The Project Gutenberg eBook of Picciola, by X. B. Saintine
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Title: Picciola
The prisoner of Fenestrella or, captivity captive
Author: X. B. Saintine
Illustrator: J. F. Gueldry
Release Date: May 27, 2023 [eBook #70871]
Language: English
Produced by: Juliet Sutherland and the Online Distributed Proofreading
Team at https://www.pgdp.net
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK PICCIOLA ***
[Illustration: _The stay of proceedings._]
PICCIOLA
THE PRISONER OF FENESTRELLA
OR, CAPTIVITY CAPTIVE
BY
X. B. SAINTINE
_ILLUSTRATED BY J. F. GUELDRY_
[Illustration]
NEW YORK
D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
1893
COPYRIGHT, 1893,
BY D. APPLETON AND COMPANY.
ELECTROTYPED AND PRINTED
AT THE APPLETON PRESS, U.S.A.
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
FACING PAGE
The stay of proceedings _Frontispiece_
The priest at Charney’s bedside 40
A reverie 61
Napoleon reviewing the troops 96
Teresa before the Empress 116
The farewell 212
WITH HEAD AND TAIL PIECES FOR EACH CHAPTER AND NUMEROUS VIGNETTES.
[Illustration]
INTRODUCTORY EPISTLE TO MADAME VIRGINIE ANCELOT.
I have reread my book, and I tremble in offering it to you; yet who can
appreciate it better? You like neither romances nor dramas; my work is
neither a romance nor a drama.
The tale which I have related, madam, is simple; so simple, indeed, that
perhaps never has pen laboured on a subject more utterly restricted. My
heroine is so unimportant! Not that I wish beforehand to throw the fault
of failure on her; for if the action of my little history is thus meagre,
its principle is lofty, its aim is elevated; and if I fail in attaining
my purpose, it will be that my strength is insufficient. Yet I am not
careless as to the fate of my labour, for in it are the deepest of my
convictions; and believe me that, more from benevolence than vanity, I
hope, though the crowd of ordinary readers may pass over my work with
carelessness, that still for some it may possess a charm, for others,
utility.
Do you find interest in the truth of a story? If so, I offer that to you
to compensate for what you may not find in the story itself.
You remember that lovely woman, so lately dead, the Countess de Charney,
whose expression, though mournful, seemed already to breathe of Heaven.
Her look, so open, so sweet, which seemed to caress while wandering over
you, and to make the heart swell as it lingered; from which one turned
away only to be drawn again within its enchantment; you have seen
it, at first timid as that of a young girl, suddenly become animated,
brilliant, and self-possessed, exhibiting all its native energy, power,
and devotion. Such was the woman; a marvellous union of tenderness and
courage, of the weakness of sense and the strength of soul.
Such have I known her; such did others know her, long before me, when her
soul was excited only by the affections of a daughter and of a wife. You
understand the pleasure with which I dwell with you on such a woman; I
may not often again have the opportunity. Still, she is not the heroine
of my story.
In the only visit which you made her at Belleville, where was the tomb of
her husband, and now, alas! her own, you more than once seemed surprised
with what you saw. You were struck with an old, white-haired man, who sat
next her at table, whose appearance and manners were coarse, even for his
class. You saw him speak familiarly with the daughter of the countess,
who, beautiful as her mother had been, answered him with kindness, and
even with deference, giving him the name of godfather, which, indeed, was
the relation he bore to her. Perhaps you have not forgotten a flower,
dried and colourless, in a rich case; and, also, that when you asked her
concerning it, a saddened look stole over the countenance of the widow,
and your questions remained unanswered. This answer you now have before
you.
Honoured with the confidence and affection of the countess, more than
once, before that simple flower, between her and the venerable man,
have I listened to long and touching details. Besides this, I hold the
manuscripts of the count, his letters, and his two prison journals.
I have carefully retained in my memory those precious details; I have
attentively perused those manuscripts; I have made important extracts
from those letters; and in those journals have I found my inspiration.
If, then, I succeed in rousing in your soul the feelings which have
agitated mine in presence of these relics of the captive, my fears for my
little book are vain.
One word. I have given throughout to my hero his title of count, even
during a time in which such dignities were obsolete. This is because I
have always heard him so called, in French and in Italian; and in my
memory his name and his title are inseparably connected.
You now understand me, madam. You will not expect in this book a history
of important events, or the vivid details of love. I have spoken of
utility; and of what use is a love-story? In that sweet study, practice
is worth more than theory, and each one needs his own experience: each
one hastens to acquire it, and cares little to seek it already prepared
in books. It is useless for old men, moralists by necessity, to cry,
“Shun that dangerous rock, where we have once been shipwrecked!” Their
children answer them, “You have tempted that sea, and we must tempt it in
turn. We claim our right of shipwreck.”
Yet is there in my story something still of love; but, before all, of a
man’s love for——shall I tell you? No, read, and you will learn.
X. B. SAINTINE.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
BOOK I.
CHAPTER I.
