Vittoria — Volume 4 by George Meredith (best beach reads of all time txt) 📖

MICHIELLA (torn with jealous rage).

              'Yea; I could smite her on the face.
               Father, first read the thing's disgrace.
               I grudge them, honourable death.
               Put poison in their latest breath!'

ORSO (his left arm extended).

              'You twain are sundered: hear with awe
               The judgement of the Source of Law.'

CAMILLA (smiling confidently).

              'Not such, when I was at the Source,
               It said to me;—but take thy course.'

ORSO (astounded).

'Thither thy steps were bent?'

MICHIELLA (spurning verbal controversy).

                                   'She feigns!
               A thousand swords are in my veins.
               Friends! soldiers I strike them down, the pair!'

CAMILLO (on guard, clasping his wife).

              ''Tis well! I cry, to all we share.
               Yea, life or death, 'tis well! 'tis well!'

MICHIELLA (stamps her foot).

'My heart 's a vessel tossed on hell!'

LEONARDO (aside).

'Not in glad nuptials ends the day.'

ORSO (to Camilla).

'What is thy purpose with us?—say !'

                    CAMILLA (lowly).
              'Unto my Father I have crossed
               For tidings of my Mother lost.'

                    ORSO.
               'Thy mother dead!'

                    CAMILLA.
                                   'She lives!'

                    MICHIELLA.
                                   'Thou liest!
               The tablets of the tomb defiest!
               The Fates denounce, the Furies chase
               The wretch who lies in Reason's face.'

                    CAMILLA.
              'Fly, then; for we are match'd to try
               Which is the idiot, thou or I'

                    MICHIELLA.
               Graceless Camilla!'

                    ORSO
                              'Senseless girl!
               I cherished thee a precious pearl,
               And almost owned thee child of mine.'

                    CAMILLA.
              'Thou kept'st me like a gem, to shine,
               Careless that I of blood am made;
               No longer be the end delay'd.
               'Tis time to prove I have a heart—
               Forth from these walls of mine depart!
               The ghosts within them are disturb'd
               Go forth, and let thy wrath be curb'd,
               For I am strong: Camillo's truth
               Has arm'd the visions of our youth.
               Our union by the Head Supreme
               Is blest: our severance was the dream.
               We who have drunk of blood and tears,
               Knew nothing of a mortal's fears.
               Life is as Death until the strife
               In our just cause makes Death as Life.'

                    ORSO
               ''Tis madness?'

                    LEONARDO.
                         'Is it madness?'

                    CAMILLA.
                                                  'Men!
               'Tis Reason, but beyond your ken.
               There lives a light that none can view
               Whose thoughts are brutish:—seen by few,
               The few have therefore light divine
               Their visions are God's legions!—sign,
               I give you; for we stand alone,
               And you are frozen to the bone.
               Your palsied hands refuse their swords.
               A sharper edge is in my words,
               A deadlier wound is in my cry.
               Yea, tho' you slay us, do we die?
               In forcing us to bear the worst,
               You made of us Immortals first.
               Away! and trouble not my sight.'

Chorus of Cavaliers: RUDOLFO, ROMUALDO, ARNOLDO, and others.

              'She moves us with an angel's might.
               What if his host outnumber ours!
               'Tis heaven that gives victorious powers.'

     [They draw their steel. ORSO, simulating gratitude for their
     devotion to him, addresses them as to pacify their friendly ardour.]

                    MICHIELLA to LEONARDO (supplicating).
              'Ever my friend I shall I appeal
               In vain to see thy flashing steel?'

                    LEONARDO (finally resolved).
              'Traitress! pray, rather, it may rest,
               Or its first home will be thy breast.'

                    Chorus of Bridal Company.
              'The flowers from bright Aurora's head
               We pluck'd to strew a happy bed,
               Shall they be dipp'd in blood ere night?
               Woe to the nuptials! woe the sight!'

Rudolfo, Romualdo, Arnoldo, and the others, advance toward Camillo. Michiella calls to them encouragingly that it were well for the deed to be done by their hands. They bid Camillo to direct their lifted swords upon his enemies. Leonardo joins them. Count Orso, after a burst of upbraidings, accepts Camillo's offer of peace, and gives his bond to quit the castle. Michiella, gazing savagely at Camilla, entreats her for an utterance of her triumphant scorn. She assures Camilla that she knows her feelings accurately.

'Now you think that I am overwhelmed; that I shall have a restless night, and lie, after all my crying's over, with my hair spread out on my pillow, on either side my face, like green moss of a withered waterfall: you think you will bestow a little serpent of a gift from my stolen treasures to comfort me. You will comfort me with a lock of Camillo's hair, that I may have it on my breast to-night, and dream, and wail, and writhe, and curse the air I breathe, and clasp the abominable emptiness like a thousand Camillos. Speak!'

The dagger is seen gleaming up Michiella's wrist; she steps on in a bony triangle, faced for mischief: a savage Hunnish woman, with the hair of a Goddess—the figure of a cat taking to its forepaws. Close upon Camilla she towers in her whole height, and crying thrice, swift as the assassin trebles his blow, 'Speak,' to Camilla, who is fronting her mildly, she raises her arm, and the stilet flashes into Camilla's bosom.

'Die then, and outrage me no more.'

Camilla staggers to her husband. Camillo receives her falling. Michiella, seized by Leonardo, presents a stiffened shape of vengeance with fierce white eyes and dagger aloft. There are many shouts, and there is silence.

