CHAPTER IV
THE HILL OF VENUS
Some by land, and some by sea, the revellers took their morning wayalong the coast towards the ruins of ancient Baiae. Francesco was onhorseback, a friend having furnished him with an excellent mount. Ashe cantered on, the road continually revealed the far-sparkling sea. Aflock of brilliant butterflies dipped and poised on thewaters,--pleasure boats bound for the tryst. Ilaria! Ilaria! She andhe were moving by different ways to the same goal.
Steeds proved swifter than sails that morning; the horsemen arrivedhalf an hour before the boats. The place was a lonely wonder. Thesloping hillsides, broken by the green hollows of an ancientamphitheatre, rose gently from the beach. From the turf, strewn withwild hyacinth, cyclamen, Star of Bethlehem and tiny fleurs-de-lys,great columns, half embedded in the ground, raised ivy-mantled shafts,now broken, now crowned with Corinthian capitals, which peered throughtrailing vines. Choice marbles, their rose or white mellowed to gold,lay scattered here and there, the surfaces, fluted or bevelled, stillgleaming with the polish of by-gone centuries. Below and above theamphitheatre mysterious masonry broke the climbing slope. The ruinsextended to the very verge of the sea.
Francesco ran down the bank as the first boat drew near. Under anawning of silk, shot with green and blue and gold, sat Ilaria, theCountess Violetta and Stefano Maconi. Violetta was rippling withjoyous laughter. Ilaria smiled and the beauty of the day found itsmeaning. She had thrown aside the misty veil, with which she was wontto envelop herself. Her gown, or so Francesco thought, was the samewhich Proserpina had worn, in the "Triumph of Amor." At least, thesame strange broideries shone among its folds.
She stepped lightly ashore. Her fingers rested on Francesco's hand andher eyes accepted his adoring look with a strange inscrutableexpression.
"We have been sailing over marvels," cried Violetta wide-eyed. "Belowthe clear green waves rise palaces! We saw great white columns and apavement of mosaics. Did we not, Madonna Ilaria?"
"Yes," said Ilaria, dreamily. "Had they not quivered in the light, wecould have traced the pattern!"
"The palaces of the sea ladies," Violetta exclaimed gleefully. "Ithought I saw one, but she turned out to be a fish!"
"The home of strange beings, at any rate," mused Ilaria,--"of flowersthat are alive! Did you see that long blue ribbon sway and beckon tous?"
Ilaria's gravity and pallor seemed to have vanished with the mists ofmorning. She was flushed and gay,--almost too gay, Francesco thought.A startled quietude, as of one expectant, was upon her.
"I have bidden you to a land of enchantment," laughed Stefano Maconias they climbed upwards. "We are still within the power of the sea, asyou perceive," he added, when the company paused by the half-buriedcolumns below the amphitheatre.
"It is true," said Francesco, pausing by a half-buried shaft. "Thestone is fretted by the waves. See the clustered barnacles and tinyshells clinging half-way up!"
A party of cavaliers and their ladies met them on this spot.
As they exchanged greetings, all studied the strange sight.
"Probably," reflected a young page of the court, "it was the doing ofMesser Vergilio."
"He had great power hereabout," asserted Andrea Ravignano, "and was amighty clerk of necromancy. Perhaps it was he who built all thesemarvels!"
"It was the old Roman folk that built them, ages ago," said another."A city rose here once, a marvel indeed, as these ruins tell. Fortheir pleasure men built it, and here they lived and throve. And evillivers were they all, and slaves to the foul fiends, their gods!"
"But how did the city sink into the sea?" asked Violetta.
"That was the work of Messer Saint Paul," replied the other. "Helanded here and preached the Cross of our Saviour, and when men wouldnot heed but spat upon the cross and defied it, he laid the land undera curse, and it sank to the depths of the sea!"
"And when the waves had done their work,"--it was Ilaria, speakingdreamily, "they flowed back, and the ruins rested on a gentle hill.But forever and ever do they remember the sea!"
She sighed a little.
"The slope on which we sit is hollow within," ventured the youthfulpage. "Behind us is many a love-grotto, tunnelled deep and far. Thecountry folk, when they run the harrow, find great walls. And so nonedare come here of nights: strange things are seen!"
"Perhaps the waters will rise again some day and swallow Naples andthe court, and we shall turn into sea-folk all," Ilaria said, laughinga little wildly. "Subjects of Lady Venus we should be. She was Queenof the Sea, I've heard!"
"Though Terce is hardly passed, such talk is not wise," said someone.
And two or three crossed themselves.
But as the light words drifted on, dim vistas of thought, at the endof which immemorial things were gleaming, had opened to Francesco.
Violetta had been deftly weaving a green garland of ivy.
"Dream no more, fairest," she turned smiling to Ilaria. "Tell merather what flowers to weave into your chaplet. Of no strange bloomsof the sea shall it be wrought, but, at your will, of roses or thesmall fior-da-lisa!"
