Valperga (35 page)

Euthanasia was awaked from the reverie, half painful, half
pleasing, that engaged her as she sat at her window; for she was
too true a child of nature, not to feel her sorrows alleviated by
the sight of what is beautiful in the visible world;--she was
roused, I say, by her servant who told her that a female pilgrim
was at the gate, and desired to see the lady of the castle.
"Receive her," said Euthanasia, "and let her be led
to the bath; I will see her when she is refreshed."

"She will not enter," replied the servant, "but
desires earnestly, she says, to see you: she absolutely refuses to
enter the castle."

Euthanasia descended to the gate; her quick light steps trod the
pavement of the hall, her long golden tresses waved upon the wind,
and her blue eyes seemed to have drunk in the azure of departed
day, they were in colour so deep, so clear. The pilgrim stood at
the door leaning on her staff, a large hat covered her head, and
was pulled down over her brows, and her coarse cloak fell in
undistinguishing folds round her slim form; but Euthanasia,
accustomed to see the peasantry alone resort to this mountain, was
struck by the small white hand that held the staff, and the
delicately moulded and snowy feet which, shod in the rudest
sandals, seemed little used to labour or fatigue.

"I intreat you," she said, "to come into the
castle to rest yourself; the Ave Maria is passed, and your toils
for the day are ended; you will find a bath, food and rest; will
you not enter?" Euthanasia held forth her hand.

"Lady, I must not. I intreat you only to bestow your alms
on a pilgrim going to Rome, but who has turned aside to perform a
vow among these mountains."

"Most willingly; but I also have made a vow, which is, not
to suffer a tired pilgrim to pass my gates without rest and food.
Where can you go to-night? Lucca is six long miles off; you are
weak and very weary: come; I ask you for alms; they are your
prayers which must be told on the soft cushions of a pleasant bed
amid your dreams this night. Come in; the heavy dews that fall from
the clear sky after this burning day may hurt you: this is a
dangerous hour in the plain; can you not be persuaded?"

Euthanasia saw quick drops fall from the flashing and black eyes
of the poor pilgrim: she raised them to heaven, saying, "Thy
will be done! I am now all humbleness."

As she threw up her head Euthanasia looked on her countenance;
it was beautiful, but sunburnt and wild; her finely carved eyes,
her lips curved in the line of beauty, her pointed and dimpled chin
still beamed loveliness, and her voice was low and silver-toned.
She entered the castle, but would go no further than the outer
hall. The eloquence of Euthanasia was wasted; and she was obliged
to order cushions and food to be brought to the hall: they then sat
down; the pilgrim took off her hat, and her black and silken
ringlets fell around her face; she parted them with her small
fingers, and then sat downcast and silent.

Euthanasia placed fruit, sweetmeats and wine before her;
"Eat," she said, "you are greatly
fatigued."

The poor pilgrim tried; but her lips refused the fruit she would
have tasted. She felt that she should weep; and, angry at her own
weakness, she drank a little wine, which somewhat revived her; and
then, sitting thus, overcome, bent and sorrowing, beside the clear
loveliness of Euthanasia, these two ladies entered into
conversation, soft and consoling on one part, on the other
hesitating and interrupted. At first the pilgrim gazed for a moment
on the golden hair and bluest eyes of Euthanasia, her heavenly
smile, and clear brow; and then she said: "You are the lady of
this castle? You are named Euthanasia?"

"Most true: and might I in return ask you who you are, who
wander alone and unhappy? Believe me I should think myself very
fortunate, if you would permit me to know your grief, and to
undertake the task of consoling you. If you mourn for your faults,
does not a moment of real repentance annihilate them all? Come, I
will be your confessor; and impose on you the light penances of
cheerfulness and hope. Do you mourn your friends? poor girl! weep
not; that is a sorrow time alone can cure: but time can cure it, if
with a patient heart you yield yourself to new affections and
feelings of kindness. Sweet, hush the storm that agitates you: if
you pray, let not your words be drops of agony, but as the morning
dew of faith and hope. You are silent; you are angry that I speak;
so truly do I prize the soft peace that was for years the inmate of
my own heart, that I would bestow it on others with as earnest a
labour, as for myself I would try to recall it to the nest from
which it has fled."

