Valperga (32 page)

Shortly after their departure, news arrived that Castruccio
would return to Florence in two days. Euthanasia heard this with
trembling;--but a short time before she had earnestly desired to
see him, that she might clear up all her suspicions, and that
certainty of good or evil might decide her fate;--now she feared
the death that might suddenly come to all her hopes; and she felt
as if but to gain a day, or a few hours, of doubt and expectation,
were to gain so much of life: to insure this she took the hasty
resolution of quitting Florence, and returning to her castle before
the arrival of her suitor. Accordingly, attended by her domestics
alone, after having taken a sudden leave of her friends, she
departed.

How different was her present journey from that undertaken with
Castruccio but a few months before! She was then happy and
confiding; but now anxious doubt pervaded her, and fears that would
not sleep. She had resolved, if the ambition of Castruccio could
not content itself except with the destruction of the liberties of
Florence, that she would never be his; but this resolution gave her
no calm; the seal neither of life nor death was placed on her
hopes: and she strove to expect good; while the fear of evil
flushed her cheek, and filled her eyes with unshed tears. The year
was on its decline; the myrtle flowers had faded from the
mountains, and the chestnut-woods were tinged with brown and
yellow; the peasants were busy among the vines; and the trellised
arbours they had formed, and the sweet shades of green among which
the purple grapes hung, were now pulled down, defaced and trodden
upon: the swallows were collecting for their flight, and the chill
mornings and evenings announced the near approach of hoary winter.
The sluggish scirocco blotted the sky with clouds, and weighed upon
the spirits, making them dull and heavy as itself.

Euthanasia saw all this with the observant eye of grief, which
refers all things to itself, and forms omens for its own
immortality from combinations more unsubstantial than the Sibylline
leaves. The autumnal rains threatened nigh at hand; and the year
had been much curtailed of those sweet days which follow the hot
Italian summer, when the hunter feels his bow injured by the heavy
dews of night, but when the noonday sun shines with tempered heat,
and sets leaving the downcast eyelids of night heavy with tears for
his departure; when we feel that summer is gone, and winter is
coming, but the fresh--looking evergreens, the stately cypress, the
fruit-burthened olive, and the dark ilex, tell us that nature is
not merely a fair-weather friend. Our sorrowing traveller compared
the quick advance of winter that she now witnessed, with its long
delay of the preceding year, and sighed.

She arrived at her castle on the first of October; and the
moment she had arrived, the storm, which for many days had been
collecting from the south the force of autumnal rains and thunders,
broke over her head. The white lightning sped in forked chains
around the sky, and without pause or interval, deluged the midnight
heaven with light, which shewed to her, as she stood at the window
of her apartment, the colours of the trees, and even of the few
flowers which had survived to witness the advent of the storm. The
thunder broke in tremendous and continued peals, and the rain awoke
in a moment the dried up sources of the mountain torrents; yet
their liquid career was not heard amidst the tumult: for, if the
thunder paused, the echoes prolonged the sound, and all nature
seemed labouring with the commotion. Euthanasia watched the
progress of the tempest; and her ear, filled with its almost
deafening noise, could not distinguish the sounds, which at other
times would have been audible, of horses' hoofs as they
ascended the rock of Valperga, or the clang at the castle- gate, or
the letting down of the draw-bridge; the first sound alien to the
storm that visited her sense, was her own name pronounced in a well
known and soft voice:

"Euthanasia!"

"Castruccio! you here?"

"Yes, it is I,--Castruccio;--yet I will instantly depart,
if you command. I have followed fast upon your steps;--but why are
you here? Why did you not remain at Florence?"

For nearly two years Euthanasia had cherished, unblamed by
herself, the most fervent love for Castruccio. The union had been
delayed; but the sentiment continued as a deep and clear stream, or
rather like a pure lake, which in its calmness reflects more
vividly and enduringly the rock that hangs eternally above it, than
does the tempest-shaken water. They had been separated nearly three
months; and, now that she saw and heard him again, her first
impulse was, clasped in his arms, to seal with one caress a joyous
forgiveness; but she checked herself. Confounded by his sudden
appearance, and distracted by the many feelings that pressed upon
her, she wept:--she wept long and silently; while her lover stood
near her without speaking, looking at her by the glare of the
continued lightnings, as they flashed in fast succession, and made
day in the chamber.

