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When we read the tragedies of Alfieri, the world looms upon us dark and repulsive. A style of composition which exhibits the ordinary course of human affairs in a gloomy and troublous light, and whose extraordinary catastrophes are horrible, resembles a climate where the perpetual fogs of a northern winter should be joined with the fiery tempests of the torrid zone.
It was as an expression, an eternal, immortal expression, the severest conceivable retribution, Alfieri sincerely thought, of this rage, all the stronger as there entered into it the petty personal vanity as well as the noble abstract feeling of the man it was as an expression of this gallophobia that Alfieri composed his famous but little-read Misogallo.
On Odo's flushed anticipations this antechamber, which seemed the approach to some pedant's cabinet, had an effect undeniably chilling; but Alfieri, heedless of his surprise, had cast off cloak and mask, and now led the way into a long conventual-looking room lined with book-shelves.
In such matters Alfieri was as undramatic as Corneille or Racine.
Their tastes were indeed divergent, for to that external beauty which was to Odo the very bloom of life, Alfieri remained insensible; while of its imaginative counterpart, its prolongation in the realm of thought and emotion, he had but the most limited conception.
At the beginning of the winter of 1780, the celebration of St. Andrew's day by Charles Edward and his drinking companions, was followed by a scene over which Alfieri drops a modest veil, calling it vaguely a violent bacchanal which endangered the life of his lady.
Then came the Arab, with news of Irene's return, and, like any desperate gamester who ventures the last shreds of a wasted capital on some almost impossible chance, she determined to fight Alfieri to the end. It was not a thing to be done in cold blood.
If I say that you stake your life on the adventure, and that the stake is not too great for the reward ?" His sallow face had reddened with excitement, and Odo's forehead reflected the flush. Was it possible ? But the thought set him tingling with disgust. "Why, you say little," he cried lightly, "at the rate at which I value my life." Alfieri turned on him.
And how can we be surprised, when Alfieri himself admits that he is near, and has actually sent Abdullah, who can tell us the exact number of his men?" "I think I shall call you Portia, not Irene, if you reason things out in that fashion." She stamped a foot in mock anger. "That is your old trick," she said. "You try to hide your thoughts by an adroit twist in the conversation. Out with it!
Such were the persons upon whom depended the liberty and happiness of Alfieri's lady, the possibility of that high-flown Platonic intercourse which constituted Louis d'Albany's whole happiness, and Alfieri's strongest incentive to glory; a word from them could exile Alfieri and lock the Countess up in a convent.
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