Edith Wharton: Complete Works. Edith Wharton

along the water-terrace

      Perch like sea-gulls in a row.

      There’s a garden on the Brenta

      Where the fairest ladies meet,

      Picking roses from the trellis

      For the gallants at their feet.

      There’s an arbor on the Brenta

      Made of yews that screen the light,

      Where I kiss my girl at midday

      Close as lovers kiss at night.

      The players soon emerged at this call and presently the deck resounded with song and laughter. All the company were familiar with the Venetian barcaroles, and Castelrovinato’s lute was passed from hand to hand, as one after another, incited by the Marquess’s Canary, tried to recall some favorite measure—La biondina in gondoleta or Guarda, che bella luna.

      Meanwhile life was stirring in the villages and gardens, and groups of people were appearing on the terraces overhanging the water. Never had Odo beheld a livelier scene. The pillared houses with their rows of statues and vases, the flights of marble steps descending to the gilded river-gates, where boats bobbed against the landings and boatmen gossiped in the shade of their awnings; the marble trellises hung with grapes, the gardens where parterres of flowers and parti-colored gravel alternated with the dusk of tunnelled yew-walks; the company playing at bowls in the long alleys, or drinking chocolate in gazebos above the river; the boats darting hither and thither on the stream itself, the travelling-chaises, market-wagons and pannier-asses crowding the causeway along the bank—all were unrolled before him with as little effect of reality as the episodes woven in some gaily-tinted tapestry. Even the peasants in the vineyards seemed as merry and thoughtless as the quality in their gardens. The vintage-time is the holiday of the rural year and the day’s work was interspersed with frequent intervals of relaxation. At the villages where the burchiello touched for refreshments, handsome young women in scarlet bodices came on board with baskets of melons, grapes, figs and peaches; and under the trellises on the landings, lads and girls with flowers in their hair were dancing the monferrina to the rattle of tambourines or the chant of some wandering ballad-singer. These scenes were so engaging to the comedians that they could not be restrained from going ashore and mingling in the village diversions; and the Marquess, though impatient to rejoin his divinity, was too volatile not to be drawn into the adventure. The whole party accordingly disembarked, and were presently giving an exhibition of their talents to the assembled idlers, the Pantaloon, Harlequin and Doctor enacting a comical intermezzo which Cantapresto had that morning composed for them, while Scaramouch and Columbine joined the dancers, and the rest of the company, seizing on a train of donkeys laden with vegetables for the Venetian market, stripped these patient animals of their panniers, and mounting them bareback, started a Corso around the village square amid the invectives of the drivers and the applause of the crowd.

      Day was declining when the Marquess at last succeeded in driving his flock to their fold, and the moon sent a quiver of brightness across the water as the burchiello touched at the landing of a villa set amid close-massed foliage high above the river. Gardens peopled with statues descended from the portico of the villa to the platform on the water’s edge, where a throng of boatmen in the Procuratore’s livery hurried forward to receive the Marquess and his companions. The comedians, sobered by the magnificence of their surroundings, followed their leader like awe-struck children. Light and music poured from the long façade overhead, but the lower gardens lay hushed and dark, the air fragrant with unseen flowers, the late moon just burnishing the edges of the laurel-thickets from which, now and again, a nightingale’s song gushed in a fountain of sound. Odo, spell-bound, followed the others without a thought of his own share in the adventure. Never before had beauty so ministered to every sense. He felt himself lost in his surroundings, absorbed in the scent and murmur of the night.

      —————

III.

      On the upper terrace a dozen lacqueys with wax-lights hastened out to receive the travellers. A laughing group followed, headed by a tall vivacious woman covered with jewels, whom Odo guessed to be the Procuratessa Brà. The Marquess, hastening forward, kissed the lady’s hand, and turned to summon the actors, who hung back at the farther end of the terrace. The light from the windows and from the lacqueys’ tapers fell full on the motley band, and Odo, roused to the singularity of his position, was about to seek shelter behind the Pantaloon when he heard a cry of recognition, and Mirandolina, darting out of the Procuratessa’s circle, fell at that lady’s feet with a whispered word.

      The Procuratessa at once advanced with a smile of surprise and bade the cavaliere Valsecca welcome. Seeing Odo’s embarrassment, she added that his Highness of Monte Alloro had already apprised her of the cavaliere’s coming, and that she and her husband had the day before despatched a messenger to Venice to enquire if he were already there and to invite him to the villa. At the same moment a middle-aged man with an air of careless kindly strength emerged from the house and greeted Odo.

      “I am happy,” said he bowing, “to receive at Bellocchio a member of the princely house of Pianura; and your excellency will no doubt be as well-pleased as ourselves that accident enables us to make acquaintance without the formalities of an introduction.”

      This, then, was the famous Procuratore Brà, whose house had given three Doges to Venice, and who was himself regarded as the most powerful if not the most scrupulous noble of his day. Odo had heard many tales of his singularities, for in a generation of elegant triflers his figure stood out with the ruggedness of a granite boulder in a clipped and gravelled garden. To hereditary wealth and influence he added a love of power seconded by great political sagacity and an inflexible will. If his means were not always above suspicion they at least tended to statesmanlike ends, and in his public capacity he was faithful to the highest interests of the state. Reports differed as to his private use of his authority. He was noted for his lavish way of living, and for a hospitality which distinguished him from the majority of his class, who, however showy in their establishments, seldom received strangers, and entertained each other only on the most ceremonious occasions. The Procuratore kept open house both in Venice and on the Brenta, and in his drawing-rooms the foreign traveller was welcomed as freely as in Paris or London. Here, too, were to be met the wits, musicians and literati whom a traditional morgue still excluded from many aristocratic houses. Yet in spite of his hospitality (or perhaps because of it) the Procuratore, as Odo knew, was the butt of the very poets he entertained, and the worst-satirized man in Venice. It was his misfortune to be in love with his wife; and this state of mind (in itself sufficiently ridiculous) and the shifts and compromises to which it reduced him, were a source of endless amusement to the humorists. Nor were graver rumors wanting; for it was known that the Procuratore, so proof against other persuasions, was helpless in his wife’s hands, and that honest men had been undone and scoundrels exalted at a nod of the beautiful Procuratessa. That lady, as famous in her way as her husband, was noted for quite different qualities; so that, according to one satirist, her hospitality began where his ended, and the Albergo Brà (the nickname their palace went by) was advertised in the lampoons of the day as furnishing both bed and board. In some respects, however, the tastes of the noble couple agreed, both delighting in music, wit, good company, and all the adornments of life; while, with regard to their private conduct, it doubtless suffered by being viewed through the eyes of a narrow and trivial nobility, apt to look with suspicion on any deviation from the customs of their class.

      Such was the household in which Odo found himself unexpectedly included. He learned that his hosts were in the act of entertaining the English Duke who had captured his burchiello that morning; and having exchanged his travelling-dress for a more suitable toilet he was presently conducted to the private theatre where the company had gathered to witness an improvised performance by Mirandolina and the newly-arrived actors.

      The Procuratessa at once beckoned him to the row of gilt arm-chairs where she sat with the noble Duke and several ladies of distinction. The little theatre sparkled with wax-lights reflected in the facets of glass chandeliers and in the jewels of the richly-habited company, and Odo was