Charles Veramont, Count de Charney, whose name is not wholly effaced
from the annals of modern science, and may be found inscribed in the
mysterious archives of the police under Napoleon, was endowed by nature
with an uncommon capacity for study. Unluckily, however, his intelligence
of mind, schooled by the forms of a college education, had taken a
disputatious turn. He was an able logician rather than a sound reasoner;
and there was in Charney the composition of a learned man, but not of a
philosopher.
At twenty-five, the count was master of seven languages; but instead of
following the example of certain learned Polyglots, who seem to acquire
foreign idioms for the express purpose of exposing their incapacity to
the contempt of foreigners, as well as of their own countrymen, through
a confusion of tongues, as well as intellect, Charney regarded his
acquirements as a linguist only as a stepping-stone to others of higher
value. Commanding the services of so many menials of the intellect, he
assigned to each his business, his duty, his fields to cultivate. The
Germans served him for metaphysics; the English and Italians for politics
and jurisprudence; _all_ for history; to the remotest sources of which he
travelled in company with the Romans, Greeks, and Hebrews.
In devoting himself to these serious studies, the count did not neglect
the accessory sciences. Till at length, alarmed by the extent of the vast
horizon, which seemed to expand as he advanced; finding himself stumble
at every step in the labyrinth in which he was bewildered—weary of the
pursuit of Truth—(the unknown goddess,)—he began to contemplate history
as the lie of ages, and attempted to reconstruct the edifice on a surer
foundation. He composed a new historical romance, which the learned
derided from envy, and society from ignorance.
Political and legislative science furnished him with more positive
groundwork; but these, from one end of Europe to the other, were crying
aloud for Reform; and when he tried to specify a few of the more flagrant
abuses, they proved so deeply rooted in the social system—so many
destinies were based on a fallacious principle, that he was actually
discouraged. Charney had not the strength of mind, or insensibility of
heart, indispensable to overthrow, in other nations, all that the tornado
of the Revolution had left standing in his own.
He recollected, too, that hosts of estimable men, as learned, and perhaps
as well-intentioned as himself, professed theories in total opposition to
his own. If he were to set the four quarters of the globe on fire for the
mere satisfaction of a chimera? This consideration, more startling than
even his historical doubts, reduced him to the most painful perplexity.
Metaphysics afforded him a last resource. In the ideal world, an
overthrow is less alarming; since ideas may clash without danger in
infinite space. In waging such a war, he no longer risked the safety of
others; he endangered only his own peace of mind.
The farther he advanced into the mysteries of metaphysical science,
analyzing, arguing, disputing—the more deeply he became enveloped in
darkness and mystery. Truth, ever flying from his grasp, vanishing under
his gaze, seemed to deride him like the mockery of a will-o’-the-wisp,
shining to delude the unwary. When he paused to admire its luminous
brilliancy, all suddenly grew dark; the meteor having disappeared to
shine again on some remote and unexpected point; and when, persevering
and tenacious, Charney armed himself with patience, followed with steady
steps, and attained the sanctuary, the fugitive was gone again! This
time he had overstepped the mark! When he fancied the meteor was in
his hand—grasped firmly in his hand—it had already slipped through his
fingers, multiplying into a thousand brilliant and delusive particles.
Twenty rival truths perplexed the horizon of his mind, like so many false
beacons beguiling him to shipwreck. After vacillating between Bossuet and
Spinoza—deism and atheism—bewildered among spiritualists, materialists,
idealists, ontologists, and eclectics, he took refuge in universal
skepticism, comforting his uneasy ignorance by bold and universal
negation.
Having set aside the doctrine of innate ideas, and the revelation of
theologians, as well as the opinions of Leibnitz, Locke, and Kant,
the Count de Charney now resigned himself to the grossest pantheism,
unscrupulously denying the existence of one high and supreme God. The
contradiction existing between ideas and things, the irregularities of
the created world, the unequal distribution of strength and endowment
among mankind, inspired his overtasked brain with the conclusion that
the world is a conglomeration of insensate matter, and CHANCE the lord of
all.
Chance, therefore, became his GOD here, and nothingness his hope
hereafter. He adopted his new creed with avidity—almost with triumph—as
if the audacious invention had been his own. It was a relief to get rid
of the doubts which tormented him by a sweeping clause of incredulity;
and from that moment Charney, biding adieu to science, devoted himself
exclusively to the pleasures of the world.
The death of a relation placed him in possession of a considerable
fortune. France, reorganized by the consulate, was resuming its former
habits of luxury and splendour. The clarion of victory was audible from
every quarter; and all was joy and festivity in the capital. The Count
de Charney figured brilliantly in the world of magnificence, elegance,
taste, and enlightenment. Having attracted around him the gay, the
graceful, and the witty, he unclosed the gates of his splendid mansion to
the glittering divinities of the day—to fashion, bon ton, and distinction
of every kind. Lost in the giddy crowd, he took part in all its
enjoyments and dissipations; amazed that amid such a vortex of pleasures
he should still remain a stranger to happiness!
Music, dress, the perfumed atmosphere surrounding the fair and
fashionable, were the chief objects of his interest. Vainly had he
attempted to devote himself to the society of men renowned for wit and
understanding. The ignorance of the learned, the errors of the wise,
excited only his compassion or contempt.
