and looking with breathless curiosity, he saw the side of the loathly creature's face bathed in tears. "Why speakest thou, lady," said he, "if lady thou art, of the curse of the false goddess Diana, who never was, or only a devil? I cannot kiss thee,"—and he shuddered with a horrible shudder, as he spoke, "but I will bless thee in the name of the true God, and even mark thee with his cross." The serpent shook her head mournfully, still keeping it turned round. She then faced him again, hanging her head in a dreary and desponding manner. "Thou knowest not," said she, "what I know. Diana both was and never was; and there are many other things on earth, which are and yet are not. Thou canst not comprehend it, even though thou art kind. But the heavens alter not, neither the sun nor the strength of nature; and if thou wert kinder, I should be as I once was, happy and human. Suffice it, that nothing can change me but what I said.” "Why wert thou changed, thou fearful and mysterious thing?" said Gualtier. "Because I denied Diana, as thou dost," answered the serpent; "and it was pronounced an awful crime in me, though it is none in thee; and I was to be made a thing loathsome in men's eyes. Let me not catch thine eye, I beseech thee; but go thy way and be safe; for I feel a cruel thought coming on me, which will shake my innermost soul, though it shall not harm thee. But I could make thee suffer for the pleasure of seeing thine anguish; even as some tyrants do; and is not that dreadful?" And the monster openly shed tears, and sobbed. There was something in this mixture of avowed cruelty and weeping contradiction to it, which made Gualtier remain in spite of himself. But fear was still uppermost in his mind, when he looked upon the mouth that was to be kissed; and he held fast round a tree with one hand, and his sword as fast in the other, watching the movements of her neck as he conversed. "How did thy father, the sage Hippocrates," asked he, "suffer thee to come to this?" "My father," replied she, "sage and good as he was, was but a Greek mortal; and the great Virgin was a worshipped Goddess. I pray thee, go." She uttered the last word in a tone of loud anguish; but the very horror of it made Gualtier hesitate, and he said, "How can I know that it is not thy destiny to deceive the merciful into this horrible kiss, that then and then only thou mayst devour them?" But the serpent rose higher at this, and looking around loftily, said in a mild and majestic tone of voice, "O ye green and happy woods, breathing like sleep! O safe and quiet population of these leafy places, dying brief deaths! O sea! O earth! O heavens, never uttering syllable to man! Is there no way to make better known the meaning of your gentle silence, of your long basking pleasures and brief pains? And must the want of what is beautiful and kind from others, ever remain different from what is beautiful and kind in itself? And must form obscure essence; and human confidence in good from within, never be bolder than suspicion of evil from without? O ye large-looking and grand benignities of creation, is it that we are atoms in a dream; or that your largeness and benignity are in those only who see them, and that it is for us to hang over ye till we wake you into a voice with our kisses? I yearn to be made beautiful by one kind action, and beauty itself will not believe me!" Gualtier, though not a foolish youth, understood little or nothing of this mystic apostrophe; but something made him bear in mind, and really inclined to believe, that it was a transformed woman speaking to him; and he was making a violent internal effort to conquer his repugnance to the kiss, when some hares, starting from him as they passed, ran and cowered behind the folds of the monster: and she stooped her head, and licked them. "By Christ," exclaimed he, "whom the wormy grave gathered into its arms to save us from our corruptions, I will do this thing; so may he have mercy on my soul, whether I live or die: for e very hares take refuge in her shadow." And shuddering shutting his eyes, he put his mouth out for her to meet; And he seemed to feel, in his blindness, that dreadful mouth pproaching; and he made the sign of the cross; and he murmured internally the name of him who cast seven devils out of Mary Magdalen, that afterwards anointed his feet; and in the midst of his courageous agony, he felt a small mouth, fast and warm upon his, and a hand about his neck, and another on his eft hand; and opening his eyes, he dropped them upon two of the sweetest that ever looked into the eye of man.