The ship, traversing untried seas, carried arts, customs, and knowledge, to civilize unknown and savage nations, and the banner of our land was hailed even on the remotest shores as a token of safety. Alas! This is a desire which, however earnest, can never more be fulfilled. The woods of our country are shorn of their leaves, as Grecian maidens formerly sacrificed their tresses at the tombs of their dear ones. Our trees have been converted into ships, but not for us; the winds have unfolded the banner, but it was not ours; they have joined in battle, but it was not for the fates of our country; they have sailed laden with merchandise, but not gathered from our fields, nor manufactured by our hands; they have indeed been guided by Italian men over unknown seas, and through terrible storms and fearful perils, but others have received the fruits of these enterprises, and our country has won merely barren renown. Barbarous nations have bought our forests, while the iron dared not touch their oaks, beneath which the Druids celebrated their mysterious rites. Oh! miserable nation, who have sold everything, and had it been possible would have sold even your sun and sky, why, if you yourselves had no thrill of daring or of glory, why did you disinherit your posterity? Why, not contented with your own baseness, did you prepare for your sons an inheritance of shame and tears? What judgment awaits you beyond the grave, since your children will remember their fathers only by the ill which they have received from them?
But Cerreto was at that time shaded with an abundance of oaks, elms, holm-oaks, and trees of all kinds; while pheasants, heath-cocks, and infinite varieties of birds flew from bough to bough, and roebucks, deer, stags, hares, and wild-boars bounded through the underbrush; so that the place was remarkably well adapted for the chase, the supreme delight in the lives of Princes.
When Isabella, leaning on her husband's arm, began to ascend the stairs, she stumbled on the first step, so as to cause herself severe pain; smiling sadly, she turned to the Duke and said:
"This is a bad omen: a Roman would have turned back."[54]
The Duke, not being able to think of a good answer, kept silence, trying in his turn to laugh.
As soon as they reached the palace, every one repaired to his own apartments; the Duke went to those which contained the room already so minutely described, to perform his toilet.
When they had bathed in perfumed water, changed their clothes, and dressed their hair, they all met again on the piazza in front of the palace.
The sun, shorn of his rays, resembled a blood-shot eye, and the whole sky near him seemed like a lake of blood. An immense extent of country lay stretched out before the eyes of our personages, for from that height could be seen the greater part of the territories of Florence, Pistoia, Volterra, Pisa, Colle, Samminiato, and even Leghorn. Groups of houses were scattered about on the hills, like flocks of goats in their pastures; from the little cottages rose straight columns of smoke, and the sound of melancholy songs was heard from the plains, to which other voices in the distance replied in strains equally mournful. From a black cloud darted, from time to time, a tongue of flame like the sword of the avenging Archangel hidden behind it. The sun meantime is gradually sinking—now it is merely a streak of light—now it is gone! Isabella, moved by an irresistible impulse, stretched forth her arms with the despairing sorrow with which we see our dearest treasures hidden from our sight beneath the earth, and exclaimed:
"Farewell, O sun, farewell!" and covered her face with her hands.
"Farewell until to-morrow," said the Duke, "and may you rise with a brighter face than that with which you leave us. Beautiful plains, pleasant woods, and delightful ease, at last I return to enjoy you, nor will I again leave you hastily. I am weary of pursuing glory, which is never overtaken; or if overtaken, when man thinks to clasp a supreme good, his arms fall empty on his bosom. I wish to find my pleasure in domestic joys, the only true ones in the world. I reproach myself, and I ask your pardon, Isabella, and bind myself by an oath never to leave you again. I thank you, that on returning home, I have not been received as a stranger; I owe it to the excellent goodness of your disposition, that coming back, after so many years of absence, I can believe that I departed only yesterday. My heart is sick; it is for you to cure it entirely of the fever of ambition, which has wrung it so sorely."