Have you ever thought about what fiction is? Probably, such a question may seem surprising: and so everything is clear. Every person throughout his life has to repeatedly create the works he needs for specific purposes - statements, autobiographies, dictations - using not gypsum or clay, not musical notes, not paints, but just a word. At the same time, almost every person will be very surprised if he is told that he thereby created a work of fiction, which is very different from visual art, music and sculpture making. However, everyone understands that a student's essay or dictation is fundamentally different from novels, short stories, news that are created by professional writers. In the works of professionals there is the most important difference - excogitation. But, oddly enough, in a school literature course, you don’t realize the full power of fiction. So using our website in your free time discover fiction for yourself. Rienzi, the Last of the Roman Tribunes by Baron Edward Bulwer Lytton Lytton (distant reading .txt) 📖
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“I fear,” said he to Adeline, “that I have already detained you too late in the night air: but selfishness is little considerate.”
“Nay, you see we are prudent,” said Adeline, pointing to Montreal’s mantle, which his provident hand had long since drawn around her form; “but if you must part, farewell, and success attend you!”
“We may meet again, I trust,” said Adrian.
Adeline sighed gently; and the Colonna, gazing on her face by the moonlight, to which it was slightly raised, was painfully struck by its almost transparent delicacy. Moved by his compassion, ere he mounted his steed, he drew Montreal aside,—“Forgive me if I seem presumptuous,” said he; “but to one so noble this wild life is scarce a fitting career. I know that, in our time, War consecrates all his children; but surely a settled rank in the court of the Emperor, or an honourable reconciliation with your knightly brethren, were better—”
“Than a Tartar camp, and a brigand’s castle,” interrupted Montreal, with some impatience. “This you were about to say—you are mistaken. Society thrust me from her bosom; let society take the fruit it hath sown. ‘A fixed rank,’ say you? some subaltern office, to fight at other men’s command! You know me not: Walter de Montreal was not formed to obey. War when I will, and rest when I list, is the motto of my escutcheon. Ambition proffers me rewards you wot not of; and I am of the mould as of the race of those whose swords have conquered thrones. For the rest, your news of the alliance of Louis of Hungary with your Tribune makes it necessary for the friend of Louis to withdraw from all feud with Rome. Ere the week expire, the owl and the bat may seek refuge in yon grey turrets.”
“But your lady?”
“Is inured to change.—God help her, and temper the rough wind to the lamb!”
“Enough, Sir Knight: but should you desire a sure refuge at Rome for one so gentle and so highborn, by the right hand of a knight, I promise a safe roof and an honoured home to the Lady Adeline.”
Montreal pressed the offered hand to his heart; then plucking his own hastily away, drew it across his eyes, and joined Adeline, in a silence that showed he dared not trust himself to speak. In a few moments Adrian and his train were on the march; but still the young Colonna turned back, to gaze once more on his wild host and that lovely lady, as they themselves lingered on the moonlit sward, while the sea rippled mournfully on their ears.
It was not many months after that date, that the name of Fra Monreale scattered terror and dismay throughout the fair Campania. The right hand of the Hungarian king, in his invasion of Naples, he was chosen afterwards vicar (or vice-gerent) of Louis in Aversa; and fame and fate seemed to lead him triumphantly along that ambitious career which he had elected, whether bounded by the scaffold or the throne.
BOOK IV. THE TRIUMPH AND THE POMP. “Allora fama e paura di si buono reggimento, passa in ogni terra.”—“Vita di Cola di Rienzi”, lib. i. cap. 21. “Then the fame and the fear of that so good government passed into every land.”—“Life of Cola di Rienzi”.
Chapter 4.I. The Boy Angelo—the Dream of Nina Fulfilled.
The thread of my story transports us back to Rome. It was in a small chamber, in a ruinous mansion by the base of Mount Aventine, that a young boy sate, one evening, with a woman of a tall and stately form, but somewhat bowed both by infirmity and years. The boy was of a fair and comely presence; and there was that in his bold, frank, undaunted carriage, which made him appear older than he was.
The old woman, seated in the recess of the deep window, was apparently occupied with a Bible that lay open on her knees; but ever and anon she lifted her eyes, and gazed on her young companion with a sad and anxious expression.
“Dame,” said the boy, who was busily employed in hewing out a sword of wood, “I would you had seen the show today. Why, every day is a show at Rome now! It is show enough to see the Tribune himself on his white steed—(oh, it is so beautiful!)—with his white robes all studded with jewels. But today, as I have just been telling you, the Lady Nina took notice of me, as I stood on the stairs of the Capitol: you know, dame, I had donned my best blue velvet doublet.”
“And she called you a fair boy, and asked if you would be her little page; and this has turned thy brain, silly urchin that thou art—”
“But the words are the least: if you saw the Lady Nina, you would own that a smile from her might turn the wisest head in Italy. Oh, how I should like to serve the Tribune! All the lads of my age are mad for him. How they will stare, and envy me at school tomorrow! You know too, dame, that though I was not always brought up at Rome, I am Roman. Every Roman loves Rienzi.”
“Ay, for the hour: the cry will soon change. This vanity of thine, Angelo, vexes my old heart. I would thou wert humbler.”
“Bastards have their own name to win,” said the boy, colouring deeply. “They twit me in the teeth, because I cannot say who my father and mother were.”
“They need not,” returned the dame, hastily. “Thou comest of noble blood and long descent, though, as I have told thee often, I know not the exact names of thy parents. But what art thou shaping that tough sapling of oak into?”
“A sword, dame, to assist the Tribune against the robbers.”
“Alas! I fear me, like all those who seek power in Italy, he is more likely to enlist robbers than to assail them.”
“Why, la you there, you live so shut up, that you know and hear nothing, or you would have learned that even that fiercest of all the robbers, Fra Moreale, has at length yielded to the Tribune, and fled from his castle, like a rat from a falling house.”
“How, how!” cried the dame; “what say you? Has this plebeian, whom you call the Tribune—has he boldly thrown the gage to that dread warrior? and has Montreal left the Roman territory?”
“Ay, it is the talk of the town. But Fra Moreale seems as much a bugbear to you as to e’er a mother in Rome. Did he ever wrong you, dame?”
“Yes!” exclaimed the old woman, with so abrupt a fierceness, that even that hardy boy was startled.
“I wish I could meet him, then,” said he, after a pause, as he flourished his mimic weapon.
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