After a long pause, he spoke with less impetuosity: "Why
did you not remain at Florence?"

She looked up at him, and her voice quivered, as she replied:
"I cannot tell you now; I am confused, and words refuse
themselves to me: my heart is full, and I am most
unhappy,--to-morrow I will explain all."

"Now or never;--Euthanasia, you must not trifle with
me,--are you mine?"

"If you are your own."

"What does that mean?" cried Castruccio, starting.
"Of what then do you accuse me? You speak in riddles:
understand, I intreat you, a plain speech, and answer me with
frankness. I love you; I have long loved you; and you alone have so
long delayed the union which God knows how much I desire. Now you
have brought it to a crisis:--Will you be mine?"

It is difficult to answer the language of passion with that of
reason: besides Euthanasia was not herself passionless, and there
was a feeling in her heart that pleaded more strongly in
Castruccio's favour than all his arguments. She felt subdued;
yet she was angry with herself for this, and remained a long time
silent, endeavouring to collect herself. At length she replied:

"Why do you press me to answer you now? or rather, consult
your own heart, and that will answer for me. You have known mine
long.--I love you;--but I have other duties besides those which I
owe to you, and those shall be fulfilled. My father's lessons
must not be forgotten, when the first occasion arrives for putting
them in practice; nor must I be wanting to that sense of duty,
which until now has been the rule of my life. I am a Florentine;
Florence is my native country; nor will I be a traitor to
it."

"Well,--and what do you conclude from this?"

"Are you not the enemy of Florence? Are you not contriving
war and chains for its happy and free state? You turn away
impatiently; to- morrow I will see you again, and you will then
have reflected on my words: my fate depends on your true and frank
reply to my question. Now leave me; I am worn out and fatigued, and
to-night I cannot support the struggle into which you would lead
me. To-morrow I shall see you; farewell; the storm has now passed,
and the rain has quite ceased. Good night!"

"You leave me thus; and thus you reward me for suspense,
jealousy and despair. Good night, Euthanasia. You sacrifice me to a
bubble, to the shadow of a bubble,--be it so! Great God! that you
should be influenced by such a chimæra! Well, you decide; and I
shall expect your award with what patience I may. Again, good
night."

He left her to doubt, suspense and grief. But her high mind bore
her through all; and, having marked for herself the line of duty
which she believed she ought to pursue, the natural enthusiasm of
her character aided her to struggle with the misery which her
sensibility inflicted upon her. Castruccio himself came to her aid;
and the events which followed fast on the scene of this night,
served to strengthen her resolution, and, if they did not make the
sacrifice more easy, they rendered its necessity more palpable.

DURING his absence Castruccio had reduced in his own mind his
various political plans to a system. He no longer varied either in
the end which he desired to attain, or the means by which he
resolved to accomplish it. He thought coolly on the obstacles in
his way; and he resolved to remove them. His end was the conquest
of Tuscany; his means, the enslaving of his native town; and, with
the true disposition of a conqueror and an usurper, he began to
count heads to be removed, and hands to be used, in the furtherance
of his designs. He had no sooner returned to Florence, than
messengers brought him intelligence of a plot, which would speedily
break out in Lucca to deprive him of his government; and this
information, joined to the departure of Euthanasia, determined him
instantly to return to the Lucchese territory.

He was no longer the same as when he had quitted it; he returned
full of thought,--with a bent brow, a cruel eye, and a heart not to
be moved from its purpose of weakness or humanity. The change might
appear sudden, yet it had been slow;--it is the last drop that
overflows the brimming cup,--and so with him the ambition, light-
heartedness, and pride which he had long been nourishing, now
having made for itself a form, "a habitation and a name,"
first manifested itself in its true colours to the eyes of man.
Ambition, and the fixed desire to rule, smothered in his mind the
voice of his better reason; and the path of tyranny was smoothed,
by his steady resolve to obtain the power, which under one form or
other it had been the object of his life to seek.