"How! and are you not happy?" The eyes of the pilgrim
glanced a sudden fire, that was again quenched by her downcast
lids.

"I have had my share of tranquillity. For five-and-twenty
years few sorrows, and those appeaseable by natural and quickly
dried tears, visited me; now my cares rise thick, while, trust me,
with eager endeavour, I try to dissipate them. But you are young,
very young; you have quaffed the gall, and will now come to the
honey of your cup. Wherefore are you bound for Rome?"

"It were a long tale to tell, lady, and one I would not
willingly disclose. Yet, methinks, you should be happy; your eyes
are mild, and made for peace. I thought,--I heard,--that a thousand
blessed circumstances conduced to render you fortunate beyond all
others."

"Circumstances change as fast as the fleeting clouds of an
autumnal sky. If happiness depends upon occasion, how unstable is
it! We can alone call that ours which lives in our own bosoms. Yet
those feelings also are bound to mutability; and, as the priests
have doubtless long since taught you, there is no joy that endures
upon earth."

"How is this! He is not dead!--he must be--" The
pilgrim suddenly stopped, her cheek burning with blushes.

"Who dead? What do you mean?"

"Your father, your brother, any one you love. But, lady, I
will intrude no longer; the dews are fallen, and I find the air of
the castle close and suffocating. I long for the free
air."

"You will not sleep here?"

"I must not; do not ask me again; you pain me much; I must
pursue my journey!"

The pilgrim gathered up her raven locks, and put on her hat;
then, leaning on her staff, she held forth her little hand, and
said in a smothered voice, so low that the tone hardly struck the
air, "Your alms, lady."

Euthanasia took out gold; the pilgrim smiled sadly, saying,
"My vow prevents my receiving more than three soldi; let that
sum be the limit of your generous aid."

Euthanasia found something so inexplicable, reserved, and almost
haughty, in the manner of her guest, that she felt checked, and ill
disposed to press her often rejected services; she gave the small
sum asked, saying, "You are penurious in your courtesies; this
will hardly buy for me one pater-noster."

"It will buy the treasure of my heart in prayers for your
welfare; prayers, which I once thought all powerful, may be as well
worth perhaps as those of the beggar whom we fee on the road-side.
Farewell!"

The pilgrim spoke earnestly and sweetly; and then drawing her
cloak about her, she left the castle, winding slowly down the
steep. After she had awhile departed, Euthanasia sent a servant to
the nunnery of St. Ursula, which was on the road the pilgrim was to
follow, with a loaded basket of fruits, wine and other food, and a
message to the nuns to watch for and receive the unhappy stranger.
All passed as she desired. The pilgrim entered the convent; and,
after praying in the chapel, and silently partaking a frugal meal
of fruit and bread, she went to rest in her lowly cell. The next
morning the abbess had intended to question her, and to win her to
some comfort; but, before the dawn of day, the pilgrim had left the
convent; and, with slow steps and a sorrowing heart, pursued her
way towards Rome.

This occurrence had greatly struck Euthanasia. She felt, that
there was something uncommon in the visit of the stranger, and
that, although unknown to her, there must be some link between
them, which she vainly strove to discover. It happened, that, about
a fortnight after, she was at the Fondi palace in Lucca, where
Castruccio was in company; and she related this incident, dwelling
on the beauty of the pilgrim, her graceful manners, and deep
sorrow. When she described her form and countenance, Castruccio,
struck by some sudden recollection, advanced towards Euthanasia,
and began to question her earnestly as to the very words and looks
of the stranger; then, checking himself, he drew back, and entered
into conversation with another person. When however Euthanasia rose
to depart, he approached, and said in a low tone: "I am afraid
that I can solve the riddle of this unfortunate girl; permit me to
see you alone tomorrow; I must know every thing that
passed."

Euthanasia assented, and waited with impatience for the
visit.

He came; and at his request she related minutely all that had
happened. Castruccio listened earnestly; and, when he heard what
had been her last words, he cried, "It must be she! It is the
poor Beatrice!"

