Rienzi, the Last of the Roman Tribunes by Baron Edward Bulwer Lytton Lytton (distant reading .txt) 📖

Brighter days dawn upon us, when I shall have leisure to thank thee for all thy care. And you, my fair sister, you smile on me!—ah, you have heard that your lover, ere this, is released by the cession of Palestrina, and tomorrow’s sun will see him at your feet. Despite all the cares of the day, I remembered thee, my Irene, and sent a messenger to bring back the blush to that pale cheek. Come, come, we shall be happy again!” And with that domestic fondness common to him, when harsher thoughts permitted, he sate himself beside the two persons dearest to his hearth and heart.

“So happy—if we could have many hours like this!” murmured Nina, sinking on his breast. “Yet sometimes I wish—”

“And I too,” interrupted Rienzi; “for I read thy woman’s thought—I too sometimes wish that fate had placed us in the lowlier valleys of life! But it may come yet! Irene wedded to Adrian—Rome married to Liberty—and then, Nina, methinks you and I would find some quiet hermitage, and talk over old gauds and triumphs, as of a summer’s dream. Beautiful, kiss me! Couldst thou resign these pomps?”

“For a desert with thee, Cola!”

“Let me reflect,” resumed Rienzi; “is not today the seventh of October? Yes! on the seventh, be it noted, my foes yielded to my power! Seven! my fated number, whether ominous of good or evil! Seven months did I reign as Tribune—seven (There was the lapse of one year between the release of Rienzi from Avignon, and his triumphal return to Rome: a year chiefly spent in the campaign of Albornoz.) years was I absent as an exile; tomorrow, that sees me without an enemy, completes my seventh week of return!”

“And seven was the number of the crowns the Roman Convents and the Roman Council awarded thee, after the ceremony which gave thee the knighthood of the Santo Spirito!” (This superstition had an excuse in strange historical coincidences; and the number seven was indeed to Rienzi what the 3rd of September was to Cromwell. The ceremony of the seven crowns which he received after his knighthood, on the nature of which ridiculous ignorance has been shown by many recent writers, was, in fact, principally a religious and typical donation, (symbolical of the gifts of the Holy Spirit,) conferred by the heads of convents—and that part of the ceremony which was political, was republican, not regal.) said Nina, adding, with woman’s tender wit, “the brightest association of all!”

“Follies seem these thoughts to others, and to philosophy, in truth, they are so,” said Rienzi; “but all my life long, omen and type and shadow have linked themselves to action and event: and the atmosphere of other men hath not been mine. Life itself a riddle, why should riddles amaze us? The Future!—what mystery in the very word! Had we lived all through the Past, since Time was, our profoundest experience of a thousand ages could not give us a guess of the events that wait the very moment we are about to enter! Thus deserted by Reason, what wonder that we recur to the Imagination, on which, by dream and symbol, God sometimes paints the likeness of things to come? Who can endure to leave the Future all unguessed, and sit tamely down to groan under the fardel of the Present? No, no! that which the foolish-wise call Fanaticism, belongs to the same part of us as Hope. Each but carries us onward—from a barren strand to a glorious, if unbounded sea. Each is the yearning for the GREAT BEYOND, which attests our immortality. Each has its visions and chimeras—some false, but some true! Verily, a man who becomes great is often but made so by a kind of sorcery in his own soul—a Pythia which prophesies that he shall be great—and so renders the life one effort to fulfil the warning! Is this folly?—it were so, if all things stopped at the grave! But perhaps the very sharpening, and exercising, and elevating the faculties here—though but for a bootless end on earth—may be designed to fit the soul, thus quickened and ennobled, to some high destiny beyond the earth! Who can tell? not I!—Let us pray!”

While the Senator was thus employed, Rome in her various quarters presented less holy and quiet scenes.

In the fortress of the Orsini lights flitted to and fro, through the gratings of the great court. Angelo Villani might be seen stealing from the postern-gate. Another hour, and the Moon was high in heaven; toward the ruins of the Colosseum, men, whose dress bespoke them of the lowest rank, were seen creeping from lanes and alleys, two by two; from these ruins glided again the form of the son of Montreal. Later yet—the Moon is sinking—a grey light breaking in the East—and the gates of Rome, by St. John of Lateran, are open! Villani is conversing with the sentries! The Moon has set—the mountains are dim with a mournful and chilling haze—Villani is before the palace of the Capitol—the only soldier there! Where are the Roman legions that were to guard alike the freedom and the deliverer of Rome?