The morning after his return to Lucca he reviewed his troops:
they were devoted to him, and by their means he intended to secure
his power. He assembled the senate, and surrounded the palace of
government with his soldiers; he took his seat at its head, with
the countenance of one who knows, and can punish his enemies. He
addressed the assembly in few words, saying, that it was by their
power he had been raised to the government, and that it now behoved
them to support him in its exercise. "I know," he cried,
"I have many enemies here,-- but let any one of them step
forth, and say the ill that I have done to the republic;--I who
have fought its battles, secured its prosperity, and raised it from
the being the servant of proud Florence to be its rival. What, will
none of you come forward to denounce me, now that I appear, face to
face, to answer your accusations? Randolfo Obizzi, I call upon you,
who would despoil me of the power this senate conferred upon
me;--and you, Aldino, who have plotted even my death;-- can ye
whisper as traitors, and cannot ye speak as men? Away!--the moment
of mercy is short:--three hours hence the gates of Lucca will be
shut, and whoever among you or your partizans are found within its
walls, will pay the forfeit of his life for his temerity."

The senate would now have broken up; but, when Castruccio saw
that his enemies had all departed, he called on the rest to stay,
and aid him on this momentous occasion. The decree for banishing
the conspirators was then formally passed, and another for
demolishing three hundred towers of so many palaces, which were as
strong holds and fortresses within the town. The senate was then
dismissed,--the troops paraded the streets, and before night-fall
three hundred families, despoiled of their possessions, and
banished their native town, passed through its gates in mournful
procession. The soldiers were employed in demolishing the towers;
and the ruins were carried to the eastern quarter of the city, to
be used in the erection of a new wall. Castruccio, now master of
Lucca, and triumphant over his enemies, felt that he had taken the
first step in the accomplishment of his plans.

Euthanasia had remained in her castle in anxious expectation of
a visit or a message from Castruccio;--neither came: but late in
the afternoon Teresa Obizzi, one of her dearest friends, was
announced to her.

"Why so mournful, dear Teresa?" asked her friend.
"What has happened? Are you also unfortunate?"

"I hardly know what has happened, or where I am,"
replied Teresa. "Methinks the thunder of heaven has fallen
among us; all the Obizzi family is banished Lucca, and not these
alone, but the Bernardi, the Filippini, the Alviani, and many more,
are exiled, and their possessions confiscated."

"Why, how is this? What new change has occurred in
Lucca?"

"Nothing new, dear countess. In truth I believe there was a
plot against Antelminelli, and that some of the Obizzi were
concerned in it. But Castruccio examines nothing; and, including us
all in one general sentence, has wrapped us like a whirlwind, and
carries us, God alone knows whither. And my poor father! I threw
myself at the consul's feet; yes, I, the wife of the proud
Galeotto Obizzi, and prayed that my poor father might be allowed to
remain."

"And he refused?"

"He said, `You have heard the sentence; he best knows
whether he be implicated in it; I have sworn by God and St. Martin
that this nest of Guelphs and Neri shall be rooted out of Lucca,
and that the will of the senate shall be obeyed. Let him look to
it; for after three hours the life of a partizan of the Obizzi will
be held no dearer than the earth on which I tread.'"

"Castruccio said this? Did he answer you thus,
Teresa?"

"He did, dear Euthanasia; but I must away; I came to bid
you farewell,--a long farewell; my father and my husband wait for
me; pray God to pity us;--farewell!"

"Not so, Teresa. This castle is not his, and may afford an
asylum to his victims. Come here; repose here awhile at least.
Bring your father, your babes; come and teach me what sorrow is,
and learn from me to bear it with fortitude."

As the evening advanced, others of her friends arrived, and
confirmed all that Euthanasia had before heard. She was confounded,
and unable to believe that it was indeed Castruccio who had caused
these evils. Whence arose this sudden change in his character? Yet,
was it sudden? or, was there indeed any change? She remembered
words and looks, before forgotten, which told her that what now
took place was the offspring of deep thought and a prepared scheme.
Yet again, unable to believe the full extent of the evil that she
heard, she sent to Lucca to intreat Arrigo Guinigi to hasten to
her. Arrigo was with Castruccio when the message came.