Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 53, No. 327, January, 1843

IMAGINARY CONVERSATION

BY WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR

Tasso.—She is dead, Cornelia—she is dead!

Cornelia.—Torquato! my Torquato! after so many years of separation do I bend once more your beloved head to my embrace?

Tasso.—She is dead!

Cornelia.—Tenderest of brothers! bravest and best and most unfortunate of men! What, in the name of heaven! so bewilders you?

Tasso.—Sister! sister! sister! I could not save her.

Cornelia.—Certainly it was a sad event; and they who are out of spirits may be ready to take it for an evil omen. At this season of the year the vintagers are joyous and negligent.

Tasso.—How! what is this?

Cornelia.—The little girl was crushed, they say, by a wheel of the car laden with grapes, as she held out a handful of vine-leaves to one of the oxen. And did you happen to be there just at the moment?

Tasso.—So then the little too can suffer! the ignorant, the indigent, the unaspiring! Poor child! She was kind-hearted; else never would calamity have befallen her.

Cornelia.—I wish you had not seen the accident.

Tasso.—I see it? I? I saw it not. There is but one crushed where I am. The little girl died for her kindness!—natural death!

Cornelia.—Be calm, be composed, my brother!

Tasso.—You would not require me to be composed or calm if you comprehended a thousandth part of my sufferings.

Cornelia.—Peace! peace! we know them all.

Tasso.—Who has dared to name them? Imprisonment, derision, madness.

Cornelia.—Hush! sweet Torquato! If ever these existed, they are past.

Tasso.—You do think they are sufferings? ay?

Cornelia.—Too surely.

Tasso.—No, not too surely: I will not have that answer. They would have been; but Leonora was then living. Unmanly as I am! did I complain of them? and while she was left me?

Cornelia.—My own Torquato! is there no comfort in a sister's love? Is there no happiness but under the passions? Think, O my brother, how many courts there are in Italy; are the princes more fortunate than you? Which among them all loves truly, deeply, and virtuously? Among them all is there any one, for his genius, for his generosity, for his gentleness, ay, or for his mere humanity, worthy to be beloved?

Tasso.—Princes! talk to me of princes! How much coarse-grained wood a little gypsum covers! a little carmine quite beautifies! Wet your forefinger with your spittle; stick a broken gold-leaf on the sinciput; clip off a beggar's beard to make it tresses, kiss it; fall down before it; worship it. Are you not irradiated by the light of its countenance? Princes! princes! Italian princes! Estes! What matters that costly carrion? Who thinks about it? (After a pause.) She is dead! She is dead!

Cornelia.—We have not heard it here.

Tasso.—At Sorrento you hear nothing but the light surges of the sea, and the sweet sprinkles of the guitar.

Cornelia.—Suppose the worst to be true.

Tasso.—Always, always.

Cornelia.—If she ceases, as then perhaps she must, to love and to lament you, think gratefully, contentedly, devoutly, that her arms had encircled your neck before they were crossed upon her bosom, in that long sleep which you have rendered placid, and from which your harmonious voice shall once more awaken her. Yes, Torquato! her bosom had throbbed to yours, often and often, before the organ-peel shook the fringes round the catafalc. Is not this much, from one so high, so beautiful?

Tasso.—Much? yes; for abject me. But I did so love her! so love her!

Cornelia.—Ah! let the tears flow: she sends thee that balm from heaven.

Tasso.—So loved her did poor Tasso! Else, O Cornelia, it had indeed been much. I thought in the simplicity of my heart that God was as great as an emperor, and could bestow, and had bestowed on me as much as the German had conferred, or could confer on his vassal. No part of my insanity was ever held in such ridicule as this. And yet the idea cleaves to me strangely, and is liable to stick to my shroud.

Cornelia.—Woe betide the woman who bids you to forget that woman who has loved you: she sins against her sex. Leonora was unblameable. Never think ill of her for what you have suffered.

Tasso.—Think ill of her? I? I? I? No; those we love, we love for every thing; even for the pain they have given us. But she gave me none: it was where she was not, that pain was.

Cornelia.—Surely, if love and sorrow are destined for companionship, there is no reason why the last comer of the two should supersede the first.

Tasso.—Argue with me, and you drive me into darkness. I am easily persuaded and led on while no reasons are thrown before me. With these, you have made my temples throb again. Just heaven! dost thou grant us fairer fields, and wider, for the whirlwind to lay waste? Dost thou build us up habitations above the street, above the palace, above the citadel, for the Plague to enter and carouse in? Has not my youth paid its dues, paid its penalties? Cannot our griefs come first, while we have strength to bear them? The fool! the fool! who thinks it a misfortune that his love is unrequited. Happier young man! look at the violets until thou drop asleep on them. Ah! but thou must wake!

