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Books: Lothair

B >> Benjamin Disraeli >> Lothair




How long he had been absorbed in this passionate reverie he knew not but
when he looked up again it was night, and the moon had touched his
window. He rose and walked up and down the room, and then went into the
corridor. All was silent; not an attendant was visible; the sky was
clear and starry, and the moonlight fell on the tall, still cypresses in
the vast quadrangle.

Lothair leaned over the balustrade and gazed upon the moonlit fountains.
The change of scene, silent and yet not voiceless, and the softening
spell of the tranquillizing hour, were a relief to him. And after a
time he wandered about the corridors, and after a time he descended into
the court. The tall Swiss, in his grand uniform, was closing the gates
which had just released a visitor. Lothair motioned that he too wished
to go forth, and the Swiss obeyed him. The threshold was passed, and
Lothair found himself for the first time alone in Rome.

Utterly reckless, he cared not where he went or what might happen. The
streets were quite deserted, and he wandered about with a strange
curiosity, gratified as he sometimes encountered famous objects he had
read of, and yet the true character of which no reading ever realizes.

The moonlight becomes the proud palaces of Rome, their corniced and
balconied fronts rich with deep shadows in the blaze. Sometimes he
encountered an imperial column; sometimes be came to an arcadian square
flooded with light and resonant with the fall of statued fountains.
Emerging from a long, straggling street of convents and gardens, he
found himself in an open space full of antique ruins, and among them the
form of a colossal amphitheatre that he at once recognized,

It rose with its three tiers of arches and the huge wall that crowns
them, black and complete in the air; and not until Lothair had entered
it could he perceive the portion of the outer wall that was in ruins,
and now bathed with the silver light. Lothair was alone. In that huge
creation, once echoing with the shouts, and even the agonies, of
thousands, Lothair was alone.

He sat him down on a block of stone in that sublime and desolate arena,
and asked himself the secret spell of this Rome that had already so
agitated his young life, and probably was about critically to affect it.
Theodora lived for Rome and died for Rome. And the cardinal, born and
bred an English gentleman, with many hopes and honors, had renounced his
religion, and, it might be said, his country, for Rome. And for Rome,
to-morrow, Catesby would die without a pang, and sacrifice himself for
Rome, as his race for three hundred years had given, for the same cause,
honor and broad estates and unhesitating lives. And these very people
were influenced by different motives, and thought they were devoting
themselves to opposite ends. But still it was Rome -- republican or
Caesarian, papal or pagan, it still was Rome.

Was it a breeze in a breezeless night that was sighing amid these ruins?
A pine-tree moved its head on a broken arch, and there was a stir among
the plants that hung on the ancient walls. It was a breeze in a
breezeless night that was sighing amid the ruins.

There was a tall crag of ancient building contiguous to the block on
which Lothair was seated, and which on his arrival he had noted,
although, long lost in reverie, he had not recently turned his glance in
that direction. He was roused from that reverie by the indefinite sense
of some change having occurred which often disturbs and terminates one's
brooding thoughts. And looking round, he felt, he saw, he was no longer
alone. The moonbeams fell upon a figure that was observing him from the
crag of ruin that was near, and, as the light clustered and gathered
round the form, it became every moment more definite and distinct.

Lothair would have sprung forward, but be could only extend his arms: he
would have spoken, but his tongue was paralyzed.

"Lothair," said a deep, sweet voice that never could be forgotten.

"I am here," he at last replied.

"Remember!" and she threw upon him that glance, at once serene and
solemn, that had been her last, and was impressed indelibly upon his
heart of hearts.

Now, he could spring forward and throw himself at her feet, but alas! as
he reached her, the figure melted into the moonlight, and she was gone
-- that divine Theodora, who, let us hope, returned at last to those
Elysian fields she so well deserved.



CHAPTER 70


"They have overdone it, Gertrude, with Lothair," said Lord Jerome to his
wife. "I spoke to Monsignore Catesby about it some time ago, but he
would not listen to me; I had more confidence in the cardinal and am
disappointed; but a priest is ever too hot. His nervous system has been
tried too much."

Lady St. Jerome still hoped the best, and believed in it. She was
prepared to accept the way Lothair was found senseless in the Coliseum
as a continuance of miraculous interpositions. He might have remained
there for a day or days, and never have been recognized when discovered.
How marvelously providential that Father Coleman should have been in the
vicinity, and tempted to visit the great ruin that very night!

