by Mary Shelley
“That my story may have a suitable commencement, I will inform you, what perhaps you know already, that my name is Maria Graham. My maiden name was Langley. My father and mother died before I was ten years old, so that I only remember the latter and that I wept when I lost her. I was left to the care of an aunt who had a tender affection for me — she had never been married, and as she has passed her thirtieth year it appeared unlikely that she ever would. I was brought up by her with the greatest care — we lived in the country, but she had herself been very well educated, and she spared no pains in teaching me the rudiments of all the fashionable...”
THE POLE
IT WAS IN the early part of the month of February of the year 1831, near the close of day, that a travelling caleche, coming from Rome, was seen approaching, at full gallop, towards Mola di Gaeta. The road leading to the inn is rocky and narrow; on one side is an orange grove, extending to the sea; on the other an old Roman wall, overgrown by blossoming shrubs, enormous aloes, floating tangles of vines, and a thousand species of parasite plants peculiar to the South. Scarcely had the caleche entered this defile, when the careless postilion drove one of the wheels over a protruding ledge of rock, and overturned it; and in the next moment, a crowd of people came running to the spot. Not one of them, however, thought of relieving the traveller within the fallen vehicle; but, with violent gestures and loud outcries, began to examine what damage the caleche had sustained, and what profit they might derive from it. The wheelwright declared every wheel was shattered; the carpenter that the shafts were splintered; whilst the blacksmith, passing and repassing under the carriage, tugged at every clamp and screw and nail, with all the violence necessary to ensure himself a handsome job. The traveller it contained having quietly disengaged himself from various cloaks, books, and maps, now slowly descended, and for a moment the busy crowd forgot their restlessness, to gaze with admiration upon the noble figure of the stranger. He seemed to be scarcely two-and-twenty. In stature he was sufficiently tall to give an idea of superiority to his fellow mortals; and his form was moulded in such perfect proportions, that it presented a rare combination of youthful lightness and manly strength. His countenance, had you taken from it its deep thoughtfulness and its expression of calm intrepid bravery, might have belonged to the most lovely woman, so transparently blooming was his complexion, so regular his features, so blond and luxuriant his hair. Of all those present, he seemed the least concerned at the accident; he neither looked at the caleche, nor paid any attention to the offers of service that were screamed from a dozen mouths; but, drawing out his watch, asked his servant if the carriage was broken.
“Pann, the shafts are snapt, two of the springs are injured, and the linch-pin has flown.”
“How long will it take to repair them?”
“Twenty-four hours.”
“It is now four o’clock. See that every thing be in order again by tomorrow’s daybreak.”
“Pann, with these lazy Italians, I fear it will be impossible—”
“Ja pozwalam,”t replied the traveller, coldly, but decidedly. “Pay double — triple — what you will, but let all be ready for the hour I have mentioned.”
Without another word, he walked towards the inn, followed by the crowd, teazing for alms. A few seconds ago they had all been active and healthy beings, so full of employment they could not afford to mend his caleche unless tempted by some extraordinary reward: now the men declared themselves cripples and invalids, the children were orphans, the women helpless widows, and they would all die of hunger if his Eccellenza did not bestow a few grani. “What a tedious race!” exclaimed the traveller, casting a handful of coins upon the ground, which caused a general scramble, and enabled him to proceed unmolested. At the inn new torments awaited him; a fresh crowd, composed of the landlord, the landlady, and their waiters and hostlers, gathered round, and assailed him with innumerable questions. The landlord hoped none of his limbs were broken, and begged him to consider himself master of the house; the waiters desired to know at what hour he would sup, what fare he chose, how long he intended to stay, where he came from, whither he was going; and the landlady led him, ostentatiously, through all the rooms of the inn, expatiating endlessly upon the peculiar and indescribable advantages of each. Ineffably weary of their officiousness, the traveller at last traversed a long and spacious hall, and took refuge in a balcony that looked upon the bay of Gaeta.
The inn is built upon the site of Cicero’s Villa. Beneath the balcony, and on each side, along the whole curve of the bay, stretched a thick grove of orange-trees, which sloped down to the very verge of the Mediterranean. Balls of golden fruit, and blossoms faint with odour, and fair as stars, studded this amphitheatre of dark foliage; and at its extremity the liquid light of the waves pierced the glossy leaves, mingling their blue splendour with earth’s green paradise. Every rock and mountain glowed with a purple hue, so intense and soft, they resembled violet vapours dissolving into the pale radiance of the evening sky. Far away in the deep broad flood of the ocean, rose the two mountain islands of Ischia and Procida, between which Vesuvius thrust in his jagged form, and his floating banner of snow-white smoke. The solitary heaven was without sun or moon, without a star or cloud, but smiled in that tender vestal light which speaks of eternal, immutable peace.
It would be difficult to define the feelings of the traveller as he gazed on this scene: his countenance, uplifted to heaven, was animated with a profound and impassioned melancholy, with an expression of an earnest and fervid pleading against some vast and inevitable wrong. He was thinking probably of his country; and whilst he contrasted its ruined villages and devastated fields with the splendour and glow of the fair land before him, was breathing inwardly a passionate appeal against that blind and cruel destiny which had consigned Poland to the desolating influence of Russian despotism. His reverie was interrupted by the sound of a female voice singing in Polish among the orange-trees at his feet. The singer was invisible; but the sweetness of her voice, and the singular reference of the words (the following prose translation conveys their meaning) to the thoughts of his own mind, filled the traveller with surprise: —
“When thou gazest upon the azure heaven, so mighty in its calm, do not say, O bright enchantment, hast thou no pity, that thou dawnest thus in unattainable loveliness upon my world-wearied eyes.
“When the southern wind softly breathes, do not say reproachfully, thy cradle is the ether of the morning sun, thou drinkest the odorous essence of myrtle and lemon blossoms; thou should’st bear upon thy wings all sweet emotions, all soft desires; why bringest thou then no healing to the anguish I endure?
“Neither in the dark hour, when thou thinkest upon thy country and thy friends, say not with grief, They are lost! They are not! Say rather with joy, They were illustrious! and it is bliss to know that they have been!”
It were wise in me to obey thy lesson, sweet songstress, thought the traveller; and, revolving in his mind the singularity of the serenade, he continued to gaze upon the trees below: there was no rustling amid their branches, no sound which told a human being was concealed beneath their foliage; nothing was heard beyond the almost imperceptible breathings of the evening air. Did such things exist any where but in the imagination of the poet? He could almost have believed that the spirit of that divine scene had assumed a human voice and human words, to soothe his melancholy, so floating and airy had been the strain, so deep the silence that succeeded it. One moment more, and there arose from the same spot cries for help uttered in Italian, and shrieks of distress so piercing, they made the traveller fly with the speed of lightning through the great hall, down the staircase into the garden. The first object that met his eyes was the figure of a girl about sixteen, her one arm tightly embracing the stem of a tree, her other angrily repelling a young man who was endeavouring to drag her away. “I will not go with you — I love you no longer, Giorgio — and go with you, I will not,” shrieked the girl, in tones of mingled violence and fear. “You must —
you shall,” retorted her aggressor, in a voice of thunder. “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’opéra, 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, to being his unhappy par—”
“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?” enquired 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?”
“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. 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 — any thing 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 are 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. Petersburgh. 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 Petersburgh, depended the fate of a brother, the only being in existence he now cared for. A splendid suite of apartments, blazing with lights, crowded with company, and furnished with the munificence of an Eastern haram, lay open before him; without allowing himself to be announced he entered them. When an 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 lovely women and gay youths floating in the mazy dance, seemed to him deceitful shows that veiled some frightful sorrow; and with eager rapid steps, as if borne along by the impulse of his own thoughts, he hurried past them. Scarcely knowing how he had arrived there, he at length found himself standing beside the Princess, in a marble colonnade, open above to the moonlight and the stars of heaven, and admitting at its sides the odorous air and blossoming almond-trees of the adjacent garden.