"Beatrice!--Who is Beatrice?"

Castruccio endeavoured to evade the question, and afterwards to
answer it by the relation of a few slight circumstances; but
Euthanasia, struck by his manner, questioned him so seriously, that
he ended by relating the whole story. Euthanasia was deeply moved;
and earnest pity succeeded to her first astonishment; astonishment
for her powers and strange errors, and then compassion for her
sorrows and mighty fall. Castruccio, led on by the memory of her
enchantments, spoke with ardour, scarcely knowing to whom he spoke;
and, when he ended, Euthanasia cried, "She must be followed,
brought back, consoled; her misery is great; but there is a cure
for it."

She then concerted with Castruccio the plan for tracing her
steps, and inducing her to return. Messengers were sent on the road
to Rome, who were promised high rewards if they succeeded in
finding her; others were sent to Ferrara to learn if her friends
there had any knowledge of her course. These researches occupied
several weeks; but they were fruitless: the messengers from Ferrara
brought word, that she had left that city early in the preceding
spring in a pilgrimage to Rome, and that she had never since been
heard of. The lady Marchesana, inconsolable for her departure, had
since died; and the good bishop Marsilio, who had not returned from
France, where he had been made a cardinal, was at too great a
distance to understand the circumstances of her departure, or to
act upon them. Nor were the tidings brought from Rome more
satisfactory; she was traced from Lucca to Pisa, Florence, Arezzo,
Perugia, Foligno, Spoletto, and even to Terni; but there all trace
was lost. It appeared certain that she had never arrived in Rome;
none of the priests had heard of her; every church and convent was
examined; but no trace of her could be found. Every exertion was
vain: it appeared as if she had sunk into the bowels of the
earth.

During the period occupied by these researches, a great change
had taken place in the mind of Euthanasia. Before, though her
atmosphere had been torn by storms, and blackened by the heaviest
clouds, her love had ever borne her on towards one point with
resistless force; and it seemed as if, body and soul, she would in
the end be its victim. Now the tide ebbed, and left her, as a poor
wretch upon one point of rock, when the rising ocean suddenly
subsides, and restores him unexpectedly to life. She had loved
Castruccio; and, as is ever the case with pure and exalted minds,
she had separated the object of her love from all other beings,
and, investing him with a glory, he was no longer to her as one
among the common herd, nor ever for a moment could she confound him
and class him with his fellow men. It is this feeling that is the
essence and life of love, and that, still subsisting even after
esteem and sympathy had been destroyed, had caused the excessive
grief in which she had been plunged. She had separated herself from
the rest as his chosen one; she had been selected from the whole
world for him to love, and therefore was there a mighty barrier
between her and all things else; no sentiment could pass through
her mind unmingled with his image, no thought that did not bear his
stamp to distinguish it from all other thoughts; as the moon in
heaven shines bright, because the sun illumines her with his rays,
so did she proceed on her high path in serene majesty, protected
through her love for him from all meaner cares or joys; her very
person was sacred, since she had dedicated herself to him; but, the
god undeified, the honours of the priestess fell to the dust. The
story of Beatrice dissolved the charm; she looked on him now in the
common light of day; the illusion and exaltation of love was
dispelled for ever: and, although disappointment, and the
bitterness of destroyed hope, robbed her of every sensation of
enjoyment, it was no longer that mad despair, that clinging to the
very sword that cut her, which before had tainted her cheek with
the hues of death. Her old feelings of duty, benevolence, and
friendship returned; all was not now, as before, referred to love
alone; the trees, the streams, the mountains, and the stars, no
longer told one never-varying tale of disappointed passion: before,
they had oppressed her heart by reminding her, through every change
and every form, of what she had once seen in joy; and they lay as
so heavy and sad a burthen on her soul, that she would exclaim as a
modern poet has since done:

Thou, thrush, that singest loud, and loud, and free. Into yon
row of willows flit. Upon that alder sit. Or sing another song, or
choose another tree! Roll back, sweet rill, back to thy mountain
bounds. And there for ever be thy waters chained! For thou dost
haunt the air with sounds That cannot be sustained. Be any thing,
sweet rill, but that which thou art now.