Edith Wharton: Complete Works. Edith Wharton

the eloquent lip with the ineffectual eye, had indeed compounded her of all fine meanings, making each grace the complement of another and every outward charm expressive of some inward quality. Here was as little of the convent-bred miss as of the flippant and vaporish fine lady; and any suggestion of a less fair alternative vanished before such candid graces. Odo’s confusion had in truth sprung from Alfieri’s ambiguous hints; and these shrivelling to nought in the gaze that encountered his, constraint gave way to a sense of wondering pleasure.

      “I should like to see whatever you will show me,” said he, as simply as one child speaking to another; and she answered in the same tone, “Then we’ll glance at my father’s collections before the serious business of the evening begins.”

      With these words she began to lead him about the room, pointing out and explaining the curiosities it contained. It was clear that, like many scholars of his day, Professor Vivaldi was something of an eclectic in his studies, for while one table held a fine orrery, a cabinet of coins stood near, and the book-shelves were surmounted by specimens of coral and petrified wood. Of all these rarities his daughter had a word to say, and though her explanations were brief and without affectation of pedantry, they put her companion’s ignorance to the blush. It must be owned, however, that had his learning been a match for hers it would have stood him in poor stead at the moment; his faculties being lost in the wonder of hearing such discourse from such lips. To his compliments on her erudition she returned with a smile that what learning she had was no merit, since she had been bred in a library; to which she suddenly added:—“You are not unknown to me, cavaliere; but I never thought to see you here.”

      The words renewed her hearer’s surprise; but giving him no time to reply, she went on in a lower tone:—“You are young and the world is fair before you. Have you considered that before risking yourself among us?”

      She colored under Odo’s wondering gaze, and at his random rejoinder that it was a risk any man would gladly take without considering, she turned from him with a gesture in which he fancied a shade of disappointment.

      By this they had reached the cabinet of fossils, about which the interest of the other guests still seemed to centre. Alfieri, indeed, paced the farther end of the room with the air of awaiting the despatch of some tedious business; but the others were engaged in an animated discussion necessitating frequent reference to the folios Vivaldi had brought from his study.

      The latter turned to Odo as though to include him in the group. “I do not know, sir,” said he, “whether you have found leisure to study these enigmas of that mysterious Sphinx, the earth; for though Count Alfieri has spoken to me of your unusual acquirements, I understand your tastes have hitherto lain rather in the direction of philosophy and letters;” and on Odo’s prompt admission of ignorance, he courteously continued: “The physical sciences seem, indeed, less likely to appeal to the imaginative and poetical faculty in man, and, on the other hand, religion has appeared to prohibit their too close investigation; yet I question if any thoughtful mind can enter on the study of these curious phenomena without feeling, as it were, an affinity between such investigations and the most abstract forms of thought. For whether we regard these figured stones as of terrigenous origin, either mere lusus naturæ, or mineral formations produced by a plastic virtue latent in the earth, or whether as in fact organic substances lapidified by the action of water; in either case, what speculations must their origin excite, leading us back into that dark and unexplored period of time when the breath of Creation was yet moving on the face of the waters!”

      Odo had listened but confusedly to the first words of this discourse; but his intellectual curiosity was too great not to respond to such an appeal, and all his perplexities slipped from him in the pursuit of the Professor’s thought.

      One of the other guests seemed struck by his look of attention. “My dear Vivaldi,” said this gentleman, laying down a fossil, and fixing his gaze on Odo while he addressed the Professor, “why use such superannuated formulas in introducing a neophyte to a study designed to subvert the very foundations of the Mosaic cosmogony? I take it the Cavaliere is one of us, since he is here this evening: why, then, permit him to stray even for a moment in the labyrinth of theological error?”

      The Professor’s deprecating murmur was cut short by an outburst from another of the learned group, a red-faced spectacled personage in a doctor’s gown.

      “Pardon me for suggesting,” he exclaimed, “that the conditional terms in which our host was careful to present his hypotheses are better suited to the instruction of the neophyte than our learned friend’s positive assertions. But if the Vulcanists are to claim the cavaliere Valsecca, may not the Diluvials also have a hearing? How often must it be repeated that theology as well as physical science is satisfied by the Diluvial explanation of the origin of petrified organisms, whereas inexorable logic compels the Vulcanists to own that their thesis is subversive of all dogmatic belief?”

      The first speaker answered with a gesture of disdain. “My dear doctor, you occupy a chair in our venerated University. From that exalted cathedrâ the Mosaic theory of creation must still be expounded; but in the security of these surroundings—the catacombs of the new faith—why keep up the forms of an obsolete creed? As long ago as Pythagoras, man was taught that all things were in a state of flux, without end as without beginning; and must we still, after more than two thousand years, pretend to regard the universe as some gigantic toy manufactured in six days by a Superhuman Artisan, who is presently to destroy it at his pleasure?”

      “Sir,” cried the other, flushing from red to purple at this assault, “I know not on what ground you insinuate that my private convictions differ from my public doctrine—”

      But here, with a firmness tempered by the most scrupulous courtesy, Professor Vivaldi intervened.

      “Gentlemen,” said he, “the discussion in which you are engaged, interesting as it is, must, I fear, distract us from the true purpose of our meeting. I am happy to offer my house as the asylum of all free research; but you must remember that the first object of these reunions is not the special study of any one branch of modern science, but the application of physical investigation to the origin and destiny of man. In other words, we ask the study of nature to lead us to the knowledge of ourselves; and it is because we approach this great problem from a point as yet unsanctioned by dogmatic authority, that I am reluctantly obliged—” and here he turned to Odo with a smile—“to throw a veil of privacy over these inoffensive meetings.”

      Here at last was the key to the enigma. The gentlemen assembled in Professor Vivaldi’s rooms were met there to discuss questions not safely aired in public. They were conspirators indeed, but the liberation they planned was intellectual rather than political; though the acuter among them doubtless saw whither such innovations tended. Meanwhile they were content to linger in that wide field of speculation which the development of the physical sciences had recently opened to philosophic thought. As, at the Revival of Learning, the thinker imprisoned in mediæval dialectics suddenly felt under his feet the firm ground of classic argument, so, in the eighteenth century, philosophy, long suspended in the void of metaphysic, touched earth again and, Antæus-like, drew fresh life from the contact. It was clear that Professor Vivaldi, whose very name had been unknown to Odo, was an important figure in the learned world, and one uniting the tact and firmness necessary to control those dissensions from which philosophy itself does not preserve its disciples. His words calmed the two disputants who were preparing to do battle over Odo’s unborn scientific creed, and the talk growing more general, the Professor turned to his daughter, saying, “My Fulvia, is the study prepared?”

      She signed her assent, and her father led the way to an inner cabinet, where seats were drawn about a table scattered with pamphlets, gazettes and dictionaries, and set out with modest refreshments. Here began a conversation ranging from chemistry to taxation, and from the perfectibility of man to the secondary origin of the earth’s surface. It was evident to Odo that, though the Professor’s guests represented all shades of opinion, some being clearly loth to leave the safe anchorage of orthodoxy, while others already braved the seas of free enquiry, yet all were at one as to the need of unhampered action and discussion. Odo’s dormant curiosity woke with a start at the summons of fresh knowledge.