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denis ne enh
Dodo's iterary Basen,
155
stepped from the gondola and entered the
theater, the lights, the audience, the strange
scene bewildered and confounded him.
But in a moment the gentle hand of
Viola rested on his own, her sweet voice
was in his ear, and by her side he passed
out upon the stage. Ilis agitation was
gone; a half-anxious glance from Violetta,
as the stunning applause which had greeted
their entrance died away, told him how
much depended on his efforts that night,
and seating himself by his harp, he bent
gracefully forward, and fixing his dark eyes
upon the face of his benefactress, he struck
a clear, ringing prelude from the instrument.
Softly at first like the murmur of a summer
cascade, Viola’s voice joined the strain;
then gushing out clear, and full, and
swect, she seemed to electrify those who
listened to her tones.
The boy-harper played on, never taking
his eyes from that face from whence seemed
to spring the lofty inspiration of his chords,
and the dazzling lights, the crowded. audi-
ence, the shouts of reiterated applause, were
as nothing. to his ear; he heard only the
tones of Viola’s voice, saw only her pure
bright face bent slightly forward, felt only
that he played for Viola and that Viola
listened.
Again and agan came the deafening
shouts of applause. Again and again the
clear voice of Violetta fell upon his ear;
still. it all seemed like a mazy dream, an
unreal state of intoxicating joy, a delusion
of the senses which must soon be broken.
He saw himself at last, following Viola
from the stage; the lights were fading, the
audience was gone, and he sank down upon
a low seat, and rested his head upon his
harp, and wept, in very fullness of soul.
A flutter of white robes swept near him,
and the next instant Violetta, clasping bis
trembling hands in both of hers, bent her
beautiful brow upon them, and mingled her
tears with his own.
“Boy,” she exclaimed, suddenly’ lifting
her head and brushing back the locks which
had falled over his forehead, “boy, thou
hast surpassed my wildest hopes, my highest
expectations! thou hast immortalized thyself
and me. Henceforth thy fortune is made—
thy name enrolled among the great ones of
the age—thy harp and voice among. the
undying themes which men delight to
treasure. Ere long, when a few more
years are added to thy age, we must part.
Thou canst find fame and fortune more
quickly alone than following the steps of a
poor cantatrice like Violetta.”
“Nay,”’ returned the youth, starting to
his feet. “To whom do I owe my. success,
my advancement, except to Viola? ‘Jesu
Maria! what had I been without her? No,”
he continued, lifting a small golden cross to
his lips, “we shall not. part} and ‘by this I
swear, that while this bosom holds a heart,
and while this hand can sweep a-harp, that
heart, and hand,. and: harp are all .Violet-
ta’s own.’ Part?» Holy Virgin defend us
What‘ would’ Bernardo have been but
an humble’ peasant boy, had not Violetta
deigned to notice him ?”
With her own sweet smile, half-wonder-
ing and half-sad, Viola gazed into his eyes
a moment, then with a low sigh answered,
«Thou art an enthusiast, boy. The time
is not now for us to part, but when it comes,
if it finds you unwilling to go and Teady
still . to follow my lontly fortunes, be it so;
Heaven knows life would be drear enough
without thee.”
From that time,’ wherever + Violetta sang
win laurels and fame, and everywhere was
Violetta sought by many admirers, and those
who felt a warmer flame, and some who
would have given years of life to have won
the fair Italian, and worn her as their own.
There was a peculiar beauty about her
which invested her with new and touching
charms. She had inherited the blue eyes
and golden hair of her English mother, with
much of the nature and grace, and striking
beauty of feature of her Italian father; and
this alone, apart from her witchery of smile
and manner, rendered her a star of daz-
zling brillianey among the dark-eyed daugh-
ters of her native land.
They left Venice, and traveled through
the valley of the Rhine—Bernardo and the
beautiful Viola. It was not strange that
one so fair and famed as she should find so
many suitors, but it was strange that of the
many, none could touch the lady’s heart.
