Valperga (54 page)

He was brought to Castruccio, who instantly recognized him.
"What do you here?" he demanded. "Are you not the
servant of the countess of Valperga?"

"I am."

"Who then is this lady? and how came you here?"

"That is Beatrice of Ferrara. I can tell you no more until
she" (pointing to the witch) "gives me leave."

The name of Beatrice was sufficient to transfix the prince with
pity and remorse. "Beatrice!" he cried, and throwing
himself on the earth beside her, he kissed her hand passionately.
Her faintness began now to dissipate; but her reason did not
return. The first words she uttered were those of madness; she
raved of that which ever haunted her thoughts in delirium, her
prison in Romagna. Tripalda heard the words, and started, as if he
had trodden on a viper; his sallow complexion became paler,--but
Castruccio did not attend to this, or make out her speech. He
perceived her frenzy; and, unable any longer to endure his remorse,
or the sight of his hapless victim, he gave hasty orders that she
should be conveyed slowly and carefully to the palace of the
countess of Valperga, and her companions be detained as prisoners;
and then he rode off. He rode towards Lucca; and, reflecting on the
fright that Euthanasia might sustain if she saw her unhappy friend
brought home in so miserable a state, he resolved to go first to
her palace, and inform her of what had passed.

"And are you come to this, lovely Beatrice?" he
thought. "And is this the same creature, who, radiant with
beauty and joy, formerly gave me her benediction at the palace of
the good old Marsilio? I remember that day, as if it were
yesterday; and now I find her with grey hairs and a wasted form, a
young fruit utterly blighted, and, worse than all, her reason
fallen the victim of her misery. Am I the cause of this?"

He rode on swiftly, and soon arrived at the palace. He did not
reflect that he was going to behold Euthanasia, the beautiful and
beloved; and thinking of nothing but Beatrice, and finding the
gates open, he entered. It was about three in the morning. During
the night Euthanasia had thought that she heard a groan come from
the chamber of Beatrice; and she hastened thither, to discover if
any new sorrow disturbed her unfortunate guest. The chamber was
empty; the bed unslept upon; she sought her in the adjoining rooms;
and, not finding her, she became terrified, and, rousing the house,
had the palace searched, but in vain; no trace of her was left. She
sent several messengers to different gates of the town to learn
whether she had been seen, and waited with inexpressible anxiety
for their return.

The prince found men consulting together in the great hall; and
the first words he heard was the name of "Madonna
Beatrice."

"Do not be alarmed," he said, coming forward. "I
know where she is, and she will soon be here; some of you see that
her couch be prepared, and seek a physician, for she is very ill.
Where is the countess?"

Appearing thus unexpectedly and alone, the men did not recognize
the prince; but the quick ear of Euthanasia caught the sound of his
voice; and, coming out of an adjoining room, she cried, "Do
you then know where my friend is, Castruccio?"

"I do indeed," he replied: "and it is fortunate;
since I may have saved her from evil hands. But I am perfectly
ignorant how and why she came to a spot so far from the
town."

He related in a few words where and in what manner he had found
her, and concluded by saying, "I leave her to your care; I
know how kind and generous you are. If she recover, I intreat you
to inform me without delay of so favourable a change."

As he said this, the trampling of horsemen was heard in the
streets;-- he cried, "I dare not see her again; farewell,
Euthanasia; pity her and me!"

He hastened from the palace, and in a few minutes after Beatrice
was brought in; her countenance was deadly pale, and her arms hung
lifelessly over the shoulder of one of the men who supported her;
her hair was dank, and her garments wetted with the dew of morning;
her eyes were open, and glared meaninglessly around. They laid her
on a bed; and Euthanasia, approaching, took her hand; Beatrice did
not notice her; she seemed to have lost all sensation, and the
rolling of her eyes, and the convulsive gaspings of her breath,
were all the signs of life that she gave.

Why should I describe the scenes that ensued during the
following days? Descriptions of unmixed horror cannot be pleasing;
and what other feelings could mingle to soften that sensation, on
beholding the declining state of poor Beatrice? She never again had
any return of reason, nor did she ever sleep; generally she lay, as
I have described, pale and motionless; if ever she woke to
sensation, it was to rave and scream, so that the hardest heart
might have been penetrated with excess of pity. Some have seen,
most have read the descriptions of, madness. She called upon
Euthanasia, upon Castruccio; but, more than all, she fancied that
she was chained to her dungeon- floor in her tremendous prison,
mocked and laughed at by her keepers; and sometimes she imagined
that these beloved friends were chained beside her, suffering those
torments which she had herself endured. She never in her wildest
sallies uttered a reproachful word against Castruccio, although it
appeared that she sometimes thought that he accused himself; and
then with the tenderest accents, and most winning sweetness, she
bade him not grieve, and assured him that he had committed no
fault.

These intervals of raving were short and rare; and, as she
became weaker, she still seldomer emerged from her state of
insensibility. She was evidently dying; the physicians gave no
hopes of her life; and the priests crowded about her. Padre
Lanfranco was among them; and he bitterly reproached himself for
having left her, and endeavoured to compensate for his neglect, by
watching day and night for some return of reason, when he might ask
whether she died in the faith of the church. This never arrived:
but the priests were lenient; they placed the crucifix on her
breast, and she seemed to press it; once, when the name of her
Redeemer was mentioned, her eyes lighted up, and a smile seemed to
play upon her lips. She was so perfectly senseless, that this could
have had no connection with the words that had been used; but the
charitable priests chose to construe it into an eternal assurance
of the salvation of her soul; and they administered the sacraments.
She never spoke afterwards; but day by day she grew weaker;
Castruccio sent continually to inquire of her state; but he dared
not come. Euthanasia hardly ever left her bed side; and she became
as pale, and almost as weak, as the dying Beatrice.

Such had been the effect of the witch's incantations.
Beatrice had needed the tenderest nursing; and she had received
instead, a shock which saner nerves than hers could hardly have
sustained. Yet her death was smoothed to her by the affectionate
ministry of her friend; and she at last lost all sense even of
pain. She died, peacefully, and calmly as a child; and her many
sorrows and wrongs no longer filled her with anguish and despair.
She died: Euthanasia was beside her when she heard a gentle sigh,
followed by a fixedness of feature and rigidity of limb, which
shewed that the mighty change had taken place in her frame.

Tears and lamentation succeeded to her death. Euthanasia wished
that her funeral should be private and unnoticed; but Castruccio
insisted that it should be attended with every circumstance of pomp
used in those days. The room was hung with black cloth, and made as
dark as night, to give brightness to the many torches by which it
was illuminated. Beatrice was laid on a bier, arrayed in costly
apparel, and canopied with a pall of black velvet embroidered with
gold: flowers, whose beauty and freshness mocked the livid hues of
the corpse, were strewn over her, and scattered about the room; and
two boys walked about, swinging censers of incense. The chamber was
filled with mourning women; one, the chief, dressed in black, with
dishevelled hair, knelt near the head of the bier, and began the
funeral song; she sang a strain in monotonous, but not unmelodious
voice: the verses were extempore, and described the virtues and
fortunes of the deceased; they ended with the words:

Oime! ora giace morta sulla bara!

And the other women, taking up the burthen, cried in shrill
tones:

Oime! ora giace morta sulla bara!

Again they were silent: and the Cantatrice, renewing her song,
repeated another verse in praise of poor Beatrice. Castruccio had
told her in part what ought to be the subject of her song. The
first verse described her as beautiful, beloved and prosperous,
among her friends and fellow citizens: "Then," cried the
singer, "the spoiler came; she lost all that was dear to her;
and she wandered forth a wretch upon the earth. Who can tell what
she suffered? Evil persons were abroad; they seized on her; and she
became the victim of unspoken crimes: worse ills followed, madness
and heresy, which threatened to destroy her soul."

The woman wept, wept unfeigned tears as she sang; and the hired
mourners sympathized in her grief; each verse ended with the
words.

Oime! ora giace morta sulla bara! which were echoed by them all,
and accompanied by cries and tears.

