Zicci, Complete

the shore, bounded the view in front; while to the right, not far off, rose the dark and tangled crags to which the traveller

the voluptuous silence,-the silence of declining noon on the shores of Naples. Never till you have enjoyed it, never till you have felt its enervating but delicious charm, believe that you can comprehend all the meaning of the dolce far nient

nd the eyes of the actress were fixed on the broad, blue deep beyond. In the unwonted negligence of her dress might be traced the abstraction of her mind. Her beautiful hair was gathered up loosely, and partially bandaged by a kerchief, whose purple color seemed to deepen the golden hue of the tresses. A stray curl escaped, and fell down the graceful neck. A loose morning robe, girded by a sash, left the breeze that came ever and an

he elbow in two huge recesses on either side her gown,-pockets, indeed, they might be called by courtes

this Inglese; and I am told that all the Inglesi are much richer than they seem. Though they have no trees in their country, poor people, and instead of twenty-four they have only twelve hours to the day, yet I hear, cospetto! that they shoe their horses with steak;

is he not

d when you are his wife,-for they say these E

h! Whom are y

g English sign

ught you spo

d. I see that,-leave me alone. When you are married, then you will see how amiable Signor Zicci wil

hand to her heart with wild energy, "why do you light every spot but this? Dark, dark! And a little while ago I was so calm, so

n't eat you will lose your beauty, my darling, and then nobody will care for you. Nobody cares for us when we grow ugly,-

elf,-to glide with the sunbeam over the hill-tops; to become something that is not of earth. Is it, indeed, that he is a sorcerer, as I have heard? Phan

, a step that she did not hear approached t

carissima

at once. She did not love him, yet his sight gave her pleasure. She had

ayed with my impatience and my ardor, thou hast sometimes smiled, sometimes frowned away my importunities for a reply to my suit; but this day-I know not how it is-I feel a more sus

in the dust with the point of her slipper, she said, with some hesitation and a vain attempt to be gay, "Signor, whoever w

this destiny, glittering though it seem,-that your h

filling with tears, "it is a misera

, my delight, my ideal! Thou shalt inspire my canvas and my song, thy beauty shall be made at once holy and renowned. In the galleries of princes crowds shall gather

er as he pressed his cheek nearer to hers, and clasped h

ove; onl

ter's

t with such c

quil calm creeps over and lulls thoughts, oh, how feverish, how wild! When thou art gone, the day seems a shade more dark; bu

Nay, such love as thou now describest in our tran

ould destroy," said Isabel, r

back, conscie

. From my childhood upward, I have felt as if I were marked out for some strange and preternatural doom; as if I were singled from my kind. This feeling (and, oh! at times it is one of delirious and vag

ou feel, I feel. I, too, have been ever haunted with a chill and unearthly foreboding. Amidst the crowds of men I have felt alone. In all my pleasures, my toil

have served the Greek with a study for the Pythoness when, from the mystic cavern and the bubbling spring, she first hears the voice of the in

ell me, have you seen, do you know, a stranger i

now him! And you? Ah! he, too, would be m

p sigh,-"he pleads for you; he informed me of

prehensible enigma, w

you more fearfully, more intelligibly than before; whether you felt at once repelled from him, yet attracted towards hi

und me was gay,-music, amidst lamp-lit trees, light converse near, and heaven without a cloud above,-my knees kn

tone; "there must be the hand of Fate in thi

n of that moonlight hour in the gardens, of the strange address of Zicci, froze up all human passion; Isabel herself, if not forgotten, shrank back like a shadow into t