"He who, as I, loves best the sea, loves best the rose," repliedIlaria smiling. "While he who climbs the height adores the lily!"
She glanced, as she spoke at Francesco, whose gaze had never for amoment abandoned her. Never had she seemed so fair to him, so utterlyadorable, stirring in his soul the slumbering fires of desire.
Violetta quickly finished her wreath of eglantine, and dropped itlightly on Ilaria's brow.
"Why fear we ghosts in this radiant air?" laughed she.
"Perhaps we are the ghosts,--ghosts of our former selves," suggestedIlaria.
"No phantom heart beats in my bosom," laughed Stefano Maconi.
And a look of meaning, or so Francesco felt, passed between them.
"Fair phantom, let us tread a measure!" pleaded Violetta. "What wasthis green level made for, if not for the beating of gentle feet?"
"And when the measure is over," said Francesco in an undertone, asthey rose, "perhaps Madonna Ilaria will graciously vouchsafe me a fewmoments?"
She nodded assent; but he could see her eyelids quiver, and her breathcame fast. The measure finished, Stefano Maconi at once proposed a newdiversion, from which neither could escape, and time wore on, whilethe light grew more intense and the sky burned a deeper blue. Ill atease, Francesco withdrew from the pastimes at last and climbed thehill behind the amphitheatre. He was displeased and nervous. Ilaria,he was sure, shrank from Stefano Maconi; yet was there not some secretbond between them?
Would Ilaria come to him? He trembled, as in Avellino of old, and hisheart beat faster at the thought.
The hill was richly draped in ferns and swaying vines. Idly he pushedaside a mass of ivy: a passage opened behind, deep-vaulted, paved withbroken fragments of mosaic. Stalactites dripped from the roof, throughthe verdure of thick maiden-hair fern. The gloom looked grateful.Francesco stepped within and, looking out on the blue day from thewaving green frame-work, saw Ilaria and Stefano Maconi approaching,engaged in eager talk. She was flushed and bore herself haughtily.
Francesco stepped quietly out into the light, unnoticed by Ilaria'scompanion. Ilaria evidently saw him at once. She paused and dismissedthe other, regardless of his somewhat insistent protests. Withhalf-ironic salutation she turned down the hill. Whether or no Stefanohad caught sight of Francesco, as he went, was difficult to say.
Ilaria came towards the grotto, trailing her draperies, her browtroubled and sad beneath the gay chaplet.
"The sun is hot,--one craves shelter," she said lightly, yet with atremor in her voice.
Francesco, without replying, lifted the ivy curtain and with a mutegesture invited her to enter.
They stood in the dusky gloom, speechless, hidden from each other,till their gaze became accustomed to the shade.
He was helplessly unable to break the silence. Fear, joy, desire,doubt were tossing him. The breath came fast.
She raised her arms and c
aught her white throat.
"How cool it is, how sweet!" she said. "At Avellino," and she glancedat him half shyly, "you would never take me to your grotto!"
"Ah! But this grotto," he tried to speak as lightly as she, "we havefound together!"
"Together!" she reflected, looking away from him. "It is a word wehave not often had occasion to use,--you and I."
"Why might we not in the days to come?"
The words were on his lips; he held them back.
Ilaria waited, her hand pressed to her side, her look full of mingledtenderness and dread.
As he kept silence, she sighed, almost, it would seem, with relief.
"I wish to explore the cave," she said suddenly. "Come with me, if youlike!"
And with quick steps she started into the darkness.
"Take care! Take care, Lariella!" cried Francesco, unconsciously usingthe familiar diminutive, forgotten so long ago.
She took no heed and he hurried after her, terror-stricken, he knewnot why. She kept in advance, moving swiftly and lightly over the darkuneven ground. For a short distance the dusk deepened, then a suddenlight, shining from a crack in the vaulting, revealed in startlingcontrast a great blackness by the side of which there gleamedsomething weird, ghost-like.
Ilaria screamed and stumbled. The passage, widening beneath her feet,broke downwards into a pool of the waters of Styx. A lost stair hadbetrayed her.
Francesco, speeding forward, caught her garments, drew her back. Shestaggered and yielded to his arms. They leaned together against thewall of the grotto. The earth had fallen away a little at the shock,revealing in the uncertain light the white figure of a woman.
They both stared at it, holding their breath.
The image stood embedded in the rocky cavity, whither some force hadin past ages carried her from her old position, for she had evidentlypresided over the Piscina, or the bath of some rich Roman, whorejoiced in her Greek fairness. The face was free, but soil and mouldhad given it a half-sinister expression. The limbs, so far asvisible,--and the earth in falling away had left one white side of thebody entirely bare,--were perfect.
Ilaria struggled to free herself from Francesco's embrace and sank,half fainting, at the statue's base.
"The peril is over," said Francesco, and echoes filled the wholecavern with murmuring. "Dearest, be not afraid! Look at me!"