                    CAMILLA, supported by CAMILLO.
              'If this is death, it is not hard to bear.
               Your handkerchief drinks up my blood so fast
               It seems to love it. Threads of my own hair
               Are woven in it. 'Tis the one I cast
               That midnight from my window, when you stood
               Alone, and heaven seemed to love you so!
               I did not think to wet it with my blood
               When next I tossed it to my love below.'

                    CAMILLO (cherishing her).
              'Camilla, pity! say you will not die.
               Your voice is like a soul lost in the sky.'

CAMILLA.

              'I know not if my soul has flown; I know
               My body is a weight I cannot raise:
               My voice between them issues, and
               I go Upon a journey of uncounted days.
               Forgetfulness is like a closing sea;
               But you are very bright above me still.
               My life I give as it was given to me
               I enter on a darkness wide and chill.'

                    CAMILLO.
              'O noble heart! a million fires consume
               The hateful hand that sends you to your doom.'

                    CAMILLA.
              'There is an end to joy: there is no end
               To striving; therefore ever let us strive
               In purity that shall the toil befriend,
               And keep our poor mortality alive.
               I hang upon the boundaries like light
               Along the hills when downward goes the day
               I feel the silent creeping up of night.
               For you, my husband, lies a flaming way.'

                    CAMILLO.
              'I lose your eyes: I lose your voice: 'tis faint.
               Ah, Christ! see the fallen eyelids of a saint.'

                    CAMILLA.
              'Our life is but a little holding, lent
               To do a mighty labour: we are one
               With heaven and the stars when it is spent
               To serve God's aim: else die we with the sun.'

She sinks. Camillo droops his head above her.

The house was hushed as at a veritable death-scene. It was more like a cathedral service than an operatic pageant. Agostino had done his best to put the heart of the creed of his Chief into these last verses. Rocco's music floated them in solemn measures, and Vittoria had been careful to articulate throughout the sacred monotony so that their full meaning should be taken.

In the printed book of the libretto a chorus of cavaliers, followed by one harmless verse of Camilla's adieux to them, and to her husband and life, concluded the opera.

'Let her stop at that—it's enough!—and she shall be untouched,' said
General Pierson to Antonio-Pericles.

'I have information, as you know, that an extremely impudent song is coming.'

The General saw Wilfrid hanging about the lobby, in flagrant disobedience to orders. Rebuking his nephew with a frown, he commanded the lieutenant to make his way round to the stage and see that the curtain was dropped according to the printed book.

'Off, mon Dieu! off!' Pericles speeded him; adding in English, 'Shall she taste prison-damp, zat voice is killed.'

The chorus of cavaliers was a lamentation: the keynote being despair: ordinary libretto verses.

Camilla's eyes unclose. She struggles to be lifted, and, raised on Camillo's arm, she sings as if with the last pulsation of her voice, softly resonant in its rich contralto. She pardons Michiella. She tells Count Orso that when he has extinguished his appetite for dominion, he will enjoy an unknown pleasure in the friendship of his neighbours. Repeating that her mother lives, and will some day kneel by her daughter's grave—not mournfully, but in beatitude—she utters her adieu to all.

At the moment of her doing so, Montini whispered in Vittoria's ear. She looked up and beheld the downward curl of the curtain. There was confusion at the wings: Croats were visible to the audience. Carlo Ammiani and Luciano Romara jumped on the stage; a dozen of the noble youths of Milan streamed across the boards to either wing, and caught the curtain descending. The whole house had risen insurgent with cries of 'Vittoria.' The curtain-ropes were in the hands of the Croats, but Carlo, Luciano, and their fellows held the curtain aloft at arm's length at each side of her. She was seen, and she sang, and the house listened.

The Italians present, one and all, rose up reverently and murmured the refrain. Many of the aristocracy would, doubtless, have preferred that this public declaration of the plain enigma should not have rung forth to carry them on the popular current; and some might have sympathized with the insane grin which distorted the features of Antonio-Pericles, when he beheld illusion wantonly destroyed, and the opera reduced to be a mere vehicle for a fulmination of politics. But the general enthusiasm was too tremendous to permit of individual protestations. To sit, when the nation was standing, was to be a German. Nor, indeed, was there an Italian in the house who would willingly have consented to see Vittoria silenced, now that she had chosen to defy the Tedeschi from the boards of La Scala. The fascination of her voice extended even over the German division of the audience. They, with the Italians, said: 'Hear her! hear her!' The curtain was agitated at the wings, but in the centre it was kept above Vittoria's head by the uplifted arms of the twelve young men:—

              'I cannot count the years,
               That you will drink, like me,
               The cup of blood and tears,
               Ere she to you appears:—
               Italia, Italia shall be free!'

So the great name was out, and its enemies had heard it.

              'You dedicate your lives
               To her, and you will be
               The food on which she thrives,
               Till her great day arrives
               Italia, Italia shall be free!

              'She asks you but for faith!
               Your faith in her takes she
               As draughts of heaven's breath,
               Amid defeat and death:—
               Italia, Italia shall be free!'

The prima donna was not acting exhaustion when sinking lower in Montini's arms. Her bosom rose and sank quickly, and she gave the terminating verse:—

              'I enter the black boat
               Upon the wide grey sea,
               Where all her set suns float;
               Thence hear my voice remote
               Italia, Italia shall be free!'

The curtain dropped.

CHAPTER XXII WILFRID COMES FORWARD

An order for the immediate arrest of Vittoria was