"Man, you are not worthy of her when you ask me. All I can tell you here, you should have known yourself. This ravisher, this man of will, this son of the old Visconti, unlike you,-- steadfast, resolute, earnest even in his crimes,--never relinquishes an object. But one passion controls his lust,--it is his avarice. The day after his attempt on Viola, his uncle, the Cardinal --, from whom he has large expectations of land and gold, sent for him, and forbade him, on pain of forfeiting all the possessions which his schemes already had parcelled out, to pursue with dishonourable designs one whom the Cardinal had heeded and loved from childhood. This is the cause of his present pause from his pursuit. While we speak, the cause expires. Before the hand of the clock reaches the hour of noon, the Cardinal -- will be no more. At this very moment thy friend, Jean Nicot, is with the Prince di --."
"He! wherefore?"
"To ask what dower shall go with Viola Pisani, the morning that she leaves the palace of the prince."
"And how do you know all this?"
"Fool! I tell thee again, because a lover is a watcher by night and day; because love never sleeps when danger menaces the beloved one!"
"And you it was that informed the Cardinal --?"
"Yes; and what has been my task might as easily have been thine. Speak,--thine answer!" "You shall have it on the third day from this."
"Be it so. Put off, poor waverer, thy happiness to the last hour. On the third day from this, I will ask thee thy resolve."
"And where shall we meet?"
"Before midnight, where you may least expect me. You cannot shun me, though you may seek to do so!"
"Stay one moment! You condemn me as doubtful, irresolute, suspicious. Have I no cause? Can I yield without a struggle to the strange fascination you exert upon my mind? What interest can you have in me, a stranger, that you should thus dictate to me the gravest action in the life of man? Do you suppose that any one in his senses would not pause, and deliberate, and ask himself, 'Why should this stranger care thus for me?'"
"And yet," said Zanoni, "if I told thee that I could initiate thee into the secrets of that magic which the philosophy of the whole existing world treats as a chimera, or imposture; if I promised to show thee how to command the beings of air and ocean, how to accumulate wealth more easily than a child can gather pebbles on the shore, to place in thy hands the essence of the herbs which prolong life from age to age, the mystery of that attraction by which to awe all danger and disarm all violence and subdue man as the serpent charms the bird,--if I told thee that all these it was mine to possess and to communicate, thou wouldst listen to me then, and obey me without a doubt!"
"It is true; and I can account for this only by the imperfect associations of my childhood,--by traditions in our house of--"
"Your forefather, who, in the revival of science, sought the secrets of Apollonius and Paracelsus."
"What!" said Glyndon, amazed, "are you so well acquainted with the annals of an obscure lineage?"
"To the man who aspires to know, no man who has been the meanest student of knowledge should be unknown. You ask me why I have shown this interest in your fate? There is one reason which I have not yet told you. There is a fraternity as to whose laws and whose mysteries the most inquisitive schoolmen are in the dark. By those laws all are pledged to warn, to aid, and to guide even the remotest descendants of men who have toiled, though vainly, like your ancestor, in the mysteries of the Order. We are bound to advise them to their welfare; nay, more,--if they command us to it, we must accept them as our pupils. I am a survivor of that most ancient and immemorial union. This it was that bound me to thee at the first; this, perhaps, attracted thyself unconsciously, Son of our Brotherhood, to me."
"If this be so, I command thee, in the name of the laws thou obeyest, to receive me as thy pupil!"
"What do you ask?" said Zanoni, passionately. "Learn, first, the conditions. No neophyte must have, at his initiation, one affection or desire that chains him to the world. He must be pure from the love of woman, free from avarice and ambition, free from the dreams even of art, or the hope of earthly fame. The first sacrifice thou must make is--Viola herself. And for what? For an ordeal that the most daring courage only can encounter, the most ethereal natures alone survive! Thou art unfit for the science that has made me and others what we are or have been; for thy whole nature is one fear!"
"Fear!" cried Glyndon, colouring with resentment, and rising to the full height of his stature.
"Fear! and the worst fear,--fear of the world's opinion; fear of the Nicots and the Mervales; fear of thine own impulses when most generous; fear of thine own powers when thy genius is most bold; fear that virtue is not eternal; fear that God does not live in heaven to keep watch on earth; fear, the fear of little men; and that fear is never known to the great."
With these words Zanoni abruptly left the artist, humbled, bewildered, and not convinced. He remained alone with his thoughts till he was aroused by the striking of the clock; he then suddenly remembered Zanoni's prediction of the Cardinal's death; and, seized with an intense desire to learn its truth, he hurried into