Meanwhile the carriers, having come to a landing-place, stopped to rest,
and the travellers being seated on the point of a cliff, Montoni and
Cavigni renewed a dispute concerning Hannibal's passage over the Alps,
Montoni contending that he entered Italy by way of Mount Cenis, and
Cavigni, that he passed over Mount St. Bernard. The subject brought
to Emily's imagination the disasters he had suffered in this bold and
perilous adventure. She saw his vast armies winding among the defiles,
and over the tremendous cliffs of the mountains, which at night were
lighted up by his fires, or by the torches which he caused to be carried
when he pursued his indefatigable march. In the eye of fancy, she
perceived the gleam of arms through the duskiness of night, the glitter
of spears and helmets, and the banners floating dimly on the twilight;
while now and then the blast of a distant trumpet echoed along the
defile, and the signal was answered by a momentary clash of arms. She
looked with horror upon the mountaineers, perched on the higher cliffs,
assailing the troops below with broken fragments of the mountain; on
soldiers and elephants tumbling headlong down the lower precipices; and,
as she listened to the rebounding rocks, that followed their fall,
the terrors of fancy yielded to those of reality, and she shuddered to
behold herself on the dizzy height, whence she had pictured the descent
of others.
Madame Montoni, meantime, as she looked upon Italy, was contemplating in
imagination the splendour of palaces and the grandeur of castles, such
as she believed she was going to be mistress of at Venice and in the
Apennine, and she became, in idea, little less than a princess. Being
no longer under the alarms which had deterred her from giving
entertainments to the beauties of Tholouse, whom Montoni had mentioned
with more eclat to his own vanity than credit to their discretion, or
regard to truth, she determined to give concerts, though she had neither
ear nor taste for music; conversazioni, though she had no talents for
conversation; and to outvie, if possible, in the gaieties of her parties
and the magnificence of her liveries, all the noblesse of Venice. This
blissful reverie was somewhat obscured, when she recollected the Signor,
her husband, who, though he was not averse to the profit which sometimes
results from such parties, had always shewn a contempt of the frivolous
parade that sometimes attends them; till she considered that his pride
might be gratified by displaying, among his own friends, in his native
city, the wealth which he had neglected in France; and she courted again
the splendid illusions that had charmed her before.