Читать книгу Corinne; or, Italy - Madame de Staël - Страница 15

Prince Castel Forte now took up the discourse, in a manner which riveted the attention of his audience. He was a man of fifty, with a measured address and commanding carriage. The assurance which Nevil had received, that he was but the friend of Corinne, enabled him to listen with unqualified delight to what, without such safeguard, he could not, even thus early, have heard, save with a confused sense of jealousy.

The Prince read some pages of unpretending prose, singularly fitted, notwithstanding, to display the spirit of Corinne. He pointed out the particular merit of her works as partly derived from her profound study of foreign literature, teaching her to unite the graphic descriptions of the South, with that observant knowledge of the human heart which appears the inheritance of those whose country offers fewer objects of external beauty. He lauded her graceful gayety, that, free from ironical satire, seemed to spring but from the freshness of her fancy. He strove to speak of her tenderness; but it was easily to be seen that personal regret mingled with this theme. He touched on the difficulty for a woman so endowed to meet, in real life, with any object resembling the ideal image clad in the hues of her own heart; then contented himself by depicting the impassioned feelings which kindled her poetry—her art of seizing on the most touching charms of nature, the deepest emotions of the soul. He complimented the originality of her expression, which, arising from her own peculiar turn of thought, constituted an involuntary spell, untarnished by the slightest cloud of mannerism. He spoke of her eloquence as of a resistless power, which must transport most those who possessed the best sense and the truest susceptibility. "Corinne," said he, "is doubtless more celebrated than any other of our countrywomen; and yet it is only her friends who can describe her. The qualities of the soul, if real, always require to be guessed; fame, as well as obscurity, might prevent their detection, if some congenial sympathy came not to our aid." He dilated on her talent as an improvisatrice, as distinct from everything which had been known by that name in Italy. "It is not only attributable," he continued, "to the fertility of her mind, but to her deep enthusiasm for all generous sentiments; she cannot pronounce a word that recalls them, but that inexhaustible source of thought overflows at her lips in strains ever pure and harmonious; her poetry is intellectual music, such as alone can embody the fleeting and delicate reveries of the heart." He extolled the conversation of Corinne, as one who had tasted all its delights. "There," he said, "is united all that is natural, fanciful, just, sublime, powerful, and sweet, to vary the mental banquet every instant; it is what Petrarch termed—

Il parlar che nell' anima si sente'—

a language which is felt to the heart's core, and must possess much of the vaunted Oriental magic which has been given by the ancients to Cleopatra. The scenes I have visited with her, the lays we have heard together, the pictures she has shown me, the books she has taught me to enjoy, compose my universe. In all these is some spark of her life; and were I forced to dwell afar from her, I would, at least, surround myself with them, though certain to seek in vain for her radiant traces amongst them, when once she had departed."

"Yes!" he cried, as his glance accidentally fell upon Oswald; "look on Corinne, if you may pass your days with her—if that twofold existence can be long secured to you; but behold her not, if you must be condemned to leave her. Vainly would you seek, however long you might survive, the creative spirit which multiplied in partaking all your thoughts and feelings; you would never find it more!"

Oswald shuddered at these words; his eyes were fixed on Corinne, who listened with an agitation self-love cannot produce; it belongs only to humility and to gratitude. Castel Forte resumed the address, which a momentary weakness had suspended. He spoke of Corinne as a painter and a musician; of her declamation and her dancing. "In all these exertions," he said, "she is still herself—confined to no one mode, nor rule—but expressing, in various languages, the enchantments of Art and Imagination. I cannot flatter myself on having faithfully represented one of whom it is impossible to form an idea till she herself is known; but her presence is left to Rome, as among the chief blessings beneath its brilliant sky. Corinne is the link that binds her friends to each other. She is the motive, the interest of our lives; we rely on her worth, pride in her genius, and say to the sons of other lands, 'Look on the personation of our own fair Italy. She is what we might be, if freed from the ignorance, envy, discord, and sloth, to which fate has reduced us.' We love to contemplate her, as a rare production of our climate, and our fine arts; a relic of the past, a prophetess of the future; and when strangers, pitiless of the faults born of our misfortunes, insult the country whence have arisen the planets that illumed all Europe, still we but say to them, 'Look upon Corinne.' Yes; we will follow in her track, and be such men as she is a woman; if, indeed, men can, like women, make worlds in their own hearts; if our moral temperaments, necessarily dependent on social obligations and exterior circumstances, could, like hers, owe all their light to the glorious touch of poesy!"

The instant the Prince ceased to speak, was followed by an unanimous outbreak of admiration, even from the leaders of the State, although the discourse had ended by an indirect censure on the present situation of Italy; so true it is, that there men practise a degree of liberality, which, though it extends not to any improvement of their institutions, readily pardons superior minds for a mild dissent from existing prejudices. Castel Forte was a man of high repute in Rome. He spoke with a sagacity remarkable among a people usually wiser in actions than in words. He had not, in the affairs of life, that ability which often distinguishes an Italian; but he shrunk not from the fatigue of thinking, as his happy countrymen were wont to do; trusting to arrive at all truths by intuition, even as their soil bears fruit, unaided, save by the favor of heaven.