第85章
He lifted the glass to his lips.The prince seemed ghastly pale, while the gaze of his guest bent upon him, with an intent and stern brightness, beneath which the conscience-stricken host cowered and quailed.Not till he had drained his draft, and replaced the glass upon the board, did Zanoni turn his eyes from the prince; and he then said, "Your wine has been kept too long;it has lost its virtues.It might disagree with many, but do not fear: it will not harm me, prince, Signor Mascari, you are a judge of the grape; will you favour us with your opinion?""Nay," answered Mascari, with well-affected composure, "I like not the wines of Cyprus; they are heating.Perhaps Signor Glyndon may not have the same distaste? The English are said to love their potations warm and pungent.""Do you wish my friend also to taste the wine, prince?" said Zanoni."Recollect, all cannot drink it with the same impunity as myself.""No," said the prince, hastily; "if you do not recommend the wine, Heaven forbid that we should constrain our guests! My lord duke," turning to one of the Frenchmen, "yours is the true soil of Bacchus.What think you of this cask from Burgundy? Has it borne the journey?""Ah," said Zanoni, "let us change both the wine and the theme."With that, Zanoni grew yet more animated and brilliant.Never did wit more sparkling, airy, exhilarating, flash from the lips of reveller.His spirits fascinated all present--even the prince himself, even Glyndon--with a strange and wild contagion.The former, indeed, whom the words and gaze of Zanoni, when he drained the poison, had filled with fearful misgivings, now hailed in the brilliant eloquence of his wit a certain sign of the operation of the bane.The wine circulated fast; but none seemed conscious of its effects.One by one the rest of the party fell into a charmed and spellbound silence, as Zanoni continued to pour forth sally upon sally, tale upon tale.They hung on his words, they almost held their breath to listen.Yet, how bitter was his mirth; how full of contempt for the triflers present, and for the trifles which made their life!
Night came on; the room grew dim, and the feast had lasted several hours longer than was the customary duration of similar entertainments at that day.Still the guests stirred not, and still Zanoni continued, with glittering eye and mocking lip, to lavish his stores of intellect and anecdote; when suddenly the moon rose, and shed its rays over the flowers and fountains in the court without, leaving the room itself half in shadow, and half tinged by a quiet and ghostly light.
It was then that Zanoni rose."Well, gentlemen," said he, "we have not yet wearied our host, I hope; and his garden offers a new temptation to protract our stay.Have you no musicians among your train, prince, that might regale our ears while we inhale the fragrance of your orange-trees?""An excellent thought!" said the prince."Mascari, see to the music."The party rose simultaneously to adjourn to the garden; and then, for the first time, the effect of the wine they had drunk seemed to make itself felt.
With flushed cheeks and unsteady steps they came into the open air, which tended yet more to stimulate that glowing fever of the grape.As if to make up for the silence with which the guests had hitherto listened to Zanoni, every tongue was now loosened,--every man talked, no man listened.There was something wild and fearful in the contrast between the calm beauty of the night and scene, and the hubbub and clamour of these disorderly roysters.
One of the Frenchmen, in especial, the young Duc de R--, a nobleman of the highest rank, and of all the quick, vivacious, and irascible temperament of his countrymen, was particularly noisy and excited.And as circumstances, the remembrance of which is still preserved among certain circles of Naples, rendered it afterwards necessary that the duc should himself give evidence of what occurred, I will here translate the short account he drew up, and which was kindly submitted to me some few years ago by my accomplished and lively friend, Il Cavaliere di B--.
"I never remember," writes the duc, "to have felt my spirits so excited as on that evening; we were like so many boys released from school, jostling each other as we reeled or ran down the flight of seven or eight stairs that led from the colonnade into the garden,--some laughing, some whooping, some scolding, some babbling.The wine had brought out, as it were, each man's inmost character.Some were loud and quarrelsome, others sentimental and whining; some, whom we had hitherto thought dull, most mirthful; some, whom we had ever regarded as discreet and taciturn, most garrulous and uproarious.I remember that in the midst of our clamorous gayety, my eye fell upon the cavalier Signor Zanoni, whose conversation had so enchanted us all; and Ifelt a certain chill come over me to perceive that he wore the same calm and unsympathising smile upon his countenance which had characterised it in his singular and curious stories of the court of Louis XIV.I felt, indeed, half-inclined to seek a quarrel with one whose composure was almost an insult to our disorder.
Nor was such an effect of this irritating and mocking tranquillity confined to myself alone.Several of the party have told me since, that on looking at Zanoni they felt their blood yet more heated, and gayety change to resentment.There seemed in his icy smile a very charm to wound vanity and provoke rage.
It was at this moment that the prince came up to me, and, passing his arm into mine, led me a little apart from the rest.He had certainly indulged in the same excess as ourselves, but it did not produce the same effect of noisy excitement.There was, on the contrary, a certain cold arrogance and supercilious scorn in his bearing and language, which, even while affecting so much caressing courtesy towards me, roused my self-love against him.