Oddo

“ Yet Erica looked behind her after every few strokes of her oar; and once, when she saw something, her start was felt like a start of the skiff itself. There was a fire glancing and gleaming and quivering over the water, some way down the fiord.
“Some people night-fishing,” observed Oddo. “What sport they will have! I wish I was with them. How fast we go! How you can row when you choose! I can see the man that is holding the torch. ”

“ Her hope was that, finding the boat gone, he would never show himself again.
“One would think,” continued the lady, when she returned from watching Erica and Oddo disappear in the dusk—“one would think Erica had never known fear. Her step is as firm and her eye as clear as if she had never trembled in the course of her life.”
“She knows how to act to-night,” said Peder; “and she is going into danger for her lover, instead of waiting at home while her lover goes into danger for her. A hundred pirates in the fiord would not make her tremble as she trembled last night. ”

“ And Oddo went to close and fasten the door; and then he sat down on the ground, rested his arms on his grandfather's knees, and told his story in such a low tone that no "little bird" under the eaves could "carry the matter."
"O grandfather, what a mind that fellow has! He will go crazy with horror soon. I am not sure that he is not crazy now."
"He has murdered Rolf, has he?"
"I can't be sure. He is like one bewitched, that cannot hold his tongue. While I was bringing the troughs, one by one, for him to lay, where the meadow was driest, he still kept muttering and muttering to himself. ”

“ Wooden dwellings resound so much as to be inconvenient for those who have secrets to tell. In the porch of Peder’s house, Oddo had heard all that passed within. It was good for him to have done so. He became more sensible of the pain he had given, and more anxious to repair it. “Dear Erica,” said he, “I want you to do a very kind thing for me. Do get leave for me to go with Rolf after the bears. If I get one stroke at them,—if I can but wound one of them, I shall have a paw for my share; and I will lay it out for Nipen. You will, will you not?” ”

“ He will have to be shut up in a cave all the hot summer through, when it is pleasantest to be abroad; and when the frost and snow come again, he will be driven out with a lash of Nipen’s whip, and he must go flying wherever his wind flies without resting or stopping to warm himself at any fire in the country. Every winter now, when Erlingsen hears a moaning above his chimney, he may know it is poor Oddo, foolish boy!”
“Foolish boy! but one can’t help pitying him,” said another. “Chained astride upon the wind, and never to be warm again!” ”

“ He said, however, that if by chance he should cross their path, he did not doubt he could also make them run, by acting the ghost or demon, though he had not had Rolfs advantage of disappearing in the fiord before their eyes. They were already terrified enough to fly from anything that called itself a ghost.
The three then went on their several ways,—Oddo speeding over the ridges like a sprite on a night errand, and Rolf striding up the grassy slopes like (what he was) a lover anxious to be beside his betrothed, after a perilous absence. ”

“ He showed the fragment of the cut thong in proof of the boat not having loosed itself, and set off for a point on the heights which he said overlooked the fiord. One or two went with him, the rest returning up the narrow pathway at some speed—such speed that Erica thought they were afraid of the hindmost being caught by the same enemy that had taken their boat. Oddo observed this too, and he quickened their pace by setting up very loud the mournful cry with which he was accustomed to call out to the plovers on the mountain-side on sporting days. No sound can be more melancholy ”

“ Odo felt a shock of dismay on learning that his beautiful mother was to become the property of an old gentleman whom he guessed to be of his grandfather's age, and whose enamoured grimaces recalled the antics of her favourite monkey, and the boy's face reflected the blush of embarrassment with which Donna Laura imparted the news; but the children of that day were trained to a passive acquiescence, and had she informed him that she was to be chained in the keep on bread and water, Odo would have accepted the fact with equal philosophy. ”

“ It seemed to Odo as he gazed on the long line of faces as though their owners had entered one by one into a narrowing defile, where the sun rose later and set earlier on each successive traveller; and in every countenance, from that of the first Duke to that of his own peruked and cuirassed grandfather, he discerned the same symptom of decadency: that duality of will which, in a delicately-tempered race, is the fatal fruit of an undisturbed pre-eminence. ”

“ Odo's late experiences had wakened him to the influences acting on that obscure substratum of human life that still seemed, to most men of his rank, of no more account than the brick lining of their marble-coated palaces. As he watched the mounting excitement of the throng, and pictured to himself the lives suddenly lit up by this pledge of unseen promises, he wondered that the enemies of the Church should ascribe her predominance to any cause but the natural needs of the heart. The people lived in unlit hovels, for there was a tax on mental as well as on material windows ”

“ Every colour, every gesture, every word and note of music that made up the texture of the gorgeous ceremonial might indeed seem part of a long-studied and astutely-planned effect. Yet each had its root in some instinct of the heart, some natural development of the inner life, so that they were in fact not the cunningly-adjusted fragments of an arbitrary pattern but the inseparable fibres of a living organism. It was Odo's misfortune to see too far ahead on the road along which his destiny was urging him. ”

“ He was a handsome young fellow, and stated that he was called Odo, and was the son of a neighbouring king, and that, having gone forth in search of treasure and adventures, he had succeeded in amassing a large quantity of gold and precious stones, and was on his way home, when he heard of the wonderful bird, who could foretell the future. He had gained the valley and was almost close to the bird, when he incautiously looked back, hearing wild cries for help, and in that moment he had been turned to stone, and his were the quaintly shaped chests Olga had noticed. ”

“ For a moment sovereign and subjects measured each other; and in that moment Odo drank his deepest draught of life. He was not thinking now of the constitution or its opponents. His present business was to get down the steps and into the carriage, returning to the palace as openly as he had come. He was conscious of neither pity nor hatred for the throng in his path. For the moment he regarded them merely as a natural force, to be fought against like storm or flood. ”