To Bernardo she was ever. the. gentle
friend, the sweet mentor, and the fond
sister; to him she seemed ever to turn for
the protection she needed, the sympathy
she earned ; and the youth was harboring
in his young heart a strange wild passion, a
flame struggling to burst forth, a fire un-
damped: by the superiority of years, of
judgment, and of mind, in her whom he
had made his idol.
One night they sat together in their
rooms at. Cologne, and the silvery moon-
light swept in a flood of mellow light, touch-
ing here and there the. strings of the harp
over which Bernardo was bending, and
lighting up the face of Viola, which showed
an unusual palencss, and. upon whose brow
and lip there lay a touch of sadness the boy
had never seen there before. Now and
then he allowed his hand to sweep some
gentle tones from the. instrument before
him, or hunmed some sweet air which had
been Violetta’s favorite ;, but all his skill
failed to attract her attention, and she still
sat sad and pale, with the moonlight falling
round her.
Suddenly the boy started up and. flung
himself upon his knees before her. Often
before had-he done the same, but never
with the same emotions in his heart as now.
He took the white resistless hand between
his own, and lifting his face towards Viola’s,
poured forth a strain of sweet impassioned
eloquence of which she had not deemed
him capable. Never’ was'a tale of love
poured from more earnest or innocent lips
than those. It was man-love gushing from
a boy-heart, a heart at once exalted and
subdued; enriched and impoverished by
the beauty, the talent, and more than all,
the noble kindness of the being before him.
There came no scorn upon the lady’s lip
as she listened, but a tear dimmed her large
soft eye, and dropped like a sparkling gem
upon the bowed head before her. . ‘
“ Bemardo, are you no longer my broth-
er?”
«Viola! Viola!”
“ Alas, poor boy, thy wisdom should have
taught thee differently. I grieve for thy
disappointment, yet can but hope’ thou hast
mistaken a brother-love for an intenser
passion. Violetta is thy sister; always thy
sister, but thy bride, Bernardo, never.”
An hour went by, and at the fect of
Violetta «the boy-lover had learned a new
lesson.’ There, in the pale moonlight, listen-
ing to her kindly words, he learned to feel
the space which years had placed between
their hearts; and there, loving her none the
less, chiding her none the more, he listened
as she‘ confessed to hin her new-born love
for another.
Bernardo played, and everywhere did they
Tlow the boy wondered at his blindness in
not seeing it before; how he repented the
rashness which had wrung those tears from
Viola’s eyes ; how he struggled to crush the
doubts which swarmed his breast when he
pondered on her choice.
Vernon St. Clair had met them at Vero-
na, and traveling in the same direction .as
themselves, had been thrown almost. con-
stantly in their company. He was a young
Englishman of birth and fortune, of most
captivating address and agreeable person.
From the first, he had shown himself’ capti-
vated by the charms of the beautful Italian,
but Bernardo had thought him but one of
the many score of Violetta’s lovers, and fan-
cied she looked upon him as the same. . But
there was a difference between him and
those who usually thronged her path; there
was an enthusiasm, a grace, a loftiness of
soul which none other had possessed, and
either he was the semblance of truth itself,
congenial in all respects to the tastes of the
cantatrice, or he was a most consummate
deceiver.
Bernardo liked him not. There was a
carelessness, a looseness (if we may use the
term) about him when not in the presence
of Viola, which shocked and disgusted him ;
but now that she had listened to his vows of
love, and given her own long cherished
affection in return, the boy felt as if St.
Clair had become hallowed by that gift,
and he knew moreover that he would never
dare to approach the pure-minded and gen-
tle Viola with other vows than those a preist
might sanctify, and a church receive - within
its bosom.
Time went on, and St. Clair became a
constant companion of Violetta’s leisure
hours, He attended her to the. theater,
offered her his carriage: to return, sent her
flowers, and books, and gems of ; rare value
and beauty.
Bernardo was not alway swith ‘them when
they met, but often when he wonld rise to
leave them alone, and Viola would lay her
white hand upon his arm and bid him, stay,
he would see a dark frown flit over the
Englishman's face like a cloud over a sum-
mer. landscape, and: see his . white tecth
pressed fiercely into his full under lip with
but half-concealed anger.
