Count D'Erfeuil, having passed some time in Switzerland, wearied of nature 'mid the Alps, as he had tired of the arts at Rome, and suddenly resolved to visit England. He had heard that he should find much depth of thought there, and woke one morning to the conviction of that being the very thing he wished to meet. This third search after pleasure had succeeded no better than its predecessors, but his regard for Nevil spurred him on; and he assured himself, another morning, that friendship was the greatest bliss on earth; therefore he went to Scotland. Not seeing Oswald at his home, but learning that he was gone to Lady Edgarmond's, the Count leaped on his horse to follow; so much did he believe that he longed to meet him. As he rode quickly on, he saw a female extended motionless upon the road, and instantly dismounted to assist her. What was his horror at recognizing, through their mortal paleness, the features of Corinne! With the liveliest sympathy he helped his servant to arrange some branches as a litter, intending to convey her to Lady Edgarmond's, when Thérésina, who till now had remained in her mistress's carriage, alarmed at her absence, came to the spot, and, certain that no one but Lord Nevil could have reduced her lady to this stats, begged that she might be borne to the neighboring town. The Count followed her; and for eight days, during which she suffered all the delirium of fever, he never left her. Thus it was the frivolous man who proved faithful, while the man of sentiment was breaking her heart. This contrast struck Corinne, when she recovered her senses, and she thanked d'Erfeuil with great feeling: he replied by striving to console her, more capable of noble actions than of serious conversation. Corinne found him useful, but could not make him her friend. She strove to recall her reason, and think over what had passed; but it was long ere she could remember all she had done, and from what motive. Then, perhaps, she thought her sacrifice too great; and hoped, at least, to bid Lord Nevil a last adieu, ere she left England; but the day after she regained her faculties chance threw a newspaper in her way, which contained the following paragraph:——
"Lady Edgarmond has lately learned that her step-daughter, who she believed had died in Italy, is still enjoying great literary celebrity at Rome, under the name of Corinne. Her ladyship, much to her own honor, acknowledges the fair poet, and is desirous of sharing with her the fortune left by Lord Edgarmond's brother, who died in India. The marriage contract was yesterday signed, between his Lordship's youngest daughter (the only child of his widow) and Lord Nevil, who, on Sunday next, leads Miss Lucy Edgarmond to the altar."
Unfortunately, Corinne lost not her consciousness after reading this announcement; a sudden change took place within her; all the interests of life were lost; she felt like one condemned to death, who had not known, till now, when her sentence would be executed; and from this moment the resignation of despair was the only sensation of her breast. D'Erfeuil entered her room, and, finding her even paler than while in her swoon, anxiously asked her the news. She replied gravely: "I am no longer ill; to-morrow is the Sabbath: I will go to Plymouth, and embark for Italy."—"I shall accompany you," he ardently returned. "I've nothing to detain me here, and shall be charmed at travelling with you."—"How truly good you are!" she said: "we ought not to judge from appearances." Then, after checking herself, added: "I accept your guidance to the seaport, because I am not sure of my own; but, once on board, the ship will bear me on, no matter in what state I may be." She signed for him to leave her, and wept long before her God, begging him to support her beneath this sorrow. Nothing was left of the impetuous Corinne. The active powers of her life were all exhausted; and this annihilation, for which she could scarcely account, restored her composure. Grief had subdued her. Sooner or later all rebellious heads must bow to the same yoke.
"It is to-day!" sighed Corinne, as she woke: "it is to-day!" and entered her carriage with d'Erfeuil. He questioned her, but she could not reply. They passed a church: she asked his leave to enter for a moment; then, kneeling before the altar, prayed for Oswald and for Lucy: but when she would have risen she staggered, and could not take one step without the support of Thérésina and the Count, who had followed her. All present made way for her, with every demonstration of pity. "I look very miserable, then?" she said: "the young and lovely, at this hour, are leaving such a scene in triumph." The Count scarcely understood these words. Kind as he was, and much as he loved Corinne, he soon wearied of her sadness, and strove to draw her from it, as if we had only to say we will forget all woes of life, and do so. Sometimes he cried: "I told you how it would be." Strange mode of comforting; but such is the satisfaction which vanity tastes at the expense of misfortune. Corinne fruitlessly strove to conceal her sufferings; for we are ashamed of strong affections in the presence of the light-minded, and bashful in all feelings that must be explained ere comprehended—those secrets of the heart that can only be consoled by those who guess them, Corinne was displeased with herself, as not sufficiently grateful for the Count's devotion to her service; but in his looks, his words, his accents, there were so much which wandered in search of amusement, that she was often on the point of forgetting his generous actions, as he did himself. It is doubtless very magnanimous to set small price on our own good deeds, but that indifference, so admirable in itself, may be carried to an extreme which approaches an unfeeling levity.