Lord St. Jerome was devout, and easy in his temper. Priests and women
seemed to have no difficulty in managing him. But he was an English
gentleman, and there was at the bottom of his character a fund of
courage, firmness, and commonsense, that sometimes startled and
sometimes perplexed those who assumed that he could be easily
controlled. He was not satisfied with the condition of Lothair, "a peer
of England and my connection;" and he had not unlimited confidence in
those who had been hitherto consulted as to his state. There was a
celebrated English physician at that time visiting Rome, and Lord St.
Jerome, notwithstanding the multiform resistance of Monsignors Catesby,
insisted he should be called in to Lothair.

The English physician was one of those men who abhor priests, and do not
particularly admire ladies. The latter, in revenge, denounced his
manners as brutal, though they always sent for him, and were always
trying, though vainly, to pique him into sympathy. He rarely spoke, but
he listened to every one with entire patience. He sometimes asked a
question, but he never made a remark.

Lord St. Jerome had seen the physician, alone before he visited the
Palazzo Agostini, and had talked to him freely about Lothair. The
physician saw at once that Lord St. Jerome was truthful, and that,
though his intelligence might be limited, it was pure and direct.
Appreciating Lord St. Jerome, that nobleman found the redoubtable doctor
not ungenial, and assured his wife that she would meet on the morrow by
no means so savage a being as she anticipated. She received him
accordingly, and in the presence of Monsignore Catesby. Never had she
exercised her distinguished powers of social rhetoric with more art and
fervor, and never apparently had they proved less productive of the
intended consequences. The physician said not a word, and merely bowed
when exhausted Nature consigned the luminous and impassioned Lady St.
Jerome to inevitable silence. Monsignore Catesby felt he was bound in
honor to make some diversion in her favor; repeat some of her unanswered
inquiries, and reiterate some of her unnoticed views; but the only
return he received was silence, without a bow, and then the physician
remarked, "I presume I can now see the patient."

The English physician was alone with Lothair for some time, and then he
met in consultation the usual attendants. The result of all these
proceedings was that he returned to the saloon, in which he found Lord
and Lady St. Jerome, Monsignore Catesby, and Father Coleman, and he then
said: "My opinion is, that his lordship should quit Rome immediately,
and I think he had better return at once to his own country."

All the efforts of the English Propaganda were now directed to prevent
the return of Lothair to his own country. The cardinal and Lady St.
Jerome, and the monsignore, and Father Coleman, all the beautiful young
countesses who had "gone over" to Rome, and all the spirited young earls
who had come over to bring their wives back, but had unfortunately
remained themselves, looked very serious, and spoke much in whispers.
Lord St. Jerome was firm that Lothair should immediately leave the city,
and find that change of scene and air which were declared by authority
to be indispensable for his health, both of mind and body. But his
return to England, at this moment, was an affair of serious difficulty.
He could not return unattended, and attended, too, by some intimate and
devoted friend. Besides, it was very doubtful whether Lothair had
strength remaining to bear so great an exertion, and at such a season of
the year -- and he seemed disinclined to it himself. He also wished to
leave Rome, but he wished also in time to extend his travels. Amid
these difficulties, a Neapolitan duke, a great friend of Monsignore
Catesby, a gentleman who always had a friend in need, offered to the
young English noble, the interesting young Englishman so favored by
Heaven, the use of his villa on the coast of the remotest part of
Sicily, near Syracuse. Here was a solution of many difficulties:
departure from Rome, change of scene and air -- sea air, too,
particularly recommended -- and almost the same as a return to England,
without an effort, for was it not an island, only with a better climate,
and a people with free institutions, or a taste for them, which is the
same?

The mode in which Lady St. Jerome and Monsignors Catesby consulted Lord
St. Jerome on the subject took the adroit but insidious form of
congratulating him on the entire and unexpected fulfilment of his
purpose. "Are we not fortunate?" exclaimed her ladyship, looking up
brightly in his face, and gently pressing one of his arms.

"Exactly everything your lordship required," echoed Monsignore Catesby,
congratulating him by pressing the other.

The cardinal said to Lord St. Jerome, in the course of the morning, in
an easy way, and as if he were not thinking too much of the matter, "So,
you have got out of all your difficulties."

