[1] M. Dubreuil, a very skilful French physician, fell ill of a fatal distemper. His popularity filled the sick room with visitants. Calling to his intimate friend, M. Péméja, as eminent a man as himself, he said, "Send away all these people; you know my fever is contagious; no one but yourself ought to be with me now." Happy the friend who ever heard such words! Péméja died fifteen days after his heart's brother.
[CHAPTER IV.]
It was agreed that Neville and Corinne should visit Venice. They had relapsed into silence on their future prospects, but spoke of their affection more confidingly than ever: both avoided all topics that could disturb their present mutual peace. A day passed with him was to her such enjoyment! he seemed so to revel in her conversation; he followed her every impulse; studied her slightest wish, with so sustained an interest, that it appeared impossible he could bestow so much felicity without himself being happy. Corinne drew assurances of safety from the bliss she tasted. After some months of such habits we believe them inseparable from our existence. Her agitation was calmed again, and her natural heedlessness of the future returned. Yet, on the eve of quitting Rome, she became extremely melancholy: this time she both hoped and feared that it was forever. The night before her departure, unable to sleep, she heard a troop of Romans singing in the moonlight. She could not resist her desire to follow them, and once more wander through that beloved scene. She dressed; and bidding her servants keep the carriage within sight of her, put on a veil, to avoid recognition, and at some distance, pursued the musicians. They paused on the bridge of St. Angelo, in front of Adrian's tomb: in such a spot music seems to express the vanities and splendors of the world. One might fancy one beheld in the air the imperial shade wondering to find no other trace left of his power on earth except a tomb. The band continued their walk, singing as they went, to the silent night, when the happy ought to sleep: their pure and gentle melodies seem designed to solace wakeful suffering. Drawn onward by this resistless spell, Corinne, insensible to fatigue, seemed winging her way along. They also sang before Antoninus's pillar, and then at Trajan's column: they saluted the obelisk of St. John Lateran. The ideal language of music worthily mates the ideal expression of works like these: enthusiasm reigns alone, while vulgar interests slumber. At last the singers departed, and left Corinne near the Coliseum: she wished to enter its inclosure and bid adieu to ancient Rome.
Those who have seen this place but by day cannot judge of the impression it may make. The sun of Italy should shine on festivals; but the moon is the light for ruins. Sometimes, through the openings of the amphitheatre, which seems towering to the clouds, a portion of heaven's vault appears like a dark blue curtain. The plants that cling to the broken walls all wear the hues of night. The soul at once shudders and melts on finding itself alone with nature. One side of this edifice is much more fallen than the other; the two contemporaries make an unequal struggle against time. He fells the weakest; the other still resists, but soon must yield.
"Ye solemn scenes!" cried Corinne, "where, at this hour, no being breathes beside me—where but the echoes of my own voice answer me—how are the storms of passion calmed by nature, who thus peacefully permits so many generations to glide by! Has not the universe some better end than man? or are its marvels scattered here, merely to be reflected in his mind? Oswald! why do I love with such idolatry? why live but for the feelings of a day compared to the infinite hopes that unite us with divinity? My God! if it be true, as I believe, that we admire thee the more capable we are of reflection, make my own mind my refuge against my heart! The noble being whose gentle looks I can never forget is but a perishable mortal like myself. Among the stars there is eternal love, alone sufficing to a boundless heart." Corinne remained long in these ideas, and, at last, turned slowly towards her own abode; but, ere she re-entered it, she wished to await the dawn at St. Peter's, and from its dome take her last leave of all beneath. Her imagination represented this edifice as it must be, when, in its turn, a wreck—the theme of wonder for yet unborn ages. The columns, now erect, half bedded in earth; the porch dilapidated, with the Egyptian obelisk exulting over the decay of novelties, wrought for an earthly immortality. From the summit of St. Peter's Corinne beheld day rise over Rome, which, in its uncultivated Campagna, looks like the oasis of a Libyan desert. Devastation is around it; but the multitude of spires and cupolas, over which St. Peter's rises, give a strange beauty to its aspect. This city may boast one peculiar charm: we love it as an animated being: its very ruins are as friends, from whom we cannot part without farewell.
Corinne addressed the Pantheon, St. Angelo's, and all the sites that once renewed the pleasures of her fancy. "Adieu!" she said, "land of remembrances! scenes where life depends not on events, nor on society; where enthusiasm refreshes itself through the eyes, and links the soul to each external object. I leave you, to follow Oswald, not knowing to what fate he may consign me. I prefer him to the independence which here afforded me such happy days. I may return to more; but for a broken heart and blighted mind, ye arts and monuments so oft invoked, while I was exiled beneath his stormy sky, ye could do nothing to console!"
She wept; yet thought not, for an instant, of letting Oswald depart without her. Resolutions springing from the heart we often justly blame, yet hesitate not to adopt. When passion masters a superior mind, it separates our judgment from our conduct, and need not cloud the one in order to overrule the other.
Corinne's black curls and veil floating on the breeze gave her so picturesque an air, that, as she left the church, the common people recognised and followed her to her carriage with the warmest testimonials of respect. She sighed again, at parting from a race so ardent and so graceful in their expressions of esteem. Nor was this all. She had to endure the regrets of her friends They devised fêtes in order to delay her departure: their poetical tributes strove in a thousand ways to convince her that she ought to stay; and finally they accompanied her on horseback for twenty miles. She was extremely affected. Oswald cast down his eyes in confusion, reproaching himself for tearing her from so much delight, though he knew that an offer of remaining there would be more barbarous still. He appeared selfish in removing Corinne from Rome; yet he was not so; for the fear of afflicting her, by setting forth alone, had more weight with him than even the hope of retaining her presence. He knew not what he was about to do—saw nothing beyond Venice. He had written to inquire how soon his regiment would be actively employed in the war, and awaited a reply. Sometimes he thought of taking Corinne with him to England; yet instantly remembered that he should forever ruin her reputation by so doing, unless she were his wife; then he wished to soften the pangs of separation by a private marriage; but a moment afterwards gave up that plan also. "We can keep no secrets from the dead," he cried: "and what should I gain by making a mystery of a union prohibited by nothing but my worship of a tomb?" His mind, so weak in all that concerned his affections, was sadly agitated by contending sentiments. Corinne resigned herself to him, like a victim, exulting, amid her sorrows, in the sacrifices she made; while Oswald, responsible for the welfare of another, bound himself to her daily by new ties, without the power of yielding to them; and unhappy in his love as in his conscience, felt the presence of both but in their combats with each other.
When the friends of Corinne took leave, they commended her earnestly to his care; congratulated him on the love of so eminent a woman; their every word sounding like mockery and upbraiding. She felt this, and hastily concluded the trying scene; and when, after turning from time to time to salute her, they were at last lost to her sight, she only said to her lover: "Oswald! I have now no one but you in the world!" How did he long to swear he would be hers! But frequent disappointments teach us to mistrust our own inclinations, and shrink even from the vows our hearts may prompt. Corinne read his thoughts, and delicately strove to fix his attention on the country through which they travelled.