Valperga (3 page)

Adimari continued in the service of his country, until his
infirmities permitted him to withdraw from these active and
harassing duties, and, giving up the idea of parties and wars, to
apply himself exclusively to literature. The spirit of learning,
after a long sleep, that seemed to be annihilation, awoke, and
shook her wings over her favoured Italy. Inestimable treasures of
learning then existed in various monasteries, of the value of which
their inhabitants were at length aware; and even laymen began to
partake of that curiosity, which made Petrarch but a few years
after travel round Europe to collect manuscripts, and to preserve
those wonderful writings, now mutilated, but which would otherwise
have been entirely lost.

Antonio dei Adimari enjoyed repose in the bosom of his family,
his solitude cheered by the converse which he held with the sages
of Rome in ages long past. His family consisted of his wife, two
boys, and a girl only two years younger than Castruccio. He and
Euthanasia had been educated together almost from their cradle.
They had wandered hand in hand among the wild mountains and
chestnut woods that surrounded her mother's castle. Their
studies, their amusements, were in common; and it was a terrible
blow to each when they were separated by the exile of the
Antelminelli. Euthanasia, whose soul was a deep well of love, felt
most, and her glistening eyes and infantine complaints told for
many months, even years after, that she still remembered, and would
never forget, the playmate of her childhood.

At the period of this separation Adimari was threatened by a
misfortune, the worst that could befall a man of study and
learning-- blindness. The disease gained ground, and in a year he
saw nothing of this fair world but an universal and impenetrable
blank. In this dreadful state Euthanasia was his only consolation.
Unable to attend to the education of his boys, he sent them to the
court of Naples, to which he had before adhered, and in which he
possessed many valued friends; and his girl alone remained to cheer
him with her prattle; for the countess, his wife, a woman of high
birth and party, did not sympathize in his sedentary
occupations.--"I will not leave you," said Euthanasia to
him one day, when he bade her go and amuse herself,--"I am
most pleased while talking with you. You cannot read now, or occupy
yourself with those old parchments in which you used to delight.
But tell me, dear father, could you not teach me to read them to
you? You know I can read very well, and I am never so well pleased
as when I can get some of the troubadour songs, or some old
chronicle, to puzzle over. These to be sure are written in another
language; but I am not totally unacquainted with it; and, if you
would have a little patience with me, I think I should be able to
understand these difficult authors."

The disabled student did not disdain so affectionate an offer.
Every one in those days was acquainted with a rude and barbarous
Latin, the knowledge of which Euthanasia now exchanged for the
polished language of Cicero and Virgil. A priest of a neighbouring
chapel was her tutor; and the desire of pleasing her father made
her indefatigable in her exertions. The first difficulties being
conquered, she passed whole days over these dusky manuscripts,
reading to the old man, who found double pleasure in the ancient
poets, as he heard their verses pronounced by his beloved
Euthanasia. The effect of this education on her mind was
advantageous and memorable; she did not acquire that narrow idea of
the present times, as if they and the world were the same, which
characterizes the unlearned; she saw and marked the revolutions
that had been, and the present seemed to her only a point of rest,
from which time was to renew his flight, scattering change as he
went; and, if her voice or act could mingle aught of good in these
changes, this it was to which her imagination most ardently
aspired. She was deeply penetrated by the acts and thoughts of
those men, who despised the spirit of party, and grasped the
universe in their hopes of virtue and independence.

Liberty had never been more devotedly worshipped than in the
republic of Florence: the Guelphs boasted that their attachment to
the cause of freedom might rival what history records of the
glorious days of antiquity. Adimari had allied himself to this
party, because he thought he saw in the designs and principles of
its leaders the germ of future independence for Italy. He had ever
been a fervent advocate for the freedom of his fellow citizens: but
he caught the spirit with double fervour from the Roman writers;
and often, not seeing the little fairy form that sat at his feet,
he forgot the age of his companion, and talked in high strains of
that ennobling spirit which he felt in his inmost heart. Euthanasia
heard and understood; her soul, adapted for the reception of all
good, drained the cup of eloquent feeling that her father poured
out before her, and her eyes shone with the deep emotion. Her young
thoughts darted into futurity, to the hope of freedom for Italy, of
revived learning and the reign of peace for all the world: wild
dreams, that still awake the minds of men to high song and glorious
action.

Such was the education of the friend of Castruccio, while he
learned all chivalrous accomplishments under the tuition of his
noble father at Ancona; and now, after three years absence, they
met a Florence, neither having by forgetfulness wronged the
friendship they had vowed in infancy.

When Marco led his young friend to the palace of Adimari, he
found his master and the countess receiving the visits of some of
the Guelph party; and he knew that this was no time or place to
introduce the young Ghibeline. But, as they passed along the great
hall, a sylph- like form came from a room opposite, appearing as a
star from behind a cloud.--"I bring your exiled friend,"
said Marco; "Castruccio dei Antelminelli is come to visit
you."

"Castruccio in Florence!" cried Euthanasia; and she
embraced him with sisterly affection. "But how, dear friend,
do you venture within these walls?--is your father here?--but this
is no place to ask all the questions that I must hear resolved
before you go. Come into this room; none but my father will enter
here; and now you shall tell me all that has passed since you
quitted Lucca."

Castruccio gazed on Euthanasia: he could, he thought, feed for
life on her sweet looks, in which deep sensibility and lively
thought were pictured, and a judgement and reason beyond her years.
Her eyes seemed to read his soul, while they glistened with
pleasure; he wished to hear her speak, but she insisted that his
tale should be first told, of how he had lived at Ancona, and how
he had ventured to Florence. She gently reproached him for having
left his father; and then said,-- "But I must not play the
hypocrite; I am glad you are come; for it gives me more pleasure
than I can express, to see you again. But I hear my father's
step; I must go and lead him, and tell him of the stranger-visitor
he has got."

Castruccio enjoyed the most heartfelt pleasure, as he sat
between Euthanasia and her father. Their manners towards him were
affectionate, and their conversation best calculated to fill an
exile's bosom with hope and joy. He was told by them, that if
they now parted, he must look forward to the moment when he and his
father should be recalled with honour to their country. Adimari
could not see the bright eyes and ardent mien of the boy; but he
heard with pleasure the detail of his occupations at Ancona, and
easily perceived that his young mind slept not on the present,
dreamless of the future. He encouraged his aspirations to honour,
and exhorted him to be faithful to the lessons of his father.

The charmed hours flew past, and the following morning they were
to separate. This consideration, as evening came on, threw more
solemnity into their looks and talk. Castruccio became pensive, and
gazed on his friend, as a treasure that he was about to lose,
perhaps for ever. Euthanasia was silent; her eyes were bent to
earth; and the varying colour of her cheeks shewed that she was
revolving some thought in her mind, to which she knew not how to
give utterance. At length she raised her eyes, and said:--"We
part to-morrow, Castruccio, as we have before parted,--for many
years I fear. But there are two kinds of separation. One, during
which we suffer time to obliterate the past, as we should if death,
that parting to which no meeting succeeds, or a meeting in which
all private ties are superseded, had been the cause of the
separation. But there is another; when we cherish the memory of the
absent, and act for them as if they were with us; when to remember
is a paramount duty. This is alone practicable between friends,
when each in his meditations is sure that the other thinks also of
him: then, methinks to reflect on the words and looks of a friend,
is as if one absolutely saw him. Let this be our separation. We are
both familiar with the ideas of virtue and self-sacrifice; let
friendship be joined to these, to make all sacrifice light, and
virtue more delightful. We are very young; we know not what
misfortunes are in store for us; what losses, perhaps what
calumnies, or even dishonour, may in after times taint our names.
In calumny it is to the friends of our youth that we must turn; for
they alone can know how pure the heart is, with which they were
acquainted at the time when disguise could have no existence. They,
if they are true, dare not leave us without consolation.
Castruccio, I know that you will never dishonour yourself: and,
remember, if in any hard struggle you want a friend who will
console you by sympathy and confidence, and help you as far as her
power will permit, I will always be that friend to you."

