“Taken prisoners!” exclaimed Annette; “no, indeed, ma’amselle, not they. I remember one of them very well at Venice: she came two or three times, to the Signor’s you know, ma’amselle, and it was said, but I did not believe a word of it—it was said, that the Signor liked her better than he should do. Then why, says I, bring her to my lady? Very true, said Ludovico; but he looked as if he knew more, too.”
Emily desired Annette would endeavour to learn who these ladies were, as well as all she could concerning them; and she then changed the subject, and spoke of distant France.
“Ah, ma’amselle! we shall never see it more!” said Annette, almost weeping.—“I must come on my travels, forsooth!”
Emily tried to sooth and to cheer her, with a hope, in which she scarcely herself indulged.
“How—how, ma’amselle, could you leave France, and leave Mons. Valancourt, too?” said Annette, sobbing. “I—I—am sure, if Ludovico had been in France, I would never have left it.”
“Why do you lament quitting France, then?” said Emily, trying to smile, “since, if you had remained there, you would not have found Ludovico.”
“Ah, ma’amselle! I only wish I was out of this frightful castle, serving you in France, and I would care about nothing else!”
“Thank you, my good Annette, for your affectionate regard; the time will come, I hope, when you may remember the expression of that wish with pleasure.”
Annette departed on her business, and Emily sought to lose the sense of her own cares, in the visionary scenes of the poet; but she had again to lament the irresistible force of circumstances over the taste and powers of the mind; and that it requires a spirit at ease to be sensible even to the abstract pleasures of pure intellect. The enthusiasm of genius, with all its pictured scenes, now appeared cold, and dim. As she mused upon the book before her, she involuntarily exclaimed, “Are these, indeed, the passages, that have so often given me exquisite delight? Where did the charm exist?—Was it in my mind, or in the imagination of the poet? It lived in each,” said she, pausing. “But the fire of the poet is vain, if the mind of his reader is not tempered like his own, however it may be inferior to his in power.”
Emily would have pursued this train of thinking, because it relieved her from more painful reflection, but she found again, that thought cannot always be controlled by will; and hers returned to the consideration of her own situation.