—But th hares fled; for they had loved the serpent, but knew not the beautiful human being. Great was the fame of Gualtier, not only throughout the Grecian islands, but on both continents; and most of all in Sicily, where every one of his countrymen thought he had a hand in the enterprise, for being born on the same soil. The Captain and his crew never came again; for, alas! they had gone off without waiting as they promised. But Tancred, Prince of Salerno, came himself with a knightly train to see Gualtier; who lived with his lady in the same place, all her past sufferings appearing as nothing to her before a month of love; and even sorrowful habit had endeared it to her. Tancred, and his knights, and learned clerks, came in a noble ship, every oar having a painted scutcheon over the rowlock; and Gualtier and his lady feasted them nobly, and drank to them amidst music in cups of Hippocras—that knightly liquor afterwards so renowned, which she retained the secret of making from her sage father, whose name it bore. And when King Tancred, with a gentle gravity in the midst of his mirth, expressed a hope that the beautiful lady no longer worshipped Diana, Gualtier said, "No, indeed, Sir;" and she looked in Gualtier's face, as she sat next him, with the sweetest look in the world, as who should say, "No, indeed :—I worship thee and thy kind heart."* *This story is founded on a tradition still preserved in the island of Cos, and repeated in old romances and books of travels. See Dunlop's History of Fiction, vol. ii., where he gives an account of Tirante the White. CHAPTER XLIII. The Italian Girl. THE sun was shining beautifully one summer evening, as if he bade sparkling farewell to a world which he had made happy. It seemed also, by his looks, as if he promised to make his appearance again to-morrow; but there was at times a deep breathing western wind, and dark purple clouds came up here and there, like gorgeous waiters at a funeral. The children in a village not far from the metropolis were playing however on the green, content with the brightness of the moment, when they saw a female approaching, who gathered them about her by the singularity of her dress. It was not a very remarkable dress; but any difference from the usual apparel of their country-women appeared so to them; and crying out, “A French girl! A French girl!" they ran up to her, and stood looking and talking. The stranger seated herself upon a bench that was fixed between two elms, and for a moment leaned her head against one of them, as if faint with walking. But she raised it speedily, and smiled with complacency on the rude urchins. She had a boddice and petticoat on of different colors, and a handkerchief tied neatly about her head with the point behind. On her hands were gloves without fingers; and she wore about her neck a guitar, upon the strings of which one of her hands rested. The children thought her very handsome. Anybody else would also have thought her very ill; but they saw nothing before them but a good-natured looking foreigner and a guitar, and they asked her to play. “O che bei ragazzi!" said she, in a soft and alnost inaudible voice; "Che visi lieti !"* and she began to play, She tried to sing too, but her voice failed her, and she shook he: head smilingly, saying "Stanca! stanca!" "Sing-do sing,' * Oh what fine boys! What happy faces' † Weary! Weary! said the children; and nodding her head, she was trying to do so, when a set of boys came up and joined in the request. “No, no," said one of the elder boys, "she is not well. You are ill, a'nt you,-Miss!" added he, laying his hand upon hers as if to hinder it. He drew out the last word somewhat doubtfully, for her appearance perplexed him; he scarcely knew whether to take her for a strolling musician or a lady strayed from a sick bed. "Grazie!" said she, understanding his look:-" troppo stanca: troppo.*" By this time the usher came up, and addressed her in French; but she only understood a word here and there. He then spoke Latin, and she repeated one or two of his words, as if they were familiar to her. "She is an Italian!" said he, looking round with a good-natured importance; "for the Italian is but a bastard of the Latin." The children locked with the more wonder, thinking he was speaking of the fair musician. "Non dubito," continued the usher, "quin tu lectitas poetam illum celeberrimum Tassonem; † Taxum, I should say properly, but the departure from the Italian name is considerable." The stranger did not understand a word. "I speak of Tasso," said the usher," of Tasso." "Tasso! Tasso!" repeated the fair minstrel; "oh-conosco —il Tàs-so ;”‡ and she hung with an accent of beautiful languor upon the first syllable. "Yes," returned the worthy scholar, "doubtless your accent may be better. Then of course you know those classical lines Intanto Erminia infra l' ombrosy pianty The stranger repeated these words in a tone of fondness, like those of an old friend : Intanto Erminia infra l'ombrose piante * Thanks :-too weary! too weary! † Doubtless you read that celebrated poet Tasso. Oh--I know--Tasso. |