Lord St. Jerome was not entirely satisfied, but he thought he had done a
great deal, and, to say the truth, the effort for him had not been
inconsiderable; and so the result was that Lothair, accompanied by
Monsignore Catesby and Father Coleman, travelled by easy stages, and
chiefly on horseback, through a delicious and romantic country, which
alone did Lothair a great deal of good, to the coast; crossed the
straits on a serene afternoon, visited Messina and Palermo, and finally
settled at their point of destination -- the Villa Catalano.

Nothing could be more satisfactory than the monsignore's bulletin,
announcing to his friends at Rome their ultimate arrangements. Three
weeks' travel, air, horse exercise, the inspiration of the landscape and
the clime, had wonderfully restored Lothair, and they might entirely
count on his passing Holy Week at Rome, when all they had hoped and
prayed for would, by the blessing of the Holy Virgin, be accomplished.



CHAPTER 71


The terrace of the Villa Catalano, with its orange and palm trees,
looked upon a sea of lapiz lazuli, and rose from a shelving shore of
aloes and arbutus. The waters reflected the color of the sky, and all
the foliage wag bedewed with the same violet light of morn which bathed
the softness of the distant mountains, and the undulating beauty of the
ever-varying coast.

Lothair was walking on the terrace, his favorite walk, for it was the
duly occasion on which he ever found himself alone. Not that he had any
reason to complain of his companions. More complete ones could scarcely
be selected. Travel, which, they say, tries all tempers, had only
proved the engaging equanimity of Catesby, and had never disturbed the
amiable repose of his brother priest: and then they were so entertaining
and so instructive, as well as handy and experienced in all common
things. The monsignore had so much taste and feeling, and various
knowledge; and as for the reverend father, all the antiquaries they
daily encountered were mere children in his hands, who, without effort,
could explain and illustrate every scene and object, and spoke as if he
had never given a thought to any other theme than Sicily and Syracuse,
the expedition of Nicias, and the adventures of Agathocles. And yet,
during all their travels, Lothair felt that he never was alone. This
was remarkable at the great cities, such as Messina and Palermo, but it
was a prevalent habit in less-frequented places. There was a petty town
near them, which he had never visited alone, although he had made more
than one attempt with that view; and it was only on the terrace in the
early morn, a spot whence he could be observed from the villa, and which
did not easily communicate with the precipitous and surrounding scenery,
that Lothair would indulge that habit of introspection which he had
pursued through many a long ride, and which to him was a never-failing
source of interest and even excitement.

He wanted to ascertain the causes of what he deemed the failure of his
life, and of the dangers and discomfiture that were still impending over
him. Were these causes to be found in any peculiarity of his
disposition, or in the general inexperience and incompetence of youth?
The latter, he was now quite willing to believe, would lead their
possessors into any amount of disaster, but his ingenuous nature
hesitated before it accepted them as the self-complacent solution of his
present deplorable position.

Of a nature profound and inquisitive, though with a great fund of
reverence which had been developed by an ecclesiastical education,
Lothair now felt that he had started in life with an extravagant
appreciation of the influence of the religious principle on the conduct
of human affairs. With him, when heaven was so nigh, earth could not be
remembered; and yet experience showed that, so long as one was on the
earth, the incidents of this planet considerably controlled one's
existence, both in behavior and in thought. All the world could not
retire to Mount Athos. It was clear, therefore, that there was a juster
conception of the relations between religion and life than that which he
had at first adopted.

Practically, Theodora had led, or was leading, him to this result; but
Theodora, though religious, did not bow before those altars to which he
for a moment had never been faithless. Theodora believed in her
immortality, and did not believe in death according to the
ecclesiastical interpretation. But her departure from the scene, and
the circumstances under which it had taken place, had unexpectedly and
violently restored the course of his life to its old bent. Shattered
and shorn, he was willing to believe that he was again entering the
kingdom of heaven, but found he was only under the gilded dome of a
Jesuit's church, and woke to reality, from a scene of magical
deceptions, with a sad conviction that even cardinals and fathers of the
Church were inevitably influenced in this life by its interest and his
passions.

