“Don Fabrizio,” continued he, “is not this your daughter, Donna Ginevra, of whom I have so often heard? Do me the favor of presenting me to her.”
My father's face assumed a severe, dissatisfied expression, and mine was covered with a livelier blush than before. “Heard of me so often?” Alas! he had probably heard me spoken unfavorably of! Perhaps this was the very thought that clouded my father's brow. Nevertheless, after a moment's hesitation, he said: “Rise, Ginevra, and pay your respects to the Duca di Valenzano.”
I rose, but without uttering a word; for I was disconcerted by the fixed, scrutinizing eye that seemed trying to read my face. I lowered my eyes, without being able to distinguish the features of this new acquaintance. I only remarked that he was tall, and had a noble air, in spite of his peculiar garb, that made him look more like a travelling artist than a person of high rank.
To Be Continued.
On The Wing. A Southern Flight. III.
“Vedi Napoli, e poi mori.”[90]
We left Rome in a storm of thunder and lightning. The rain poured in large, cold drops, pattering against the windows of the railway carriage, and adding considerably to the feelings of gloom and apprehension with which we thought of Rome—as Rome is now. When should we visit the Eternal City again? And would the veil of sadness which now falls on all that is dear and sacred to the Catholic be raised once more in our time? Mary was very silent for some hours of our long journey; and while I, with my habitual curiosity, was peering through the rain-washed window to discover the beauties of the glorious country through which we were rushing, she lay back with closed eyes, absorbed in thought; while Frank, with a fixed frown on his face, was reading and rustling, and finally crumpling up, in paroxysms of anger, the numerous Italian papers that he had bought by handfuls at the station. Presently Mary opened her eyes once more, and condescended to recognize the great fact that we were travelling further and further to the glorious South. I do not think I felt less intensely than my sister the sorrow that attends all reflection on the present condition of the great centre of Christendom and the position of the Father of the faithful. But my grief is apt to take another form from that of Mary's or Frank's. Mary grows silent and outwardly calm. Frank becomes gloomy. I am more irritable; and irritability leads to activity. My mind was working with an incessant rapidity, and the impulse to catch sight once more of every shred that could carry me back to happier times, and recall once more the memories of the past, kept me straining my eyes to get a glimpse of Albano, where we had spent a long, happy summer when the Holy Father was at Castel Gandolfo. Should I catch sight of Lavinia, Æneas' own city, the object of so many excursions in those happy days? Should I see those hills covered with chestnuts, bare of leaves now, beneath whose shade I had so often rested? Even Velletri, though not in itself a specially interesting place, had the charm of association. I remembered how I had gone to spend a long day there, and had wandered to the gates of some private house with a large garden. I had stood looking through the iron bars on a little paradise, but, as usual in Italy, a paradise in disorder. Stone vases stood on a balustrade, filled with bright flowers, but also with weeds. The fertile valley lay below, and beyond the blue and purple mountains rose in tiers one above another, with soft, violet shadows [pg 348] and dim blue mists; and here and there a peak of rugged rock, on which the sun struck bright and keen. A long avenue of shady plane-trees was to my right. A solitary peasant drove his mule, with balanced panniers and pointed ears like two notes of admiration against the sky, far as my eye could reach down the green distance. I longed to wander on; to follow the flickering lights along that silent road, and know that it would lead me out to the Pontine Marshes, with the rugged Abruzzi beyond. Here, too, rests the body of Hyacinthe Mariscotti, a Franciscan nun, who died in 1640, and whose life, less known out of Italy than it deserves, is one of the most marvellous in its union of great graces and great sufferings.
The rain pelted hard; the lightning made me, from time to time, shrink back suddenly; but still I strained my eyes to catch sight of the shifting scene, and allowed memories to reawaken and imagination to throw its glamour over the past and the future.
Many of the stations along this road are at some distance from the towns whose name they bear; and this, of course, diminishes a little the interest of the journey. For instance, Aquino, the birthplace of the great father of the church, S. Thomas Aquinas, is about a mile off. Near here we were, for a time, to take leave of Frank. He had made up his mind to visit the cradle of the great saint before proceeding to Monte Casino, where he had made arrangements to spend at least a week. Our readers are no doubt well aware that Monte Casino is no longer what it was. Its glories have been shorn by the present government, as the rays of the sun are shorn by the twilight. There are comparatively very few monks of the order of S. Benedict still allowed to reside there. Amongst them, however, Frank had formed a real friendship; and for a month previous, at least, Mary and I had heard him descanting upon all the charms that he was to find in that wonderful retreat of learning and sanctity. Partly to tease him, and partly to be revenged for the fact that I must be for ever excluded, I generally replied to his enthusiasm by making a wry face and uttering the words, “Kid, rancid oil, and garlic.” Then he would toss back that tiresome stray lock which is always trying to shade his beautiful violet eyes, and reply, with a smile, “Oh! I shall not mind.” The train stops a very short time at San Germano, the station for the Monastery of Monte Casino, and we had a hurried leave-taking. I was endeavoring to collect a few of his newspapers, which I thought he had not half read, and put them into his hand as he left the carriage. “No, no, dear Jane. Do you think I would pollute those sacred walls by carrying there all that blasphemous stuff.” And he leapt out just as we began to move on.