'This is nothing extraordinary,'
said he, 'you will hear the same, perhaps, at every inn on our way. It
is one of our landlord's family who plays, I doubt not,' Emily, as she
listened, thought he could be scarcely less than a professor of music
whom she heard; and the sweet and plaintive strains soon lulled her into
a reverie, from which she was very unwillingly roused by the raillery
of Cavigni, and by the voice of Montoni, who gave orders to a servant to
have the carriages ready at an early hour on the following morning; and
added, that he meant to dine at Turin.
Madame Montoni was exceedingly rejoiced to be once more on level ground;
and, after giving a long detail of the various terrors she had suffered,
which she forgot that she was describing to the companions of her
dangers, she added a hope, that she should soon be beyond the view of
these horrid mountains, 'which all the world,' said she, 'should not
tempt me to cross again.' Complaining of fatigue she soon retired to
rest, and Emily withdrew to her own room, when she understood from
Annette, her aunt's woman, that Cavigni was nearly right in his
conjecture concerning the musician, who had awakened the violin with
so much taste, for that he was the son of a peasant inhabiting the
neighbouring valley.
'He is going to the Carnival at Venice,' added
Annette, 'for they say he has a fine hand at playing, and will get a
world of money; and the Carnival is just going to begin: but for my
part, I should like to live among these pleasant woods and hills, better
than in a town; and they say Ma'moiselle, we shall see no woods, or
hills, or fields, at Venice, for that it is built in the very middle of
the sea.' Emily agreed with the talkative Annette, that this young man was making
a change for the worse, and could not forbear silently lamenting, that
he should be drawn from the innocence and beauty of these scenes, to the
corrupt ones of that voluptuous city.
When she was alone, unable to sleep, the landscapes of her native home,
with Valancourt, and the circumstances of her departure, haunted her
fancy; she drew pictures of social happiness amidst the grand simplicity
of nature, such as she feared she had bade farewel to for ever; and
then, the idea of this young Piedmontese, thus ignorantly sporting with
his happiness, returned to her thoughts, and, glad to escape awhile from
the pressure of nearer interests, she indulged her fancy in composing
the following lines.