“Ladislas!” exclaimed the lady, starting, “is it possible — to see you here almost exceeds belief.”
After remaining some moments in deep silence, collecting and arranging his thoughts, the Pole replied. A conversation ensued, in so low a voice as to be only audible to themselves; from their attitudes and gestures it might be inferred that Ladislas was relating some tale of deep anguish, mixed with solemn and impressive adjurations to which the Princess listened with a consenting tranquillizing sympathy.
They issued from the recess, walked up the colonnade, and entered a small temple that terminated it. From the centre of its airy dome hung a lighted alabaster lamp of a boat-like shape, beneath which a youthful female was seated alone sketching a range of moonlight hills that appeared between the columns. “Idalie,” said the Princess, “I have brought you a new subject for your pencil, — and such a subject, my love — one whose fame has already made him dear to your imagination; no less a person than the hero of Ostralenka, the Vistula, and the Belvedere, So call up one of those brightest, happiest moods of your genius, in which all succeeds to you, and enrich my album with his likeness,” spreading it before her.
It is difficult to refuse any request to a person who has just granted us an important favour. Ladislas suffered himself to be seated, and as soon as the Princess had quitted them, the gloom which had shadowed his brow at the names of Ostralenka, the Vistula, and the Belvedere, vanished. The surpassing beauty of the young artist would have changed the heaviest penance into a pleasure. She was lovely as one of Raphael’s Madonnas; and, like them, there was a silent beauty in her presence that struck the most superficial beholder with astonishment and satisfaction. Her hair, of a golden and burnished brown (the colour of the autumnal foliage illuminated by the setting sun), fell in gauzy wavings round her face, throat and shoulders. Her small clear forehead, gleaming with gentle thought; her curved, soft,
and rosy lips; the delicate moulding of the lower part of the face, expressing purity and integrity of nature, were all perfectly Grecian. Her hazel eyes, with their arched lids and dark arrowy lashes, pierced the soul with their full and thrilling softness. She was clad in long and graceful drapery, white as snow; but, pure as this garment was, it seemed a rude disguise to the resplendent softness of the limbs it enfolded. The delicate light that gleamed from the alabaster lamp above them, was a faint simile of the ineffable spirit of love that burned within Idalie’s fair transparent frame; and the one trembling shining star of evening that palpitates responsively to happy lovers, never seemed more divine or more beloved than she did to Ladislas, as she sat there, now fixing a timid but attentive gaze upon his countenance, and then dropping it upon the paper before her. And not alone for Ladislas, was this hour the dawn of passionate love. The same spell was felt in the heart of Idalie, veiling the world and lifting her spirit into vast and immeasurable regions of unexplored delight. One moment their eyes met and glanced upon each other, the look of exalted, of eternal love, mute, blessed, and inexpressible. Their lids fell and were raised no more. Rapture thrilled their breasts and swelled their full hearts, a rapture felt but not seen; for feet order. In this emergency, three hundred students from the University of Warsaw drew hastily up in a body, and, devoting themselves willingly to death, marched forward to meet the onset of the enemy. They were headed by a young man who distinguished himself by the most exalted courage, and was the only one of their numbers who escaped. He stationed his band in a small wood that lay directly in the path of the Russians, and checked their progress for the space of three hours. Every tree of that wood now waves above a patriot’s grave. In the meantime the Polish army formed, bore down, and gained a most brilliant victory. f The palace at Warsaw, in which the attempt to assassinate the Grand Duke Constantine was made by a party of young men. motionless, and in deep silence, as if every outward faculty were absorbed in reverence, they continued, each inwardly knowing, hearing, seeing nothing but the divine influence and attraction of the other.