Euthanasia was yet a child, when she made this promise. But she
saw Castruccio, the friend of her infancy, a youth of high birth
and nobly bred, an outcast and an exile; she had heard and read how
few friends the unfortunate find, and generosity prompted those
sentiments, to which the frankness of her nature caused her to give
utterance. She felt that Castruccio had a deep affection for her,
and she hoped, that a promise thus voluntary and solemn, would be a
consolation to him during adversity. He felt the kindness of her
motive, and replied earnestly:--"I am an exile, and can do no
good to you who are prosperous; mine must be barren thanks. Yet not
the less will I fulfil my promise, if our fortunes change, of being
your friend, your knight, your rock, on whom you may build your
hope and trust in every misfortune."

The next morning, accompanied by Marco, Castruccio quitted
Florence. In his mind there was a mixture of grief at having left,
and joy at having once more seen, Euthanasia. Every word that she
had said, and every look of her lovely eyes, were treasured in his
soul--to be a consolation and support in trouble, and an incentive
to noble endeavour. Adimari had taken an affectionate leave of him,
telling him, that, as far as a poor blind man could, he would
promote his interests, and seize the first opportunity, if such
should offer, of procuring a repeal for his exile. There was a
kindness and distinction in the manner of his aged friend, that
touched the heart of the boy; and in after times he thought he
perceived a hidden meaning in his last words, which he interpreted
in a manner that gave a sober steadiness to what he would otherwise
have considered as another airy bubble of the enchantress Hope.
"Remember," said the venerable Florentine, "that I
approve of, and love you; and if you become that which your talents
and dawning virtues promise, you may in future be my elect
favourite. Now, farewell; and do not forget me or mine!"

Thus cheered, thus buoyed up by hopes of future good fortune and
advancement, which had before been too deeply mingled with fear,
Castruccio returned with a light heart to his father, his soul more
than ever bent upon improvement and the accomplishment of noble
deeds. And now, forgiven by his anxious parent for the grief he had
occasioned him, his days wore away, as they were wont, in
delightful tasks.

Time passed on, while our young esquire was preparing himself
for his future career; strengthening his mind by study, and his
body by toil. His step assumed the firmness of one who does not
fear, and who, with his eye fixed on one point, will not be daunted
by the shadows that flit between him and his desired sun. His eyes,
before beaming with frankness and engaging sweetness, now sparkled
with a profounder meaning. He entered his seventeenth year, and he
was pondering upon the fit beginning to his life, and hoping that
his father would not oppose his fervent desire to quit what he
thought a lifeless solitude; when, as a young bather, peeping from
a rock, is pushed into the sea, and forced to exert the powers of
which he was before only dreaming, so chance threw Castruccio from
his quiet nook into the wide sea of care, to sink or swim, as fate
or his own good strength might aid him.

His father died. A malignant fever, brought by some trading
vessels from the Levant, raged in the town of Ancona, and Ruggieri
was one of its earliest victims. As soon as he was attacked, he
knew he must die, and he gazed upon his boy with deep tenderness
and care. To be cast so young on life, with a mind burning with
ardour, and adorned with every grace--the fair graces of youth, so
easily and so irretrievably tarnished! He had commanded him not to
come near him during his illness, which was exceedingly contagious:
but finding that Castruccio waited on him by stealth, he felt that
it was in vain to oppose; and, only intreating him to use every
imaginable precaution, they spent the last hours of Ruggieri's
life together. The fever was too violent to permit any regular
conversation; but the dying father exhorted him to remember his
former lessons, and lay them to his heart. "I have written a
letter," said he, "which you will deliver to Francesco de
Guinigi. He was one of my dearest friends, and of high birth and
fortune, in Lucca; but now, like me, he is an exile, and has taken
refuge at the town of Este in Lombardy. If he still preserves in
adversity that generosity which before so highly distinguished him,
you will less feel the loss of your father. Go to him, my
Castruccio, and be guided by his advice: he will direct you how you
can most usefully employ your time while an outcast from your
country. Listen to him with the same deference that you have always
shown to me, for he is one of the few wise men who exist in this
world, whose vanity and nothingness open upon me the more, now that
I am about to quit it."