Such is the misfortune of proficiency! No one reaches the artificial
standard we have created. Even those who are as learned as ourselves are
learned after some other fashion; and from our lofty eminence we look
down upon mankind as upon a crowd of dwarfs and pigmies. In the hierarchy
of intellect, as in that of power, elevation is isolated—to be alone is
the destiny of the great.
Vainly did the Count de Charney devote himself to sensual pleasures.
In the infancy of a social system so long estranged from the joys of
life, and still defiled by the blood-stained orgies of the Revolution,
attired in rags and tatters of Roman virtue, yet emulating the licentious
excesses of the regency, he signalized himself by his prodigality and
dissipation. Labour lost. Horses, equipages, a splendid table, balls,
concerts, and hunting-parties, failed to secure Pleasure as his guest. He
had friends to flatter him, mistresses to amuse his leisure; yet, though
all these were purchased at the highest price, the count found himself
as far as ever from the joys of love or friendship. Nothing availed to
smooth the wrinkles of his heart, or force it into a smile; Charney
actually _laboured_ to be entrapped by the baits of society, without
achieving captivation. The syren Pleasure, raising her fair form and
enchanting voice above the surface of the waters, fascinated _the man_,
but the eye of the philosopher could not refrain from plunging into the
glassy depths below, to be disgusted by the scaly body and bifurcal tail
of the ensnaring monster.
Truth and error were equally against him. To virtue he was a stranger,
to vice indifferent. He had experienced the vanity of knowledge; but the
bliss of ignorance was denied him. The gates of Eden were closed against
his re-entrance. Reason appeared fallacious, joy apocryphal. The noise of
entertainments wearied him; the silence of home was still more tedious;
in company, he became a burden to others; in retirement, to himself. A
profound sadness took possession of his soul!
In spite of all Charney’s efforts, the demon of philosophical analysis,
far from being exorcised, served to tarnish, undermine, contract, and
extinguish the brilliancy of every mode of life he selected. The praise
of his friends, the endearments of his loves, seemed nothing more than
the current coin given in exchange for a certain portion of his property,
the paltry evidence of a necessity for living at his expense.
Decomposing every passion and sentiment, and reducing all things to their
primitive element, he, at length, contracted a morbid frame of mind,
amounting almost to aberration of intellect. He fancied that in the
finest tissue composing his garments, he could detect the exhalations
of the animal of whose fleece it was woven—on the silk of his gorgeous
hangings, the crawling worm which furnishes them. His furniture, carpets,
gewgaws, trinkets of coral or mother-of-pearl, all were stigmatized
in his eyes as the spoil of the dead, shaped by the labours of some
squalid artisan. The spirit of inquiry had destroyed every illusion. The
imagination of the sceptic was paralyzed!
To such a heart as that of Charney, however, emotion was indispensable.
The love which found no single object on which to concentrate its vigour
expanded into tenderness for all mankind; and he became a philanthropist!
With the view of serving the cause of his fellow-creatures, he devoted
himself to politics, no longer speculative, but active; initiated
himself into secret societies, and grew a fanatic for freedom, the
only superstition remaining for those who have renounced the higher
aspirations of human nature. He enrolled himself in a plot—a conspiracy
against nothing less than the sovereignty of the victorious Napoleon!
In this attempt, Charney fancied himself actuated by patriotism, by
philanthropy, by love of his countrymen! More likely by animosity against
the one great man, of whose power and glory he was envious! An aristocrat
at heart, he fancied himself a leveller. The proud noble who had been
robbed of the title of count, bequeathed him by his ancestors, did not
choose that his inferior in birth should assume the title of emperor,
which he had conquered at the point of his sword.
It matters little in what plot he embarked his destinies; at that epoch,
there was no lack of conspiracies! It was one of the many hatched between
1803 and 1804, and not suffered to come to light: the police—that second
providence which presides over the safety of empires—was beforehand with
it! Government decided that the less noise made on the occasion, the
better; they would not even spare it so much as a discharge of muskets
on the Plaine de Grenelle, the scene of military execution: but the
heads of the conspiracy were privately arrested, condemned, almost
without trial, and conveyed away to solitary confinement in various
state prisons, citadels, or fortresses, of the ninety-six departments of
consular France.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
CHAPTER II.
In traversing the Alps on my way to Italy—an humble tourist, with my
staff in my hand, and my wallet on my shoulder, I remember pausing to
contemplate, near the pass of Rodoretto, a torrent swollen by the melting
of the glaciers. The tumultuous sounds produced by its course, the
foaming cascades into which it burst, the varying colors and hues created
by the movement of its waters, yellow, white, green, black, according to
its channel through marl, slate, chalk, or peat earth—the vast blocks of
marble or granite it had detached without being able to remove, around
which a thousand ever-changing cataracts added roar to roar, cascade to
cascade; the trunks of trees it had uprooted, of which the still foliaged
branches emerging from the water were agitated by the winds, while the
roots were buffeted by the waves; fragments of the very banks clothed
with verdure, and driven like floating islands against the trees, as
the trees were driven in their turn against the blocks of granite—all
this, these murmurs, clashings, and roarings, confined between narrow
and precipitous banks, impressed me with wonder and admiration. And this
torrent was the Clusone!
Skirting its shores, I pursued the course of the stream into one of the
four valleys retaining the name of “Protestant,” in the memory of the
Vaudois who formerly took refuge in their solitudes. _There_, my torrent
lost its wild irregularity; and its hundred roaring voices were presently
subdued. Its shattered trees and islands had been deposited on some
adjacent level; its colours had resolved themselves into one; and the
material of its bed no longer distinguishable on the tranquil surface.
Still strong and copious, it now flowed with decency, propriety, almost
with coquetry: affecting the airs of a modest rivulet as it bathed the
rugged walls of Fenestrella.
[Illustration]
It was then I visited Fenestrella, a large town celebrated for peppermint
water, and the fortress which crowns the two mountains between which it
is situated, communicating with each other by covered ways, but partly
dismantled during the wars of the Republic. One of the forts, however,
was repaired and refortified when Piedmont became incorporated into
France.
In this fortress of Fenestrella, was Charles Veramont, Count de Charney,
incarcerated, on an accusation of having attempted to subvert the laws of
government, and introduce anarchy and confusion into the country.
Estranged by rigid imprisonment, alike from men of science and men of
pleasure, and regretting neither—renouncing without much effort his wild
projects of political regeneration—bidding a forced farewell to his
fortune, by the pomps of which he had been undazzled—to his friends,
who were grown tiresome, and his mistresses, who were grown faithless;
having for his abode, instead of a princely mansion, a bare and gloomy
chamber—the jailer of Charney was now his sole attendant, and his
imbittered spirit his only companion.
But what signified the gloom and nakedness of his apartment? The
necessaries of life were there, and he had long been disgusted with its
superfluities. Even his jailer gave him no offence. It was only his own
thoughts that troubled him!
Yet what other diversions remained for his solitude—but self-conference?
Alas! none! Nothing around him or before him but weariness and vexation
of spirit! All correspondence was interdicted. He was allowed no
books, nor pens, nor paper; for such was the established discipline
at Fenestrella. A year before, when the count was intent only on
emancipating himself from the perplexities of learning, this loss
might have seemed a gain. But now, a book would have afforded a friend
to consult, or an adversary to be confuted! Deprived of every thing,
sequestered from the world, Charney had nothing left for it, but to
become reconciled to himself, and live in peace with that natural
enemy, his soul. For the cruelty with which that unsilenceable monitor
continued to set before him the desperateness of his condition,
rendered conciliation necessary. His case was indeed a hard one! A
man to whom nature had been so prodigal, whose cradle society had
surrounded with honours and privileges—_he_ to be reduced to such abject
insignificance—_he_ to have need of pity and protection, who had faith
neither in the existence of a God nor the mercy of his fellow-creatures!
Vainly did he strive to throw off this frightful consciousness, when in
the solitude of his reveries it alternately chilled and scorched his
shrinking bosom: and once more, the unhappy Charney began to cling for
support to the visible and material world—now, alas! how circumscribed
around him. The room assigned to his use was at the rear of the
citadel, in a small building raised upon the ruins of a vast and strong
foundation, serving formerly for defence, but rendered useless by a new
system of fortification.
[Illustration]
Four walls, newly whitewashed, so that he was denied even the amusement
of perusing the lucubrations of former prisoners, his predecessors; a
table, serving for his meals; a chair, whose insulated unity reminded
him, that no human being would ever sit beside him there in friendly
converse; a trunk for his clothes and linen; a little sideboard of
painted deal, half worm-eaten, offered a singular contrast to the
rich mahogany dressing-case, inlaid with silver, standing there as
the sole representative of his former splendours. A clean, but narrow
bed, window-curtains of blue cloth (a mere mockery, for, thanks to the
closeness of his prison bars and the opposite wall rising at ten feet
distance, there was little to fear from prying eyes or the importunate
radiance of the sun). Such was the complement of furniture allotted to
the Count de Charney.
Over his chamber was another, wholly unoccupied; he had not a single
companion in that detached portion of the fortress.
The remainder of his world consisted in a short, massive, winding stone
staircase, descending into a small paved court, sunk into what had been a
moat, in the earlier days of the citadel, in which narrow space he was
permitted to enjoy air and exercise during two hours of the day. Such was
the ukase of the commandant of Fenestrella.
[Illustration]
From this confined spot, however, the prisoner was able to extend his
glance towards the summits of the mountains, and command a view of the
vapours rising from the plain; for the walls of the ramparts, lowering
suddenly at the extremity of the glacis, admitted a limited proportion
of air and sunshine into the court. But once shut up again in his room,
his view was bounded by an horizon of solid masonry, and a surmise of the
majestic and picturesque aspect of nature it served to conceal. Charney
was well aware that to the right rose the fertile hills of Saluces; that
to his left were developed the last undulations of the valley of Aorta
and the banks of the Chiara; that before him lay the noble plains of
Turin; and behind, the mighty chain of Alps, with its adornment of rocks,
forests, and chasms, from Mount Genevra to Mount Cenis. But, in spite of
this charming vicinage, all he was permitted to behold was the misty sky
suspended over his head by a frame-work of rude masonry; the pavement
of the little court, and the bars of his prison, through which he might
admire the opposite wall, adorned with a single small square window, at
which he had once or twice caught glimpses of a doleful human countenance.