But the incident of his life that most occupied -- it might be said
engrossed -- his meditation was the midnight apparition in the Coliseum.
Making every allowance that a candid nature and an ingenious mind could
suggest for explicatory circumstances; the tension of his nervous
system, which was then doubtless strained to its last point; the memory
of her death-scene, which always harrowed and haunted him; and that dark
collision between his promise and his life which then, after so many
efforts, appeared by some supernatural ordination to be about inevitably
to occur in that very Rome whose gigantic shades surrounded him; he
still could not resist the conviction that he had seen the form of
Theodora and had listened to her voice. Often the whole day, when they
were travelling, and his companions watched him on his saddle in silent
thought, his mind in reality was fixed on this single incident and he
was cross-examining his memory as some adroit and ruthless advocate
deals with the witness in the box, and tries to demonstrate his
infidelity or his weakness.

But whether it were indeed the apparition of his adored friend or a
distempered dream, Lothair not less recognized the warning as divine,
and the only conviction he had arrived at throughout his Sicilian
travels was a determination that, however tragical the cost, his promise
to Theodora should never be broken.

The beautiful terrace of the Villa Catalano overlooked a small bay to
which it descended by winding walks. The water was deep, and in any
other country the bay might have been turned to good account; but bays
abounded on this coast, and the people, with many harbors, had no
freights to occupy them. This morn, this violet morn, when the balm of
the soft breeze refreshed Lothair, and the splendor of the rising sun
began to throw a flashing line upon the azure waters, a few fishermen in
one of the country boats happened to come in, about to dry a net upon a
sunny bank. The boat was what is called a speronaro; an open boat
worked with oars, but with a lateen sail at the same time when the
breeze served.

Lothair admired the trim of the vessel, and got talking with the men as
they ate their bread and olives, and a small fish or two.

"And your lateen sail -- ?" continued Lothair.

"Is the best thing in the world, except in a white squall," replied the
sailor, "and then every thing is queer in these seas with an open boat,
though I am not afraid of Santa Agnese, and that is her name. But I
took two English officers who came over here for sport and whose leave
of absence was out -- I took them over in her to Malta, and did it in
ten hours. I believe it had never been done in an open boat before, but
it was neck or nothing with them."

"And you saved them?"

"With the lateen up the whole way."

"They owed you much, and I hope they paid you well."

"I asked them ten ducats," said the man, "and they paid me ten ducats."

Lothair had his hand in his pocket all this time, feeling, but
imperceptibly, for his purse, and, when be had found it, feeling how it
was lined. He generally carried about him as much as Fortunatus.

"What are you going to do with yourselves this morning?" said Lothair.

"Well, not much; we thought of throwing the net, but we have had one
dip, and no great luck."

"Are you inclined to give me a sail?"

"Certainly, signor."

"Have you a mind to go to Malta?"

"That is business, signor."

"Look here," said Lothair, "here are ten ducats in this purse, and a
little more. I will give them to you if you will take me to Malta at
once; but, if you will start in a hundred seconds, before the sun
touches that rock, and the waves just beyond it are already bright, you
shall have ten more ducats when you reach the isle."

"Step in, signor."

From the nature of the course, which was not in the direction of the
open sea, for they had to double Cape Passaro, the; speronaro was out of
the sight of the villa in a few minutes. They rowed only till they had
doubled the cape, and then set the lateen sail, the breeze being light,
but steady and favorable. They were soon in open sea, no land in sight.
"And, if a white squall does rise," thought Lothair, "it will only
settle many difficulties."

But no white squall came; every thing was favorable to their progress;
the wind the current, the courage, and spirit of the men, who liked the
adventure, and liked Lothair. Night came on, but they were as tender to
him as women, fed him with their least coarse food, and covered him with
a cloak made of stuff spun by their mothers and their sisters.

Lothair was slumbering when the patron of the boat roused him, and he
saw at hand many lights, and, in a few minutes, was in still water.
They were in one of the harbors of Malta, but not permitted to land at
midnight, and, when the morn arrived, the obstacles to the release of
Lothair were not easily removed. A speronaro, an open boat from Sicily,
of course with no papers to prove their point of departure -- here were
materials for doubt and difficulty, of which the petty officers of the
port knew how to avail themselves. They might come from Barbary, from
an infected port; plague might be aboard, a question of quarantine.
Lothair observed that they were nearly alongside of a fine steam-yacht,
English, for it bore the cross of St. George; and, while on the quay, he
and the patron of the speronaro arguing with the officers of the port, a
gentleman from the yacht put ashore in a boat, of which the bright
equipment immediately attracted attention. The gentleman landed almost
close to the point where the controversy was carrying on. The excited
manner and voice of the Sicilian mariner could not escape notice. The
gentleman stopped and looked at the group, and then suddenly exclaimed:
"Good Heavens! my lord, can it be you?"

