Madame Montoni received with a very ill grace, the compliments of
the Signors. She disliked them, because they were the friends of her
husband; hated them, because she believed they had contributed to detain
him abroad till so late an hour of the preceding morning; and envied
them, since, conscious of her own want of influence, she was convinced,
that he preferred their society to her own. The rank of Count Morano
procured him that distinction which she refused to the rest of the
company. The haughty sullenness of her countenance and manner, and the
ostentatious extravagance of her dress, for she had not yet adopted
the Venetian habit, were strikingly contrasted by the beauty, modesty,
sweetness and simplicity of Emily, who observed, with more attention
than pleasure, the party around her. The beauty and fascinating manners
of Signora Livona, however, won her involuntary regard; while the
sweetness of her accents and her air of gentle kindness awakened with
Emily those pleasing affections, which so long had slumbered.
In the cool of the evening the party embarked in Montoni's gondola, and
rowed out upon the sea. The red glow of sun-set still touched the waves,
and lingered in the west, where the melancholy gleam seemed slowly
expiring, while the dark blue of the upper aether began to twinkle with
stars. Emily sat, given up to pensive and sweet emotions. The smoothness
of the water, over which she glided, its reflected images--a new heaven
and trembling stars below the waves, with shadowy outlines of towers and
porticos, conspired with the stillness of the hour, interrupted only by
the passing wave, or the notes of distant music, to raise those emotions
to enthusiasm. As she listened to the measured sound of the oars, and to
the remote warblings that came in the breeze, her softened mind returned
to the memory of St. Aubert and to Valancourt, and tears stole to her
eyes. The rays of the moon, strengthening as the shadows deepened,
soon after threw a silvery gleam upon her countenance, which was partly
shaded by a thin black veil, and touched it with inimitable softness.
Hers was the CONTOUR of a Madona, with the sensibility of a Magdalen;
and the pensive uplifted eye, with the tear that glittered on her cheek,
confirmed the expression of the character.
The last strain of distant music now died in air, for the gondola was
far upon the waves, and the party determined to have music of their own.
The Count Morano, who sat next to Emily, and who had been observing her
for some time in silence, snatched up a lute, and struck the chords
with the finger of harmony herself, while his voice, a fine tenor,
accompanied them in a rondeau full of tender sadness. To him, indeed,
might have been applied that beautiful exhortation of an English poet,
had it then existed: