Valperga (59 page)

Vanni, who, in the common acceptation, was truly faithful to his
master, was struck with disgust at what appeared to him the depth
of treachery on her part. He knew little of the human heart, its
wondrous subtlety and lawyer-like distinctions; he could not
imagine the thousand sophistries that cloaked her purpose to
Euthanasia, the veils of woven wind, that made her apparent
treachery shew like purest truth to her. He could not judge of the
enthusiasm, that, although it permitted her to foresee the
opprobrium and condemnation which would be attached to her conduct,
yet made her trample upon all. She walked on in what she deemed the
right path; and neither the pangs of doubt, nor the imminent risque
that awaited her perseverance, could arrest her; or, worse than
all, the harsh opinion of man, his ever ready censure of ideas he
cannot understand, his fiery scorn of virtue which he might never
attain. She passed on to her goal, fearless of, and despising
"the barbed tongues, or thoughts more sharp than they,"
which threatened to wound her most sacred feelings.

But Vanni could not penetrate the inner sanctuary of her heart,
which throned self-approbation as its deity, and cared not for the
false gods that usurp the pleasant groves and high places of the
world. After having vented his spleen with that sceptred
infallibility men assume, and condemned her and her whole sex
unheard, Mordecastelli proceeded to more active business, and
before night the chiefs of the conspiracy were thrown into
prison.

Early the following morning Castruccio returned to Lucca.
Mordecastelli met him with a countenance, in which the falcon--eye
of the prince could read uncommon tidings. "Why do you look
thus, my friend?" said he. "Either laugh or cry; or tell
me why you do neither, although on the verge of both."

"My lord, I have cause. I have discovered a conspiracy
which threatened your power, and that not a mean one; so that I
must wish you joy, that you have again escaped from these harpies.
But, when you hear the names of the conspirators, you also will be
sorrowful; several of your friends are among them; and names, which
have been repeated in your daily prayers with blessings joined to
them, are now written in the list of traitors."

"When I took power upon me, my dear Vanni, I well knew that
I wrapped suspicion about me as a robe, and wedded danger, and
treachery, and most other evils. So let it be! I was yet a boy,
when I prayed to be a prince, though my crown were of thorns. But
who are these? Which of my old friends are so blind, as to see
their own interest in my downfall?"

Mordecastelli gave the list of the ringleaders which he had
prepared, and watched the countenance of Castruccio as he read it.
He observed contempt and carelessness on his countenance, until the
name of the countess of Valperga met his eyes; he then saw the
expression change, and a slight convulsion on his lips, which he
evidently strove to suppress. Vanni could contain himself no
longer.

"You see, my lord, you see her name. And, as true as there
is a sun in heaven, as true, as she is false, this saintlike
Euthanasia has spotted her soul with treason. I have proofs, here
they are. It would make one doubt one's salvation, to see her
with her Madonna face creep into this nest of traitors. There they
must have been, closeted in a cellar, or hid in some dark hole; for
else my spies would have earthed them out long ago. And I figure
her to myself, with her golden hair, and eyes which illumined even
the night, they were so dazzling,-- entering a room made dark
enough to hide treason;--and to think that the hellish bat did not
take wing out at the window when she appeared! but no, she
cherished him in her bosom."

"You are eloquent, Vanni."

"I am, my lord. I took her for an angel, and I find her a
woman;--one of those frail, foolish creatures we all
despise--"

"Peace, peace, my dear Vanni; you talk insufferable
nonsense. Let us proceed to more serious business. What have you
done with these people?"

"They are all in prison."

"The countess among them?"

"Why, my lord, would you have had her spared?"

"She is in prison then?"

"She is."

"Vanni, you must look to these people. I assure you that I
by no means find myself mercifully inclined towards them. These
continual plots, and this foolish ingratitude, to give it no worse
name, disturb our government too much. I will tear it away root and
branch; and the punishment of these fellows shall be a terrible
warning to those who may think of treading in the same
steps."

Castruccio fixed his eyes upon Mordecastelli; but there was an
expression in them that made the confident cast his upon the
ground. They glared; and his pale face became paler, so that his
very lips were white. He looked steadily on Mordecastelli for some
minutes; and then said:

"They must all die."

"They shall, my lord."

"Yet not by an easy death. That were a poor revenge. They
shall die, as they have lived, like traitors; and on their living
tombs shall be written, `Thus Castruccio punishes his rebel
subjects.' Have I toiled, exposed my person to danger, become
the fear and hope of Tuscany, to stain with my best blood the
dagger of one of these miserable villains? Do you see that they die
so, Vanni, as that I may be satisfied."

"I will, my lord. And the countess?"--

"Leave her to me. I will be her judge and
executioner."

"Castruccio?"

"Do no look so pale, Vanni; you do not understand. A few
hours hence I will tell you more. Now leave me."

Solitude is a coy companion for a prince, and one he little
loves. But Castruccio had much to occupy his thoughts, much that
agonized him. "Revenge!" He clenched his hand, and,
throwing his eyes upward, he cried: "Yes, revenge is among
those few goods in life, which compensate for its many evils. Yet
it is poor: it is a passion which can have no end. Burning in
pursuit, cold and unsatisfactory in its conclusion, it is as love,
which wears out its soul in unrequited caresses. But still, it
shall be mine; and these shall suffer. They shall feel in every
nerve what it is to have awakened me. I will not fear; I will not
feel my life depend alone upon the word of these most impotent
slaves. They shall die; and the whole world shall learn that
Castruccio can revenge."

Thus he thought: yet there was an inner sense, that betrayed to
him the paltriness of his feelings, when he imagined that there was
glory in trampling upon the enemy beneath his feet. He would not
listen to this small still voice; but, turning from these ideas, he
began to reflect on that which filled him with a bitterness of
feeling to which he had long been a stranger.

"So, she has conspired against me; and, forgetful of all
those ties that bound us notwithstanding her coldness, she has
plotted my death! She knew, she must have known, that in spite of
absence and repulse, she was the saint of my life; and that this
one human weakness, or human virtue, remained to me, when power and
a strong will had in other respects metamorphosed me. Does she
forget, that I have ever worn near my heart a medallion engraven
with her vows of childhood? She has forgotten all. And not only has
she forgotten to love, but she has cast aside the uprightness of
her understanding, and stained the purity of her soul.

"It is well for me to speak thus, who, instead of the
virtues that once were mine, have as ministers, revenge, and hate,
and conquest. But, although I choose to be thus, and although I
have selected these hell-hounds to drag my car of life, I have not
lost the sense of what is just and right; and, in the midst of all
my wilful errors and my degradation, I could discern and worship
the pure loveliness of Euthanasia. By the saints! I believed, that,
if she died, like Dante's Beatrice, she would plead for me
before the throne of the Eternal, and that I should be saved
through her. Now she is lost, and may perdition seize the whole
worthless race of man, since it has fallen upon her!

"But she must be saved. My hands shall not be stained with
her blood, nor my soul bear the brand of that crime. But she must
not stay here; nor shall she remain in Tuscany. She shall go far
away, so that I never more may hear her name: that shall be her
punishment, and she must bear it. Now I must contrive the means;
for she shall not remain another night in prison."

Euthanasia in prison! Yes; she had become the inhabitant of this
abode of crime, though her high mind was as far above fault as
human nature could soar; hers, if it were an error, was one of
judgement. But why should I call it error? To remove a cruel tyrant
from his seat of power,--to devote those days, which she might have
spent in luxury and pleasure, to a deep solitude, where neither
love nor sympathy would cheer her;--to bear his anger, perhaps his
hate, and in the midst of all to preserve a firmness and sweetness,
that might sustain her, and soften him,--to quit all her friends,
and her native country for ever, to follow in the steps of one she
had ceased to love, but to whom she felt herself for ever bound by
her wish to preserve him from that misery which his crimes would
ultimately occasion him: these were her errors.

