The solitary grandeur of the objects that immediately surrounded her,
the mountain-region towering above, the deep precipices that fell
beneath, the waving blackness of the forests of pine and oak, which
skirted their feet, or hung within their recesses, the headlong
torrents that, dashing among their cliffs, sometimes appeared like a
cloud of mist, at others like a sheet of ice—these were features which
received a higher character of sublimity from the reposing beauty of
the Italian landscape below, stretching to the wide horizon, where the
same melting blue tint seemed to unite earth and sky. Madame Montoni only shuddered as she looked down precipices near whose
edge the chairmen trotted lightly and swiftly, almost, as the chamois
bounded, and from which Emily too recoiled; but with her fears were
mingled such various emotions of delight, such admiration,
astonishment, and awe, as she had never experienced before. 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 Thoulouse, whom Montoni had mentioned
with more _eclât_ 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; _conversazione_, 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 shown
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. The travellers, as they descended, gradually, exchanged the region of
winter for the genial warmth and beauty of spring. The sky began to
assume that serene and beautiful tint peculiar to the climate of Italy;
patches of young verdure, fragrant shrubs and flowers looked gaily
among the rocks, often fringing their rugged brows, or hanging in tufts
from their broken sides; and the buds of the oak and mountain ash were
expanding into foliage. Descending lower, the orange and the myrtle,
every now and then, appeared in some sunny nook, with their yellow
blossoms peeping from among the dark green of their leaves, and
mingling with the scarlet flowers of the pomegranate and the paler ones
of the arbutus, that ran mantling to the crags above; while, lower
still, spread the pastures of Piedmont, where early flocks were
cropping the luxuriant herbage of spring. The river Doria, which, rising on the summit of Mount Cenis, had dashed
for many leagues over the precipices that bordered the road, now began
to assume a less impetuous, though scarcely less romantic character, as
it approached the green valleys of Piedmont, into which the travellers
descended with the evening sun; and Emily found herself once more amid
the tranquil beauty of pastoral scenery; among flocks and herds, and
slopes tufted with woods of lively verdure and with beautiful shrubs,
such as she had often seen waving luxuriantly over the alps above. The
verdure of the pasturage, now varied with the hues of early flowers,
among which were yellow ranunculuses and pansey violets of delicious
fragrance, she had never seen excelled.—Emily almost wished to become a
peasant of Piedmont, to inhabit one of the pleasant embowered cottages
which she saw peeping beneath the cliffs, and to pass her careless
hours among these romantic landscapes. To the hours, the months, she
was to pass under the dominion of Montoni, she looked with
apprehension; while those which were departed she remembered with
regret and sorrow. In the present scenes her fancy often gave her the figure of
Valancourt, whom she saw on a point of the cliffs, gazing with awe and
admiration on the imagery around him; or wandering pensively along the
vale below, frequently pausing to look back upon the scenery, and then,
his countenance glowing with the poet’s fire, pursuing his way to some
overhanging heights. When she again considered the time and the
distance that were to separate them, that every step she now took
lengthened this distance, her heart sunk, and the surrounding landscape
charmed her no more. The travellers, passing Novalesa, reached, after the evening had
closed, the small and ancient town of Susa, which had formerly guarded
this pass of the Alps into Piedmont. The heights which command it had,
since the invention of artillery, rendered its fortifications useless;
but these romantic heights, seen by moonlight, with the town below,
surrounded by its walls and watchtowers, and partially illumined,
exhibited an interesting picture to Emily. Here they rested for the
night at an inn, which had little accommodation to boast of; but the
travellers brought with them the hunger that gives delicious flavour to
the coarsest viands, and the weariness that ensures repose; and here
Emily first caught a strain of Italian music, on Italian ground.