"Ah, Mr. Phoebus, you will help me!" said Lothair; and then he went up to
him and told him every thing. All difficulties, of course, vanished
before the presence of Mr. Phoebus, whom the officers of the port
evidently looked upon as a being beyond criticism and control.

"And now," said Mr. Phoebus, "about your people and your baggage?"

"I have neither servants nor clothes," said Lothair, "and, if it had not
been for these good people, I should not have had food."



CHAPTER 72


Phoebus, in his steam-yacht Pan, of considerable admeasurement, and
fitted up with every luxury and convenience that science and experience
could suggest, was on his way to an island which he occasionally
inhabited, near the Asian coast of the gean Sea, and which he rented
from the chief of his wife's house, the Prince of Samos. Mr. Phoebus, by
his genius and fame, commanded a large income, and he spent it freely
and fully. There was nothing of which he more disapproved than
accumulation. It was a practice which led to sordid habits, and was
fatal to the beautiful. On the whole, he thought it more odious even
than debt, more permanently degrading. Mr. Phoebus liked pomp and
graceful ceremony, and he was of opinion that great artists should lead
a princely life, so that, in their manners and method of existence, they
might furnish models to mankind in general, and elevate the tone and
taste of nations.

Sometimes, when he observed a friend noticing with admiration, perhaps
with astonishment, the splendor or finish of his equipments, he would
say: "The world think I had a large fortune with Madame Phoebus. I had
nothing. I understand that a fortune, and no inconsiderable one, would
have been given had I chosen to ask for it. But I did not choose to ask
for it. I made Madame Phoebus my wife because she was the finest
specimen of the Aryan race that I was acquainted with, and I would have
no considerations mixed up with the high motive that influenced me. My
father-in-law Cantacuzene, whether from a feeling of gratitude or
remorse, is always making us magnificent presents. I like to receive
magnificent presents, but also to make them; and I presented him with a
picture which is the gem of his gallery, and which, if he ever part with
it, will in another generation be contended for by kings and peoples.

"On her last birthday we breakfasted with my father-in-law Cantacuzene,
and Madame Phoebus found in her napkin a check for five thousand pounds.
I expended it immediately in jewels for her personal use; for I wished
my father-in-law to understand that there are other princely families in
the world besides the Cantacuzenes."

A friend once ventured inquiringly to suggest whether his way of life
might not be conducive to envy, and so disturb that serenity of
sentiment necessary to the complete life of an artist. But Mr. Phoebus
would not for a moment admit the soundness of the objection. "No," he
said, "envy is a purely intellectual process. Splendor never excites
it; a man of splendor is looked upon always with favor -- his appearance
exhilarates the heart of man. He is always popular. People wish to
dine with him, to borrow his money, but they do not envy him. If you
want to know what envy is, you should live among artists. You should
hear me lecture at the Academy. I have sometimes suddenly turned round
and caught countenances like that of the man who was waiting at the
comer of the street for Benvenuto Cellini, in order to assassinate the
great Florentine."

It was impossible for Lothair in his present condition to have fallen
upon a more suitable companion than Mr. Phoebus. It is not merely change
of scene and air that we sometimes want, but a revolution in the
atmosphere of thought and feeling in which we live and breathe. Besides
his great intelligence and fancy, and his peculiar views on art and man
and affairs in general, which always interested their hearer, and
sometimes convinced, there was a general vivacity in Mr. Phoebus and a
vigorous sense of life, which were inspiriting to his companions. When
there was any thing to be done, great or small, Mr. Phoebus liked to do
it; and this, as he averred, from a sense of duty, since, if any thing
is to be done, it should be done in the best manner, and no one could do
it so well as Mr. Phoebus. He always acted as if he had been created to
be the oracle and model of the human race, but the oracle was never
pompous or solemn, and the model was always beaming with good-nature and
high spirits.