After a brief pause of rapturous contemplation, we resumed our wine-flasks, our cheerfulness rose into exhilaration, and we reposed like sylvan deities in the green shade, enjoying the elasticity and freshness of youthful existence, forgetful of the past and regardless of the future. But this daydream was too delightful to last. I recollected that I had not heard the sequel of Colonna’s adventures in Venice, and I broke the spell by whispering in his ear the name of “Laura.”
“Alas!” he replied, with visible emotion, “I fear this incomparable woman will never be mine, unless miracle or magic should interpose to vanquish the many obstacles to our union. Our interviews in Venice were attended with such imminent hazard of discovery, as to render them brief and of rare occurrence. My adored Laura was in the morning of life, and with the creative imagination of early youth, she cherished sanguine hopes that the death of the infirm Cosmo would, ere long, enable me to resume rank and property, and to demand her openly of her father. Until then, my resources were merely adequate to my personal support, being limited to a small maternal estate, left under the friendly guardianship of my aunt.
“Nevertheless, plans of elopement were frequently discussed, and I vehemently urged her to become mine, and to accompany me to Greece, from whence, after I had accomplished a momentous object, we could embark for Marseilles, and proceed to Paris, where my skill as a painter, in addition to my maternal estate, would preserve us from indigence. As she did not peremptorily forbid me to expect her consent to this scheme, I ventured to build upon it; but when my preparations for flight were completed, her resolution failed, and I discovered, in the deeply-rooted attachment of Laura to her mother, an insuperable obstacle to the accomplishment of my purpose. For this kind and indulgent parent her affection was all but idolatrous; and when she told me, with tearful eyes and throbbing bosom, that her beloved mother was in precarious health, that she was entirely dependent on her only daughter for earthly happiness, and that the loss of that daughter would destroy her, I must have been dead to every generous and disinterested feeling had I not complied with her earnest entreaty, that we should await a more favourable course of events.
“Meanwhile the distinguished beauty and numberless graces of Laura attracted many suitors. Some of these were not ineligible, and one of them especially, young Contarini—whose passion for her was ardent, almost to frenzy—was a man of noble qualities, of prepossessing exterior, and of equal rank, but, as you well know, too moderately endowed with the gifts of fortune. Every proposal was, however, promptly rejected by the ambitious Foscari, who, like a cold and calculating trader, measured the merits of each suitor by the extent of his possessions. At length, after the conclusion of the war with Turkey in the spring, arrived from Greece the governor of Candia, Ercole Barozzo, whose splendid establishment and lavish expenditure attracted universal attention. His originally large possessions had been swelled into princely opulence by clandestine traffic with the enemy, and by every species of cruelty and exaction. His wife and two infant sons had fallen victims to the plague in the Levant; and being desirous of children to inherit his vast possessions, he surveyed the fair daughters of Venice, and was quickly fascinated by the superlative beauty of Laura Foscari, who shone unrivalled in a city distinguished for the beauty of the softer sex. Barozzo was not a suitor to be rejected by her sordid father; and, without any appeal to his daughter’s inclinations, her hand was promised to a man of more than twice her age, forbidding in his exterior, coarse and revolting in his manners, and utterly destitute of redeeming qualities. I had determined, before my acquaintance with you commenced, to make occasional visits during the summer to Peschiera, and I hesitated to accept your proposal, from an apprehension that it would impede my interviews with Laura. On farther consideration, however, I perceived that my abode under your roof would not be incompatible with nocturnal visits to the Villa Foscari, and I became your guest. My interviews with Laura have been more frequent in this quiet and rural district, than in the narrow streets and numerous obstacles of Venice. The wide extent of her father’s garden enables me to scale the wall unperceived, and to reach a garden saloon communicating by a covered trellice walk with the villa. Laura’s abhorrence of the presuming and insolent Barozzo has proved a powerful auxiliary to my renewed entreaties that she would fly with me from the miseries which menace her, and I have recently succeeded in obtaining her reluctant consent to accompany me to Genoa, and from thence to Greece. A fortnight hence is appointed for the celebration of her marriage to the wretch who basely wooes her, with a consciousness of her unqualified antipathy to his person and character. If the strong attachment of Laura to her mother does not again baffle my hopes, we shall effect our escape three days before the one appointed for her marriage with Barozzo; but I can discern too well, through her invincible dejection, that she is still balancing the dreadful alternatives of a marriage abhorrent to her feelings, and the abandonment of her mother.”
Such was the tale of Colonna’s brief, but trying and calamitous career. Deeply as I lamented his approaching departure, I felt too much interested in his success to withhold my active co-operation, and I pledged myself to promote his views as far as I could, without openly compromising myself with the Foscari family; but I entreated him to relinquish his design of painting the portraits of Laura and Barozzo, from an apprehension that a lover so fervent and demonstrative would, in some unguarded moment, excite suspicion, and frustrate the accomplishment of his ultimate views. He thanked me for the ready zeal with which I had entered into his feelings, and assured me that he had no intention of proceeding beyond the outlines of the governor’s portrait; but that, as a lover and an artist, he could not deny himself the gratification of portraying the matchless form and features of the woman he adored.
The day was declining when we quitted our cool retreat to ascend the mountain behind us, and inhale the pure breezes which played around its summit. We gazed with long and lingering delight upon the bright landscapes of Lombardy, as they glowed beneath us in the parting sunbeams, and the shades of night were fast falling around us when we crossed the lake on our return to the villa.
CHAPTER IV.
Early on the following morning, the younger brother of Laura called to request the promised attendance of Colonna at the Villa Foscari, and I determined to accompany him, hoping, by my presence, to remind the young painter of the necessity of exercising a vigilant control over his feelings. The precaution was, however, unnecessary. He sustained, with singular self-mastery, the demeanour of an artist and a stranger; and appeared, while sketching the form and features of his lovely mistress, to have no other object than to seize the most important and characteristic peculiarities of his model. He requested that she would occasionally walk round the saloon, and freely indulge in familiar converse with her friends, as if no artist were present. His object was, he added, to accomplish, not a tame and lifeless copy, but a portrait, stamped with those peculiar attributes and graces which are best elicited by a free and unconstrained movement of limb and feature.
Thus admirably did he mask the lover, and assume the look and language of an artist ambitious to recommend himself to opulent employers.
The sensitive and unhappy Laura had less command over her feelings, and I could occasionally observe a furtive glance beaming from her dark and humid eye upon the elegant painter; but when she addressed him, it was with the air and language of condescension to one whose services might be purchased; thus endeavouring to disguise the strong and almost irrepressible emotion which quivered beneath the surface.