Bernardo watched him closely. The
happiness of his life’s idol was at stake, and
he would have periled ‘life to save her from
a bitter hour. ) But there came nothing to
justify suspicion, and at) length they re-
turned to Rome, and after some little delay,
during which Violetta was introduced to
several of St. Clair’s English friends who
were stopping there, they were married;
and Bernardo, as he saw the ceremony per-
formed by a priest whom he, had never
seen before, heaved a sigh to his own lost
love, and craved a blessing on Viola’s.
Viola’s .happiness seemed now secured,
and she determined , to give up the | stage
and seek the calmer pleasures of domestic
bliss: There was too little love between
St. Clair and Bernardo for’ them to wish to
live together, and, sad as the separation
was. between Viola and her protégé, they
parted.
Through ‘all the principal cities , of Eu-
rope the boy sang his songs and played his
harp alone, often cheered and encouraged
by the letters of his benefactress, whose ear
drank in with pride his growing fame, and
whose heart still cherished for him a sister's
gentle love.:
But by degrees, her letters grew less and
less frequent, and‘ the youth detected in
them a, tone of unusual sadness, half-con-
cealed, yet all too plainly visible to that
love-quickened eye.
With an undefined dread in his bosom,
he sang his songs with trembling lips, and
when he found the eagerly sought-for let-
ters ceased altogether, he threw aside his
harp and hastened with all speed to Gen-
eva, where the last epistle had been dated.
He found Violetta, but how changed!
The rose had fled from her cheek, the light
from her eye, thé smile from her lip. He
could scarce believe it was the same gay-
hearted, light-lipped Viola whom he had
left so happy two short years before. Hers
was a sad tale. With a full heart she
poured it on Bernardo’s ear, and won his
deepest sympathy in return.
For six months after her marriage, she
said, there could have been none more blest,
more happy than herself. But then St.
Clair had found new English friends at
Rome, who were gay and careless and idle,
like himself. He began to neglect her then,
and often spent days from her side, with his
dissolute companions. He had not proved
to be so rich as she had supposed when she
became his wife, and his resources soon
being exhausted under the vast demands of
high play and gay friends, he drew upon
her store for more... At first, she had de-
murred and he had promised better things;
but his promises were unkept; and when
she saw him wasting health, and happiness,
and gold so frivolously, she had begged and
implored him to change his course; but he
gave her only rude answers or sneering
jests, and when she saw her fortune melting
away like dew, she claimed justice as his
wife, and remembrance for the child that
so soon would lay in her bosom.
Then he grew fierce with wrath, and
swore she was not his wife, that he had
sought to achieve a triumph in carrying to
his own breast the flower so many had tried -
to pluck; that one of his friends, properly
disguised, had performed the ceremony, and
he had lingered with her whilé she pleased
him, and was free to cast her off when she
vexed him; that the marriage was false, and
her claims on him were nought.
This blow had struck her fenseless, and
when she recovered, it was to find herself
alone, robbed of half her fortune, wretched
and desolate. Her babe, her little girl, had
come like a ray of sunshine through the
clouds to cheer her, and she had twined it
in her heart as a last hope to cling to while
she lived. She had written to Bernardo —
after her removal to Geneva, but she could
not thrust her sorrows between him and his
fame, and so had hushed them in her own
breast, and found her sole joys in her dar-
ling child ‘and Bernardo’s happiness.
“ Viola, Viola!”: cried Bernardo, in. the
accent of other and unforgotten days, “why
shouldst thou shut me from thy confidence,
thou who hast done all for me? Tell what /
I may ‘now do to show my gratitude, my
love. I-have gold, I have strength; thon
hast but to command for me to obey.”
With a faint smile in which lingered some
traces of the unclouded brilliancy of. the
day when she sought him in the ‘cottage
door, Violetta lifted’ her sad eyes *feoxi the
face of her babe, and said,“
“Dost love thy chisel as of ala, Ber-
nardo, or does the harp alone claim thy § ate
tention now ?”
“Nay, lady, I love the chisel and the
marble with the same ardor; but do not, I ,
pray thee, seek to turn my thoughts from
thy sufferings, Tell me what I may do to «,
serve, thee.”
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