Cavigni, meanwhile, informed her of the names of the noblemen to whom
the several villas they passed belonged, adding light sketches of their
characters, such as served to amuse rather than to inform, exhibiting
his own wit instead of the delineation of truth. Emily was sometimes
diverted by his conversation; but his gaiety did not entertain Madame
Montoni, as it had formerly done; she was frequently grave, and Montoni
retained his usual reserve.
Nothing could exceed Emily's admiration on her first view of Venice,
with its islets, palaces, and towers rising out of the sea, whose clear
surface reflected the tremulous picture in all its colours. The sun,
sinking in the west, tinted the waves and the lofty mountains of Friuli,
which skirt the northern shores of the Adriatic, with a saffron glow,
while on the marble porticos and colonnades of St. Mark were thrown
the rich lights and shades of evening. As they glided on, the grander
features of this city appeared more distinctly: its terraces, crowned
with airy yet majestic fabrics, touched, as they now were, with the
splendour of the setting sun, appeared as if they had been called up
from the ocean by the wand of an enchanter, rather than reared by mortal
hands.
The sun, soon after, sinking to the lower world, the shadow of the earth
stole gradually over the waves, and then up the towering sides of the
mountains of Friuli, till it extinguished even the last upward beams
that had lingered on their summits, and the melancholy purple of evening
drew over them, like a thin veil. How deep, how beautiful was the
tranquillity that wrapped the scene! All nature seemed to repose; the
finest emotions of the soul were alone awake. Emily's eyes filled with
tears of admiration and sublime devotion, as she raised them over the
sleeping world to the vast heavens, and heard the notes of solemn
music, that stole over the waters from a distance. She listened in still
rapture, and no person of the party broke the charm by an enquiry. The
sounds seemed to grow on the air; for so smoothly did the barge glide
along, that its motion was not perceivable, and the fairy city appeared
approaching to welcome the strangers. They now distinguished a female
voice, accompanied by a few instruments, singing a soft and mournful
air; and its fine expression, as sometimes it seemed pleading with the
impassioned tenderness of love, and then languishing into the cadence
of hopeless grief, declared, that it flowed from no feigned sensibility.
Ah! thought Emily, as she sighed and remembered Valancourt, those
strains come from the heart!