Corinne, during her delirium, had betrayed nearly all her secrets—the papers had since apprised d'Erfeuil of the rest. He often wished to talk of what he called her affairs, but that word alone sufficed to freeze her confidence; and she entreated him to spare her the pain of breathing Lord Nevil's name. In parting with the Count, Corinne knew not how to express herself; for she was at once glad to anticipate being alone, and grieved to lose a man who had behaved so well towards her. She strove to thank him, but he begged her so naturally not to speak of it, that she obeyed: charging him to inform Lady Edgarmond that she refused the legacy of her uncle; and to do so, as if she had sent this message from Italy; for she did not wish her step-mother to know she had been in England. "Nor Nevil?" asked the Count. "You may tell him soon, yes, very soon; my friends in Rome will let you know when."—"Take care of your health, at least," he added: "don't you know that I am uneasy about you?"—"Really!" she exclaimed, smiling, "not without cause, I believe." He offered her his arm to the vessel: at that moment she turned towards England, the country she must never more behold, where dwelt the sole object of her love and grief, and her eyes filled with the first sad tears she had ever shed in d'Erfeuil's presence. "Lovely Corinne!" he said, "forget that ingrate! think of the friends so tenderly attached to you, and recollect your own advantages with pleasure." She withdrew her hand from him, and stepped back some paces; then blaming herself for this reproof, gently returned to bid him adieu: but he, having perceived nothing of what passed in her mind, got into the boat with her; recommended her earnestly to the captain's care; busied himself most endearingly on all the details that could render her passage agreeable: and, when rowed ashore, waved his handkerchief to the ship as long as he could be seen. Corinne returned his salute. Alas! was this the friend on whose attentions she ought to have been thrown? Light loves last long; they are not tied so tight that they can break. They are obscured or brought to light by circumstances, while deep affections fly, never to return; and in their places leave but cureless wounds.
[CHAPTER II.]
A favorable breeze bore Corinne to Leghorn in less than a month: she suffered from fever the whole time; and her debility was such that grief of mind was confused with the pain of illness; nothing seemed now distinct. She hesitated, on landing, whether she should proceed to Rome, or no; but though her best friends awaited her, she felt an insurmountable repugnance to living in the scenes where she had known Oswald. She thought of that door through which he came to her twice every day; and the prospect of being there without him was too dreary. She decided on going to Florence; and believing that her life could not long resist her sorrows, thus intended to detach herself by degrees from the world, by living alone, far from those who loved her, from the city that witnessed her success, whose inhabitants would strive to reanimate her mind, expect her to appear what she had been, while her discouraged heart found every effort odious. In crossing fertile Tuscany, approaching flower-breathed Florence, Corinne felt but an added sadness. How dreadful the despair which such skies fail to calm! One must feel either love or religion, in order to appreciate nature; and she had lost the first of earthly blessings, without having yet recovered the peace which piety alone can afford the unfortunate. Tuscany, a well-cultivated, smiling land, strikes not the imagination as do the environs of Rome and Naples. The primitive institutions of its early inhabitants have been so effaced, that there scarcely remains one vestige of them; but another species of historic beauty exists in their stead—cities that bear the impress of the Middle Ages. At Sienna, the public square wherein the people assembled, the balcony from which their magistrate harangued them, must catch the least reflecting eye, as proofs that there once flourished a democratic government. It is a real pleasure to hear the Tuscans, even of the lowest classes, speak; their fanciful phrases give one an idea of that Athenian Greek, which sounded like a perpetual melody. It is a strange sensation to believe one's self amid a people all equally educated, all elegant; such is the illusion which, for a moment, the purity of their language creates.
The sight of Florence recalls its history, previous to the Medicean sway. The palaces of its best families are built like fortresses: without, are still seen the iron rings, to which the standards of each party were attached. All things seem to have been more arranged for the support of individual powers, than for their union in a common cause. The city appears formed for civil war. There are towers attached to the Hall of Justice, whence the approach of the enemy could be discerned. Such were the feuds between certain houses, that you find dwellings inconveniently constructed, because their lords would not let them extend to the ground on which that of some foe had been pulled down. Here the Pazzi conspired against the De Medici; there the Guelfs assassinated the Ghibellines. The marks of struggling rivalry are everywhere visible, though but in senseless stones. Nothing is now left for any pretenders but an inglorious state, not worth disputing. The life led in Florence has become singularly monotonous: its natives walk every afternoon on the banks of the Arno, and every evening ask one another if they have been there. Corinne settled at a little distance from the town; and let Prince Castel Forte know this, in the only letter she had strength to write: such was her horror of all habitual actions, that even the fatigue of giving the slightest order redoubled her distress. She sometimes passed her day in complete inactivity, retired to her pillow, rose again, opened a book, without the power to comprehend a line of it. Oft did she remain whole hours at her window; then would walk rapidly in her garden, cull its flowers, and seek to deaden her senses in their perfume; but the consciousness of life pursued her, like an unrelenting host: she strove in vain to calm the devouring faculty of thought, which no longer presented her with varied images; but one lone idea, armed with a thousand stings, that pierced her heart.