Cornelia.—O heavens! what must you have suffered. For a man's heart is sensitive in proportion to its greatness.

Tasso.—And a woman's?

Cornelia.—Alas! I know not; but I think it can have no other. Comfort thee—comfort thee, dear Torquato!

Tasso.—Then do not rest thy face upon my arm; it so reminds me of her. And thy tears, too! they melt me into her grave.

Cornelia.—Hear you not her voice as it appeals to you: saying to you as the priests around have been saying to her, Blessed soul! rest in peace?

Tasso.—I heard it not; and yet I am sure she said it. A thousand times has she repeated it, laying her hand on my heart to quiet it—simple girl! She told it to rest in peace, and she went from me! Insatiable love! ever self-torturer, never self-destroyer! the world, with all its weight of miseries, cannot crush thee, cannot keep thee down. Generally mens' tears, like the droppings of certain springs, only harden and petrify what they fall on; but mine sank deep into a tender heart, and were its very blood. Never will I believe she has left me utterly. Oftentimes, and long before her departure, I fancied we were in heaven together. I fancied it in the fields, in the gardens, in the palace, in the prison. I fancied it in the broad daylight, when my eyes were open, when blessed spirits drew around me that golden circle which one only of earth's inhabitants could enter. Oftentimes in my sleep also I fancied it—and sometimes in the intermediate state—in that serenity which breathes about the transported soul, enjoying its pure and perfect rest, a span below the feet of the Immortal.

Cornelia.—She has not left you; do not disturb her peace by these repinings.

Tasso.—She will bear with them. Thou knowest not what she was, Cornelia; for I wrote to thee about her while she seemed but human. In my hours of sadness, not only her beautiful form, but her very voice bent over me. How girlish in the gracefulness of her lofty form! how pliable in her majesty! what composure at my petulance and reproaches! what pity in her reproofs! Like the air that angels breathe in the metropolitan temple of the Christian world, her soul at every season preserved one temperature. But it was when she could and did love me! Unchanged must ever be the blessed one who has leaned in fond security on the unchangeable. The purifying flame shoots upward, and is the glory that encircles their brows when they meet above.

Cornelia.—Indulge in these delightful thoughts, my Torquato! and believe that your love is and ought to be imperishable as your glory. Generations of men move forward in endless procession to consecrate and commemorate both. Colour-grinders and gilders, year after year, are bargained with to refresh the crumbling monuments and tarnished decorations of rude unregarded royalty, and to fasten the nails that cramp the crown upon the head. Meanwhile, in the laurels of my Torquato, there will always be one leaf, above man's reach, above time's wrath and injury, inscribed with the name of Leonora.

Tasso.—O Jerusalem! I have not then sung in vain the Holy Sepulchre.

Cornelia.—After such devotion of your genius, you have undergone too many misfortunes.

Tasso.—Congratulate the man who has had many, and may have more. I have had, I have, I can have—one only.

Cornelia.—Life runs not smoothly at all seasons, even with the happiest; but after a long course, the rocks subside, the views widen, and it flows on more equably at the end.

Tasso.—Have the stars smooth surfaces? No, no; but how they shine!

Cornelia.—Capable of thoughts so exalted, so far above the earth we dwell on, why suffer any to depress and anguish you?

Tasso.—Cornelia, Cornelia! the mind has within it temples, and porticoes, and palaces, and towers: the mind has under it, ready for the course, steeds brighter than the sun, and stronger than the storm; and beside them stand winged chariots, more in number than the Psalmist hath attributed to the Almighty. The mind, I tell thee again, hath its hundred gates, compared whereto the Theban are but willow wickets; and all those hundred gates can genius throw open. But there are some that groan heavily on their hinges, and the hand of God alone can close them.

Cornelia.—Torquato has thrown open those of his holy temple; Torquato hath stood, another angel, at his tomb; and am I the sister of Torquato? Kiss me, my brother, and let my tears run only from my pride and joy! Princes have bestowed knighthood on the worthy and unworthy; thou hast called forth those princes from their ranks, pushing back the arrogant and presumptuous of them like intrusive varlets, and conferring on the bettermost crowns and robes, imperishable and unfading.

Tasso.—I seem to live back into those days. I feel the helmet on my head; I wave the standard over it; brave men smile upon me; beautiful maidens pull them gently back by the scarf, and will not let them break my slumber, nor undraw the curtain. Corneliolina!——

Cornelia.—Well, my dear brother! Why do you stop so suddenly in the midst of them? They are the pleasantest and best company, and they make you look quite happy and joyous.