After Quartezzani had quitted her on the night of her arrival in
Lucca, she had not slept; she was too full of various thought, of
dread and breathless expectation, to compose her spirits to rest.
She felt eternity in each second; and each slow hour seemed to
creep forward, stretching itself in a wide, endless circle around
her. When day dawned, it found her, not sleeping, but with open
eyes looking on the one last star that faded in the west, calling
to mind a thousand associations, a thousand hopes, now lying dead
in the ashes of that pyre time had heaped together and consumed;
she looked forward; yet then she paused; she dared not attempt to
penetrate into futurity;-- all was so tempestuous and dark.

She arose at sun-rise, and had descended into the garden, to
breathe the bleak, but, to her feverish spirits the refreshing air
of a December morning; when, at noon, Quartezzani rushed in; he was
deadly pale, and his hair seemed to stand on end with fear.

"Holy saints! what has happened?" cried
Euthanasia.

"We are all lost! dead, or worse than dead! We are
betrayed!"

"Tripalda has betrayed us?"

"He has."

"And there is no escape?"

"None. The gates are shut, nor will they be opened, until
we are all seized."

"Then most certainly we die?"

"As sure as that Christ died upon the cross! so surely
shall we perish."

"Then courage, my friend, and let us cast aside, with all
mortal hopes, all mortal fear. I have the start of you, Ugo; I was
prepared for this; but you would not believe me, until now my
predictions are sealed by the event. Let us die, as we would have
lived, for the cause of freedom; and let no trembling dismay, no
coward fear, make us the mock of our enemies.

"Other men in various ages have died by untimely death, and
we will dare to imitate them. Others have sustained their fate with
fortitude; and let faith and submission to the will of heaven be to
us, instead of that dauntless spirit of inbred virtue that
supported the heroes of antiquity."

Euthanasia raised her own spirits as she spoke; and fearless
expectation, and something like triumph, illuminated her
countenance, as she cast her eyes upward, and with her hand clasped
that of her friend. He received no warmth from the pressure; chilly
fear possessed him; and he stood utterly dejected before her--he
wept.

"Aye, weep," she continued, "and I also, did not
the tempest of my soul bear all clouds far away, I also might shed
tears. You weep to leave those whom you love,--that is a bitter
pang. You weep to see your associates suffer; but each must relieve
the other from that sorrow by cheerfulness and courage. But,"
she continued, seeing him entirely subdued by fear, "is there
no hope of escape? Exert your ingenuity; once past the gates, you
would soon be out of the territory of Lucca. And
Castruccio--"

"Oh, that most hated name! Bloody, execrable tyrant! Curse
him! May the fiends--"

"Cease! know you not that a dying man's curse falls
more on himself, than on him against whom he imprecates the wrath
of heaven? This is childish; Ugo, collect yourself; you have a
wife;--woman's wit is ready; consult with her; she may devise
some plan for your safety."

"You are an angel of consolation, Euthanasia. Heaven bless
you! and do you also reflect on your own danger."

He left her: and she (without giving a thought to vain regret;
her moments were too precious) sat down and wrote a long letter to
Bondelmonti. It was calm and affectionate: she felt raised above
mortality; and her words expressed the exceeding serenity of her
soul. She gave a last farewell to her friends. "It may seem
strange to you," she wrote, "that I express myself thus:
and indeed, when I reason with myself, methinks I ought not to
expect death from the hands of Antelminelli. Nor do I; and yet I
expect some solemn termination to this scene, some catastrophe
which will divide me from you for ever. Nor is it Italy, beloved
and native Italy, that I shall leave, but also this air, this sun,
and the earth's beauty. I feel thus; and therefore do I write
you an eternal farewell."

She had scarcely finished her letter, when a messenger arrived
from Mordecastelli. He told her that the conspiracy was divulged,
and that she must in a prison await the orders of Castruccio. She
started at the word Prison; but, recovering herself, she made a
sign that she was ready to follow the messenger; so, without a
word, without a sigh, she quitted her palace, and, ascending her
litter, was conducted to her place of confinement. She passed
through the same streets, through which the gaoler had conducted
her to the dungeon of Beatrice. A small and curiously carved shrine
of the Madonna with a lamp before it, chanced to recall this
circumstance to her mind. "Thou art at peace, blessed
one," she said, "there where I hope soon to be."