What a world from which to extract delight and entertainment! The unhappy
Count wore out his patience in the attempt! At first, he amused himself
with scribbling with a morsel of charcoal on the walls of his prison the
dates of every happy event of his childhood; but from this dispiriting
task he desisted, more discouraged than ever. The demon of scepticism
next inspired him with evil counsel; and having framed into fearful
sentences the axioms of his withering creed, he inscribed them also on
his wall, between recollections consecrated to his sister and mother!
Still unconsoled, Charney at length made up his mind to fling aside his
heart-eating cares, adopt, by anticipation, all the puerilities and
brutalization which result from the prolongation of solitary confinement.
The philosopher attempted to find amusement in unravelling silk or linen;
in making flageolets of straw, and building ships of walnut-shells. The
man of genius constructed whistles, boxes, and baskets, of kernels;
chains and musical instruments, with the springs of his braces; nay,
for a time, he took delight in these absurdities; then, with a sudden
movement of disgust, trampled them, one by one, under his feet!
[Illustration]
To vary his employment, Charney began to carve a thousand fanciful
designs upon his wooden table! No school-boy ever mutilated his desk by
such attempts at arabesque, both in relief and intaglio, as tasked his
patience and address. The celebrated portal of the church of Candebee,
and the pulpit and palm trees of St. Gudula at Brussels, are not adorned
with a greater variety of figures. There were houses upon houses, fishes
upon trees, men taller than steeples, boats upon roofs, carriages upon
water, dwarf pyramids, and flies of gigantic stature,—horizontal,
vertical, oblique, topsy-turvy, upside down, pell-mell, a chaos of
hieroglyphics, in which he tried to discover a sense symbolical, an
accidental intention, an occult design; for it was no great effort on
the part of one who had so much faith in the power of chance, to expect
the development of an epic poem in the sculptures on his table, or a
design of Raphael in the veins of his box-wood snuff-box.
It was the delight of his ingenuity to multiply difficulties for
conquest, problems for solution, enigmas for divination; but even in the
midst of these recreations, ennui, the formidable enemy, again surprised
the captive.
The man whose face he had noticed at the grated window might have
afforded him food for conjecture, had he not seemed to avoid the
observation of the Count, by retiring the moment Charney made his
appearance; in consequence of which, he conceived an abhorrence of the
recluse. Such was his opinion of the human species, that the stranger’s
desire of concealment convinced him he was a spy, employed to watch the
movements of the prisoners, or, perhaps, some former enemy, exulting over
his humiliation.
On interrogating the jailer, however, this last supposition was set at
rest.
[Illustration]
“’Tis an Italian,” said Ludovico, the turnkey. “A good soul—and, what is
more, a good Christian; for I often find him at his devotions.”
Charney shrugged his shoulders: “And what may be the cause, pray, of his
retention?” said he.
“He attempted to assassinate the Emperor.”
“Is he, then, a patriot?”
“A patriot! Rubbish! Not he. But the poor soul had once a son and
daughter: and _now_ he has only a daughter. The son was killed in
Germany. A cannon-ball broke a tooth for him. _Povero figliuolo!_”
“It was a paroxysm of selfishness, then, which moved this old man to
become an assassin?”
“You have never been a father, _Signor Conte_!” replied the jailer.
“_Cristo Santo!_ if my Antonio, who is still a babe, were to eat his
first mouthful for the good of this empire of the French (which is a
bantling of his own age, or thereabouts), I’d soon—— But _basta_! I’ve no
mind to take up my lodging at Fenestrella, except as it may be with the
keys at my girdle or under my pillow.”
“And how does this fierce conspirator amuse himself in prison?” persisted
Charney.
“Catching flies!” replied the jailer, with an ironical wink.
Instead of detesting his brother in misfortune, Charney now began to
despise him. “A madman, then?” he demanded.
“_Perche pazzo, Signor Conte?_ Though you are the last comer, you excel
him already in the art of hacking a table into devices. _Pazienza!_”
In defiance of the sneer conveyed in the jailer’s remark, Charney soon
resumed his manual labors, and the interpretations of his hieroglyphics;
but, alas! only to experience anew their insufficiency as a kill-time.
His first winter had expired in weariness and discontent: when, by the
mercy of Heaven, an unexpected object of interest was assigned him.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
CHAPTER III.
One day, Charney was breathing the fresh air in the little court of the
fortress, at the accustomed hour, his head declining, his eyes downcast,
his arms crossed behind him, pacing with slow and measured steps, as if
his deliberation tended to enlarge the precincts of his dominion.
Spring was breaking. A milder air breathing around, tantalized him
with a vain inclination to enjoy the season of liberty, as master of
his time and territory. He was proceeding to number, one by one, the
stones paving the courtyard, (doubtless to verify the accuracy of former
calculations—for it was by no means the first time they had put his
arithmetic to the test), when he perceived a small mound of earth rising
between two stones of the pavement, cleft slightly at its summit.
The Count stopped short—his heart beat hurriedly without any rational
grounds for emotion, except that every trivial incident affords matter of
hope or fear to a captive. In the most indifferent objects, in the most
unimportant events, the prisoner discerns traces of a mysterious project
for his deliverance.
Who could decide that this trifling irregularity on the surface might
not indicate important operations under ground? Subterraneous issues
might have been secretly constructed, and the earth be about to open
and afford him egress towards the mountains! Perhaps his former friends
and accomplices had been sapping and mining, to procure access to his
dungeon, and restore him to light and liberty!
He listened! he fancied he could detect the low murmur of a subterraneous
sound. He raised his head, and the loud and rapid clang of the tocsin
saluted his ear. The ramparts were echoing with the prolonged roll of
drums, like the call to arms in time of war. He started—he passed his
trembling hand over his forehead, on which cold dews of intense agitation
were already rising. Is his liberation at hand? Is France submitted to
the domination of a new ruler?
The illusion of the captive vanished as it came. Reflection soon restored
him to reason. He no longer possesses accomplices—he never possessed
friends! Again he lends a listening ear, and the same noises recur; but
they mislead his mind no longer. The supposed tocsin is only the church
bell which he has been accustomed to hear daily at the same hour, and the
drums, the usual evening signal for retreat to quarters. With a bitter
smile, Charney begins to compassionate his own folly, which could mistake
the insignificant labors of some insect or reptile, some wandering mole
or field-mouse, for the result of human fidelity, or the subversion of a
mighty empire.
Resolved, however, to bring the matter to the test, Charney, bending over
the little hillock, gently removed the earth from its summit; when he
had the mortification to perceive that the wild though momentary emotion
by which he had been overcome, was not produced by so much as the labors
of an animal armed with teeth and claws! but by the efforts of a feeble
plant to pierce the soil—a pale and sickly scatterling of vegetation.
Deeply vexed, he was about to crush with his heel the miserable weed,
when a refreshing breeze, laden with the sweets of some bower of
honeysuckles, or syringas, swept past, as if to intercede for mercy
towards the poor plant, which might perhaps hereafter reward him with
its flowers and fragrance.
A new conjecture conspired to suspend his act of vengeance. How has
this tender plant, so soft and fragile as to be crushed with a touch,
contrived to pierce and cleave asunder the earth, dried and hardened
into a mass by the sun, daily trodden down by his own footsteps, and all
but cemented by the flags of granite between which it was enclosed? On
stooping again to examine the matter with more attention, he observed at
the extremity of the plant a sort of fleshy valve affording protection to
its first and tenderest leaves, from the injurious contact of any hard
bodies they might have to encounter in penetrating the earthy crust in
search of light and air.
“This, then, is the secret?” cried he, already interested in his
discovery. “Nature has imparted strength to the vegetable germ, even
as the unfledged bird which is able to break asunder with its beak the
egg-shell in which it is imprisoned; happier than myself—in possession
of unalienable instruments to secure its liberation!” And after gazing
another minute on the inoffensive plant, he lost all inclination for its
destruction.
[Illustration]
On resuming his walk the next day, with wide and careless steps, Charney
was on the point of setting his foot on it, from inadvertence; but
luckily recoiled in time. Amused to find himself interested in the
preservation of a weed, he paused to take note of its progress. The plant
was strangely grown; and the free light of day had already effaced the
pale and sickly complexion of the preceding day. Charney was struck by
the power inherent in vegetables to absorb rays of light, and, fortified
by the nourishment, borrow, as it were, from the prism, the very colours
predestined to distinguish its various parts of organization.
“The leaves,” thought he, “will probably imbibe a hue different from
that of the stem. And the flowers? what colour, I wonder, will be the
flowers? Nourished by the same sap as the green leaves and stem, how do
they manage to acquire, from the influence of the sun, their variegations
of azure, pink, or scarlet? For already their hue is appointed. In spite
of the confusion and disorder of all human affairs, matter, blind as it
is, marches with admirable regularity: still blindly, however! for lo,
the fleshy lobes which served to facilitate for the plant its progress
through the soil, though now useless, are feeding their superfluous
substance at its expense, and weighing upon its slender stalk!”
But, even as he spoke, daylight became obscured. A chilly spring evening,
threatening a frosty night, was setting in; and the two lobes, gradually
rising, seemed to reproach him with his objections, by the practical
argument of enclosing the still tender foliage, which they secured from
the attacks of insects or the inclemency of the weather, by the screen of
their protecting wings.
The man of science was better able to comprehend this mute answer to his
cavilling, because the external surface of the vegetable bivalve had been
injured the preceding night by a snail, whose slimy trace was left upon
the verdure of the cotyledon.
[Illustration]
This curious colloquy between action and cogitation, between the plant
and the philosopher, was not yet at an end. Charney was too full of
metaphysical disquisition to allow himself to be vanquished by a good
argument.
“’Tis all very well!” cried he. “In this instance, as in others, a
fortunate coincidence of circumstances has favoured the developement of
incomplete creation. It was the inherent qualification of the nature of
the plant to be born with a lever in order to upraise the earth, and a
buckler to shelter its tender head: without which it must have perished
in the germ, like myriads of individuals of its species which proved
incapable of accomplishing their destinies. How can one guess the number
of unsuccessful efforts which nature may have made, ere she perfected a
single subject sufficiently organized! A blind man may sometimes shoot
home; but how many uncounted arrows must be lost before he attains the
mark? For millions of forgotten centuries, matter has been triturating
between negative and positive attraction. How then can one wonder that
chance should sometimes produce coincidence? This fleshy screen serves
to shelter the early leaves. Granted! But will it enlarge its dimensions
to contain the rest as they are put forth, and defend them from cold
and insects? No, no; no evidence of the calculating of a presiding
Providence! A lucky chance is the alpha and omega of the universe!”
Able logician!—profound reasoner! listen, and Nature shall find a
thousand arguments to silence your presumption! Deign only to fix your
inquiring eyes upon this feeble plant, which the munificence of Heaven
has called into existence between the stones of your prison! You are so
far right that the cotyledon will _not_ expand so as to cover with its
protecting wings the future progress of the plant. Already withering,
they will eventually fall and decay. But they will suffice to accomplish
the purpose of nature. So long as the northern wind drives down from the
Alps their heavy fogs or sprinkling of sleet, the new leaves will find a
retreat impermeable to the chilly air, caulked with resinous or viscous
matter, and expanding or closing according to the impulse of the weather;
finally distended by a propitious atmosphere, the leaflets will emerge
clinging to each other for mutual support, clothed with a furry covering
of down to secure them against the fatal influence of atmospheric
changes. Did ever mother watch more tenderly over the preservation of a
child? Such are the phenomena, Sir Count, which you might long ago have
learned to admire, had you descended from the flighty regions of human
science, to study the humble though majestic works of God! The deeper
your researches, the more positive had been your conviction; for where
dangers abound, know that the protection of the Providence which you deny
is vouchsafed a thousand and a thousand fold in pity to the blindness of
mankind!
In the weariness of captivity, Charney was soon satisfied to occupy his
idle hours by directing his attention to the transformations of the
plant. But when he attempted to contend with it in argument, the answers
of the vegetable logician were too much for him.
“To what purpose these stiff bristles, disfiguring a slender stem?”
demanded the Count. And the following morning he found them covered with
rime: thanks to their defence, the tender bark had been secured from all
contact with the frost.
“To what purpose, for the summer season, this winter garment of wool and
down?” he again inquired. And when the summer season really breathed upon
the plant, he found the new shoots array themselves in their light spring
clothing; the downy vestments, now superfluous, being laid aside.
[Illustration]
“Storms may be still impending!” cried Charney, with a bitter smile; “and
how will these slender and flexile shoots resist the cutting hail, the
driving wind?” But when the stormy rain arose, and the winds blew, the
slender plant, yielding to their intemperance, replied to the sneers of
the Count by prudent prostration. Against the hail, it fortified itself
by a new manœuvre; the leaves, rapidly uprising, adhered to the stalks
for protection; presenting to the attacks of the enemy the strong and
prominent nerves of their inferior surface; and union, as usual, produced
strength. Firmly closed together, they defied the pelting shower; and
the plant remained master of the field; not, however, without having
experienced wounds and contusions, which, as the leaves expanded in the
returning sunshine, were speedily cicatrized by its congenial warmth.
“Is chance endowed then with intelligence?” cried Charney. “Must we admit
matter to be spiritualized, or humiliate the world of intelligence into
materialism?”
Still, though self-convicted, he could not refrain from interrogating his
mute instructress. He delighted in watching, day by day, her spontaneous
metamorphoses. Often, after having examined her progress, he found
himself gradually absorbed in reveries of a more cheering nature than
those to which he had been of late accustomed. He tried to prolong the
softened mood of mind by loitering in the court beside the plant; and
one day, while thus employed, he happened to raise his eyes towards the
grated window, and saw the fly-catcher observing him. The colour rose to
his cheek, as if the spy could penetrate the subject of his meditations;
but a smile soon chased away the blush. He no longer presumed to despise
his comrade in misfortune. _He_, too, had been engaged in contemplating
one of the simplest creations of nature; and had derived comfort from the
study.
“How do I know,” argued Charney, “that the Italian may not have
discovered as many marvels in a fly, as I in a nameless vegetable?”
The first object that saluted him on his returning to his chamber, after
this admission, was the following sentence, inscribed by his own hand
upon the wall, a few months before:
“CHANCE, THOUGH BLIND, IS THE SOLE AUTHOR OF THE CREATION.”
Seizing a piece of charcoal, Charney instantly qualified the assertion,
by the addition of a single word—“Perhaps.”
[Illustration]
CHAPTER IV.
Charney had long ceased to find amusement in these gratuitous mural
inscriptions; and if he still occasionally played the sculptor with his
wooden table, his efforts produced nothing now but germinating plants;
each protected by a cotyledon, or a sprig of foliage, whose leaves were
delicately serrated and prominently nerved. The greater portion of
the time assigned him for exercise was spent in contemplation of his
plant—in examining and reasoning upon its developement. Even after his
return to his chamber, he often watched the little solitary through his
prison-bars. It had become his whim, his bauble, his hobby—perhaps only
to be discarded like other preceding favourites!