She ended; and, night being come, the hour for internment
arrived. The censers were replenished with incense; and the priests
sprinkled holy water about the room. Four lay-brothers raised the
bier, and followed a troop of priests and monks, who went first
with the crucifix, chaunting a De profundis. The streets through
which they passed, were rendered as light as day by the glare of
torches; after the priests, came the bier on which the body lay
exposed, covered with flowers; many of the young girls and women of
the city followed, each carrying a wax taper; a troop of horse
closed the procession. It was midnight when they entered the
church; the moon threw the shadow of the high window on the
pavement; but all shadows were effaced by the torches which filled
the church. Beatrice was laid in her peaceful grave; and, mass
being said for the repose of her soul, the ceremony closed.

Euthanasia had not been present: and, although she longed for
solitude to weep in peace over the fate of her hapless friend, she
was obliged to receive the visits of the Lucchese ladies, who came
to condole with her on this occasion, and perhaps to satisfy their
curiosity concerning its object. The funeral feast was sumptuous
and well attended, though few knew in whose honour it was given.
Euthanasia shrunk from their questions, and was angry with
Castruccio, that he should have placed her in so disagreeable a
situation. It seemed to her better to befit the hapless fate of
Beatrice, that she should have been permitted to depart unmarked,
wept only by those, who knew her worth, and who lamented her
unequalled misfortunes. It was the false pride of Castruccio, that
made him think differently; and such were the prejudices of the
times, that his contemporaries would have agreed with him, that he
had in some degree compensated for the injuries that Beatrice had
received from him, by the magnificence of her funeral.

After the ceremony was ended, Castruccio first thought of the
two individuals whom he had found in the forest with their victim.
Mandragola had preserved an uniform silence; and no threats, nor
torture itself, could induce her to speak. Bindo was formed of
frailer clay; she had charged him not to reveal what had passed,
and had imprecated the most terrible curses on his head, if he
disobeyed. He trembled; but the sight of the instruments of torture
overcame him, and he confessed all. Mandragola was condemned by the
laws which then existed in every country against the dealers in the
black art, and suffered death as a witch. Euthanasia endeavoured to
procure the freedom of the Albinois; but in vain. He was confined
in the dungeons of the Dominican convent; he pined for liberty; and
in a few months he died.

The tie which bound Euthanasia to Lucca, was now broken. For
many days she sorrowed, forgetful of herself, over the fate of her
friend. By degrees however the feelings of actual life returned to
her; and she longed to quit a town, which had been for her the
theatre of tremendous misfortune. Two months after the death of
Beatrice she returned to Florence; where she found, in the society
of her friends, and in the cultivation of her mind, some
alleviation for her sorrow, and some compensation for the many
evils she had endured.

CASTRUCCIO had now been lord of Lucca for six years, and had
attained his thirty-third year; his character was formed; and his
physiognomy, changed from its youthful expression, had become
impressed by his habitual feelings. Constant exposure to the sun
and weather had tinged his cheek with brown; which, but for that,
had been deadly pale; for care, and the strong emotions to which he
was subject, had left their mark on his countenance; his eye had
grown hollow, and the smooth lustre of his brow was diminished by
lines, which indeed looked gracefully at his years, since they
marked the progress of thought; but some, more straggling and
undefined, shewed that those passions whose outward signs he
suppressed, yet preyed upon the vital principle; his eyes had not
lost their fire, but their softness was gone.

He was kind and even grateful to his friends, so long as he
considered them as such; but he was quick to distrust; and cold
looks and averted favour followed suspicion: if these were answered
by aught but patience and submission, hatred quickly came, and that
never failed to destroy its object. If he only suspected, that was
sufficient cause, that he who had become thus obnoxious to his
prince should be told that it was his will that he should instantly
depart from Lucca; and the confiscation filled the public coffers.
If he thought that he had reason to fear, the doom of that man whom
he feared was sealed: he was cruel and unrelenting; and the death
of his victim did not satisfy him; several were starved to death by
his command, and worse tortures were inflicted upon
others:--something of this was to be attributed to the usage of the
times; but cruelty had become an elemental feature of
Castruccio's character.