As her head drooped, he knelt beside her, half distraught, and rubbedher wrists and forehead with water from the pool.
She opened her eyes and smiled at him, as a child might.
"Fonte Gaia!" she whispered.
The words had been in his own mind.
Lifting her hand, she touched and stroked the marble, and the awe grewin her eyes.
"Feel!" she said. "This is not marble! It is very flesh, though turnedto stone!"
And she shuddered.
"Only a statue, dearest!" he answered soothingly. "Around Naples, theysay, the earth is full of such!"
"It is the White Lady!"
She had risen now and regained her self-control, and she spoke withunwonted dignity and calm.
"It is the White Lady," she repeated, "but you know, you have neverconsented to her spells. She rules here in the dusk! How you tremble!There is no need! Sunlight for you is but a few paces away! See, Iwill go with you to the entrance of the grotto!"
In truth a strange tremor had seized him. He stood as if unable toleave the spot. She was looking on his face with anxious eyes.
"Doubtless," he said at last, and despised himself as he spoke, "youwould prefer other company than mine in the presence of your WhiteLady!"
She raised her white hands to her throat again, and laughed, a laughwhich the vaults re-echoed as a sob.
"Forgive,--forgive! I am cruel!" cried Francesco. "I know not what Isay!"
"You are overheated," she said. "Bathe your brows, as you have bathedmine. It is true, I did not find the touch so cooling."
"The waters of Lethe," said Francesco very slowly. "Shall I bathe mybrows in them indeed? Already, simply standing by them, I think I haveforgotten many things. I have a better thought. Will you drink of themwith me, Ilaria? It would not be the first time we have tasted of thesame cup in the presence of Venus!"
Was he mistaken? Or, in the glimmering light, did he see a shadowpassing over the flower-soft face?
She did not reply, but softly stroked his hair.
Her touch burned, electrified him. For a moment he submitted to thesensation, then, as her soft, white hands stole around his throat, hefolded her in a close embrace and kissed her passionately on her lips.
From the waters came the swinging rhythm of the Barcarole.
"Non senti mai Achille Per Pulisena bella, Le cocenti faville Quant' io senti per quella.
"Udendo sua favella Angelica e venozza, Parlar si amorosa In su la fresca erbetta."
The time for metaphors had passed. He raised his head.
"I love you, Ilaria," he stammered, drunk with her sweetness, "loveyou, as I have never loved anything on earth. Ilaria--Ilaria--"
"Are we not free?" she whispered, her lips very close to his.
He kissed them again and again, then tossed back his head.
"Free?" he said. "Who is free? Ghostly powers, fates from ancientdays,--drive us, flesh and blood, whither they will!"
She shook her head, and on her lips played the old-time childhoodsmile.
"Have you forgot?" she whispered into his ear, holding him very close."But it is not for me to remind you--"
With a sudden change her restraint had vanished.
"We are among the shades," she continued, "where Proserpina should beat home. The world of sun is far!"
"I love you--" he stammered, gazing at her with wide, hungry eyes.
She bent back his head, till their eyes met.
She gazed at him with all the love she bore him. Then, drawing himclose, she whispered a word in his ear.
He closed his eyes in mortal anguish.
"All creation knows it,--all things, animate and inanimate: but notI,--not I!"
"Take me!" Ilaria said calmly, her face very white. "Yes--I will drinkwith you! But first--a libation to Venus!"
She gathered a little water in her hands and sprinkled it at the feetof the statue.
He stared at her for a moment, speechless, full of wonder at herstrange bearing. She was very pale, but in her eyes there gleamed asubtle fire, which kindled the spark in his soul.
"We have no cup," he said trembling.
But she, stooping swiftly, gathered water once more in the hollow ofher palms and raised them to his face.
"Drink!" she whispered eagerly. "Drink, while yet we dare!"
He stooped to the soft white hands and held them close to his mouth,kissing them again and again when he had drank.
"Come!" she said softly.
He did not stir. She bent over him.
"Francesco! I love you--come!"
He fell prone at her feet, with a sob that shook his whole frame aswith convulsions.
"Oh! That I might,--that I might! I would not sully your white purityfor all there is in earth, or heaven!"
For a moment she stood rigid, white, dazed.
Suddenly he felt two arms winding themselves about his neck, two softlips were pressed upon his own in one long, delirious kiss--then hesaw Ilaria precipitately retrace her steps, and Stefano Maconi peerinto the grotto.
After a time Francesco emerged into the sunlight, bewildered, dazed.Ilaria had joined the revellers, and he sank down upon a rock andcovered his face with his hands.
His heart and his soul were bleeding to death within him; and like hisown phantom he at last arose and walked towards the sea. The revellershad lost themselves in the depths of the groves. Again and again theswinging rhythm of their song was borne to him on the soft, fragrantbreezes; yet there was but one thought in his heart, one name on hislips, as his feet bore him slowly through the blossoming wilderness:"Ilaria! Ilaria!"--
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