, quickly; "I know her, as I told you. Nay,
Signor, I do not deceive thee. It is true that I cannot bring thee to
her; but better as it is,--she went away many days ago to one of the
towns of Lombardy, which, they say, the Pestilence has not yet pierced.
Now, noble sir, is not your heart lightened? and will you so soon be a
deserter from the Court of Loveliness; and perhaps," she added, with a
soft look from her large dark eyes, "of Love?"

"Dare I, in truth, believe you, Lady?" said Adrian, all delighted, yet
still half doubting.

"Would I deceive a true lover, as methinks you are? Be assured. Nay,
Queen, receive your subject."

The Queen extended her hand to Adrian, and led him to the group that
still stood on the grass at a little distance. They welcomed him as a
brother, and soon forgave his abstracted courtesies, in compliment to
his good mien and illustrious name.

The Queen clapped her hands, and the party again ranged themselves
on the sward. Each lady beside each gallant. "You, Mariana, if not
fatigued," said the Queen, "shall take the lute and silence these noisy
grasshoppers, which chirp about us with as much pretension as if they
were nightingales. Sing, sweet subject, sing; and let it be the song our
dear friend, Signor Visdomini, (I know not if this be the same Visdomini
who, three years afterwards, with one of the Medici, conducted so
gallant a reinforcement to Scarperia, then besieged by Visconti
d'Oleggio.) made for a kind of inaugural anthem to such as we admitted
to our court."

Mariana, who had reclined herself by the side of Adrian, took up the
lute, and, after a short prelude, sung the words thus imperfectly
translated:--

The Song of the Florentine Lady.

Enjoy the more the smiles of noon If doubtful be the morrow; And know
the Fort of Life is soon Betray'd to Death by Sorrow!

Death claims us all--then, Grief, away! We'll own no meaner master; The
clouds that darken round the day But bring the night the faster.

Love--feast--be merry while on earth, Such, Grave, should be thy moral!
Ev'n Death himself is friends with Mirth, And veils the tomb with
laurel. (At that time, in Italy, the laurel was frequently planted over
the dead.)

While gazing on the eyes I love, New life to mine is given--If joy the
lot of saints above, Joy fits us best for Heaven.

To this song, which was much applauded, succeeded those light and witty
tales in which the Italian novelists furnished Voltaire and Marmontel
with a model--each, in his or her turn, taking up the discourse, and
with an equal dexterity avoiding every lugubrious image or mournful
reflection that might remind those graceful idlers of the vicinity of
Death. At any other time the temper and accomplishments of the young
Lord di Castello would have fitted him to enjoy and to shine in that
Arcadian court. But now he in vain sought to dispel the gloom from
his brow, and the anxious thought from his heart. He revolved the
intelligence he had received, wondered, guessed, hoped, and dreaded
still; and if for a moment his mind returned to the scene about him, his
nature, too truly poetical for the false sentiment of the place,
asked itself in what, save the polished exterior and the graceful
circumstance, the mirth that he now so reluctantly witnessed differed
from the brutal revels in the convent of Santa Maria--each alike in its
motive, though so differing in the manner--equally callous and equally
selfish, coining horror into enjoyment. The fair Mariana, whose partner
had been reft from her, as the Queen had related, was in no mind to lose
the new one she had gained. She pressed upon him from time to time the
wine-flask and the fruits; and in those unmeaning courtesies her
hand gently lingered upon his. At length, the hour arrived when the
companions retired to the Palace, during the fiercer heats of noon--to
come forth again in the declining sun, to sup by the side of the
fountain, to dance, to sing, and to make merry by torchlight and the
stars till the hour of rest. But Adrian, not willing to continue the
entertainment, no sooner found himself in the apartment to which he
was conducted, than he resolved to effect a silent escape, as under
all circumstances the shortest, and not perhaps the least courteous,
farewell left to him. Accordingly, when all seemed quiet and hushed in
the repose common to the inhabitants of the South during that hour, he
left his apartment, descended the stairs, passed the outer court, and
was already at the gate, when he heard himself called by a voice that
spoke vexation and alarm. He turned to behold Mariana.