Tasso.—Corneliolina, dost thou remember Bergamo? What city was ever so celebrated for honest and valiant men, in all classes, or for beautiful girls? There is but one class of those: Beauty is above all ranks; the true Madonna, the patroness and bestower of felicity, the queen of heaven.

Cornelia.—Hush, Torquato, hush! talk not so.

Tasso.—What rivers, how sunshiny and revelling, are the Brembo and the Serio! What a country the Valtellina! I went back to our father's house, thinking to find thee again, my little sister—thinking to kick away thy ball of yellow silk as thou went stooping for it, to make thee run after me and beat me. I woke early in the morning; thou wert grown up and gone. Away to Sorrento—I knew the road—a few strides brought me back—here I am. To-morrow, my Cornelia, we will walk together, as we used to do, into the cool and quiet caves on the shore; and we will catch the little breezes as they come in and go out again on the backs of the jocund waves.

Cornelia.—We will, indeed, to-morrow; but before we set out we must take a few hours' rest, that we may enjoy our ramble the better.

Tasso.—Our Sorrentines, I see, are grown rich and avaricious. They have uprooted the old pomegranate hedges, and have built high walls to prohibit the wayfarer from their vineyards.

Cornelia.—I have a basket of grapes for you in the bookroom that overlooks our garden.

Tasso.—Does the old twisted sage-tree grow still against the window?

Cornelia.—It harboured too many insects at last, and there was always a nest of scorpions in the crevice.

Tasso.—O! what a prince of a sage-tree! And the well too, with its bucket of shining metal, large enough for the largest cocomero9 to cool in it for dinner!

Cornelia.—The well, I assure you, is as cool as ever.

Tasso.—Delicious! delicious! And the stone-work round it, bearing no other marks of waste than my pruning-hook and dagger left behind?

Cornelia.—None whatever.

Tasso.—White in that place no longer? There has been time enough for it to become all of one colour; grey, mossy, half-decayed.

Cornelia.—No, no; not even the rope has wanted repair.

Tasso.—Who sings yonder?

Cornelia.—Enchanter! No sooner did you say the word cocomero, than here comes a boy carrying one upon his head.

Tasso.—Listen! listen! I have read in some book or other those verses long ago. They are not unlike my Aminta. The very words!

Cornelia.—Purifier of love, and humanizer of ferocity! how many, my Torquato, will your gentle thoughts make happy!

Tasso.—At this moment I almost think I am one among them.10

Cornelia.—Be quite persuaded of it. Come, brother, come with me. You shall bathe your heated brow and weary limbs in the chamber of your boyhood. It is there we are always the most certain of repose. The child shall sing to you those sweet verses; and we will reward him with a slice of his own fruit.

Tasso.—He deserves it; cut it thick.

Cornelia.—Come then, my truant! Come along, my sweet smiling Torquato!

Tasso.—The passage is darker than ever. Is this the way to the little court? Surely those are not the steps that lead down toward the bath? Oh yes! we are right; I smell the lemon-blossoms. Beware of the old wilding that bears them; it may catch your veil; it may scratch your fingers! Pray, take care: it has many thorns about it. And now, Leonora! you shall hear my last verses! Lean your ear a little toward me; for I must repeat them softly under this low archway, else others may hear them too. Ah! you press my hand once more. Drop it, drop it! or the verses will sink into my breast again, and lie there silent! Good girl!

Cornelia.—We are now in the full light of the chamber: cannot you remember it, having looked so intently all around?

Tasso.—O sister! I could have slept another hour. You thought I wanted rest: why did you waken me so early? I could have slept another hour, or longer. What a dream! But I am calm and happy.

Cornelia.—May you never more be otherwise! Indeed, he cannot be whose last verses are such as those.

Tasso.—Have you written any since that morning?

Cornelia.—What morning?

Tasso.—When you caught the swallow in my curtains, and trod upon my knees in catching it, luckily with naked feet. The little girl of thirteen laughed at the outcry of her brother Torquatino, and sang without a blush her earliest lay.

Cornelia.—I do not recollect it.

Tasso.—I do.

Cornelia.—Here is the cocomero; it cannot be more insipid. Try it.

Tasso.—Where is the boy who brought it? where is the boy who sang my Aminta? Serve him first; give him largely. Cut deeper; the knife is too short: deeper, mia brave Corneliolina! quite through all the red, and into the middle of the seeds. Well done!

THE WORLD OF LONDON. SECOND SERIES