“ Odo had acquired, at twenty-two, a nobility of carriage not incompatible with the boyish candour of his gaze, and becomingly set off by the brilliant dress-uniform of a lieutenant in one of the provincial regiments. He was tall and fair, and a certain languor of complexion, inherited from his father's house, was corrected in him by the vivacity of the Donnaz blood. This now sparkled in his grey eye, and gave a glow to his cheek, as he stepped across the threshold, treading on a sprig of cherry-blossom that had dropped unnoticed to the floor. ”

“ This, then, was the famous Procuratore Bra, whose house had given three Doges to Venice, and who was himself regarded as the most powerful if not the most scrupulous noble of his day. Odo had heard many tales of his singularities, for in a generation of elegant triflers his figure stood out with the ruggedness of a granite boulder in a clipped and gravelled garden. To hereditary wealth and influence he added a love of power seconded by great political sagacity and an inflexible will. ”

“ Her voice gained strength and measure as she spoke, and Odo felt that all that passion could urge must spend itself in vain against such high security of spirit.
"Go, cavaliere," she continued, "I implore you to lose no time in reaching Pianura. Occasion is short-lived, and an hour's lingering may cost you the regency, and with it the chance of gaining a hold on your people. I will not expatiate, as some might, on the power and dignities that await you. You are no adventurer plotting to steal a throne, but a soldier pledged to his post." ”

“ Was humanity in chains? Behold the angel on the threshold of the prison!
Odo, too impatient to await the next reunion of the Honey-Bees, sought out and frequented those among the members whose conversation had chiefly attracted him. They were grave men, of studious and retiring habit, leading the frugal life of the Italian middle-class, a life in dignified contrast to the wasteful and aimless existence of the nobility. Odo's sensitiveness to outward impressions made him peculiarly alive to this contrast. ”

“ Though here and there a good parish priest like Crescenti ministered to the temporal wants of the peasantry, it was only the free-thinker and the atheist who, at the risk of life and fortune, laboured for their moral liberation. Odo listened with a saddened heart, thinking, as he followed his host through the perfumed shade of the gardens, and down the long saloon at the end of which the Venus stood, of those who for the love of man had denied themselves such delicate emotions and gone forth cheerfully to exile or imprisonment. ”

“ These personages, grouped about the toilet-table where the Countess sat under the hands of a Parisian hairdresser, were picturesquely relieved against the stucco panelling and narrow mirrors of the apartment, with its windows looking on a garden set with mossy statues. To Odo, however, the scene suggested the most tedious part of his day's routine. The compliments to be exchanged, the silly verses to be praised, the gewgaws from Paris to be admired, were all contrasted in his mind with the vision of that other life which had come to him on the hillside of the Superga. ”

“ Long before the hour Odo was buttoned into his embroidered coat and waistcoat. He would have on the sword at once, and when they sat down to dinner, though his mother pressed him to eat with more concern than she had before shown, it went hard with him to put his weapon aside, and he cast longing eyes at the corner where it lay. At length a chamberlain summoned them and they set out down the corridors, attended by two servants. Odo held his head high, with one hand leading Donna Laura (for he would not appear to be led by her) while the other fingered his sword. ”

“ De Crucis was again silent, and Odo was aware of the renewed intentness of his scrutiny. "If the lady--" broke from him once; but he checked himself and took a turn in the room.
Meanwhile a resolve was slowly forming itself in Odo. He would not be false to the call which, since his boyhood, had so often made itself heard before the voice of pleasure and self-interest; but he would at least reserve the right to obey it in his own fashion and under conditions which left his private inclination free.
"There may be more than one way of serving one's fellows," he said quietly. ”

“ Odo's face was calm and grave. The Benedictine monk had been listening intently, but with a detached interest, as to some tale which, even if it concerned himself, could not in the least disturb his equanimity. With his supernormal quickness of perception he knew at once the powers with which he had to cope. Tristan had told him of the devilish face in the panel during the night of his first watch at the Lateran.
"The powers of Evil at work are so great that only a miracle from heaven can save us," he said at last. ”

“ Light and music streamed from the long facade overhead, but the lower gardens lay hushed and dark, the air fragrant with unseen flowers, the late moon just burnishing the edges of the laurel-thickets from which, now and again, a nightingale's song gushed in a fountain of sound. Odo, spellbound, followed the others without a thought of his own share in the adventure. Never before had beauty so ministered to every sense. He felt himself lost in his surroundings, absorbed in the scent and murmur of the night. ”

“ Never perhaps does a man show less knowledge of human nature than in speculating on the conduct of his beloved; and every step in the labyrinth of his conjectures carried Odo farther from the truth. This rose on him at nightfall, in the shape of a letter slipped in his hand by a lay-sister as he crossed the square before his lodgings. He stepped to the light of the nearest shrine and read the few words in a tumult. "This being Friday, no visitors are admitted to the convent; but I entreat you to come to me tomorrow an hour before benediction." ”

“ As the procession wound into the church, to the ringing of bells and the chanting of the choir, Odo was struck by the spectacle of that line of witnesses, watching in glassy-eyed irony the pomp and display to which their moldering robes and tarnished insignia seemed to fix so brief a term. Once or twice already he had felt the shows of human power as no more than vanishing reflections on the tide of being ”

“ Odo, who had learned that frankness was the surest way to the Duke's favour, replied that, while nothing could be more agreeable than the circumstances of his sojourn at Monte Alloro, he must own to a wish to travel when the occasion offered.
"Why, this is as I fancied," replied the Duke, who held in his hand an open letter on which Odo recognised Maria Clementina's seal. "We have always," he continued, "spoken plainly with each other, and I will not conceal from you that it is for your best interests that you should remain away from Pianura for the present. ”