One morning, as he stood at the window, he observed the jailer, who
was rapidly traversing the courtyard, pass so close to it that the stem
seemed on the point of being crushed under his footsteps; and Charney
actually shuddered! When Ludovico arrived as usual with his breakfast,
the Count longed to entreat the man would be careful in sparing the
solitary ornament of his walk; but he found some difficulty in phrasing
so puerile an entreaty. Perhaps the Fenestrella system of prison
discipline might enforce the clearing of the court from weeds, or other
vegetation. It might be a _favour_ he was about to request, and the Count
possessed no worldly means for the requital of a sacrifice. Ludovico had
already taxed him heavily, in the way of ransom, for the various objects
with which it was his privilege to furnish the prisoners of the fortress.
Besides, he had scarcely yet exchanged a word with the fellow, by whose
abrupt manners and character he was disgusted. His pride recoiled, too,
from placing himself in the same rank with the fly-catcher, towards
whom Ludovico had acknowledged his contempt. Then there was the chance
of a refusal! The inferior, whose position raises him to temporary
consequence, is seldom sufficiently master of himself to bear his
faculties meekly, incapable of understanding that indulgence is a proof
of power. The Count felt that it would be insupportable to him to find
himself repulsed by a turnkey.
At length, after innumerable oratorical precautions, and the exercise of
all his insight into the foibles of human nature, Charney commenced a
discourse, logically preconcocted, in hopes to obtain his end without the
sacrifice of his dignity—or, to speak more correctly, of his pride.
He began by accosting the jailer in Italian; by way of propitiating his
natural prejudices, and calling up early associations. He inquired after
Ludovico’s boy, little Antonio; and, having caused this tender string to
vibrate, took from his dressing-box a small gilt goblet, and charged him
to present it to the child!
Ludovico declined the gift, but refused it with a smile; and Charney,
though somewhat discountenanced, resolved to persevere. With adroit
circumlocution, he observed, “I am aware that a toy, a rattle, a
_flower_, would be a present better suited to Antonio’s age; but you can
sell the goblet, and procure those trifles in abundance with the price.”
And, lo! _à propos of flowers_, the Count embarked at once into his
subject.
Patriotism, paternal love, personal interest, every influential motive
of human action, were thus put in motion in order to accomplish the
preservation of a plant! Charney could scarcely have done more for his
own. Judge whether it had ingratiated itself into his affections!
“_Signor Conte!_” replied Ludovico, at the conclusion of the harangue,
“_riprendi sua nacchera indorata!_ Were this pretty bauble missing from
your toilet-case, its companions might fret after it! At three months
old, my bantling has scarce wit enough to drink out of a goblet; and with
respect to your gilly-flower—”
“_Is_ it a gilly-flower?” inquired Charney, with eagerness.
“_Sac à papious!_ how should I know? All flowers are more or less
gilly-flowers! But as to sparing the life of yours, eccellenza, methinks
the request comes late in the day. My boot would have been better
acquainted with it long ago, had I not perceived your partiality for the
poor weed!”
“Oh! as to my partiality,” interrupted Charney, “I beg to assure you—”
“Ta, ta, ta, ta! What need of assurance,” cried Ludovico. “I know
whereabouts you are better than you do. Men _must_ have _something_
to love; and state prisoners have small choice allowed them in their
whims. Why, among my boarders here, _Signor Conte_ (most of whom were
grand gentry, and great wiseacres in their day, for ’tis not the small
fry they send into harbour at Fenestrella), you’d be surprised at what
little cost they manage to divert themselves! One catches flies—no
harm in that; another—” and Ludovico winked knowingly, to signify the
application—“another chops a solid deal table into chips, without
considering how far I may be responsible for its preservation.” The
Count vainly tried to interpose a word: Ludovico went on: “Some amuse
themselves with rearing linnets and goldfinches; others have a fancy for
white mice. For my part, poor souls, I have so much respect for their
pets, that I had a fine Angora cat of my own, with long white silken
hair, you’d have sworn ’twas a muff when ’twas asleep!—a cat that my
wife doated on, to say nothing of myself. Well, I gave it away, lest the
creature should take a fancy to some of their favourites. All the cats in
the creation ought not to weigh against so much as a mouse belonging to a
captive!”
“Well thought, well expressed, my worthy friend!” cried Charney, piqued
at the inference which degraded him to the level of such wretched
predilections. “But know that this plant is something more to me than a
kill-time.”
“What signifies? so it serves but to recall to your mind the green tree
under which your mother hushed your infancy to rest, _per Bacco!_ I give
it leave to overshadow half the court. My instructions say nothing about
weeding or hoeing, so e’en let it grow and welcome! Were it to turn out a
tree, indeed, so as to assist you in escalading the walls, the case were
different! But there is time before us to look after the business—eh!
_eccellenza?_” said the jailer, with a coarse laugh. “Not that you
hav’n’t my best wishes for the recovery of the free use of your legs and
lungs; but all must come in course of time, and the regular way. For if
you were to make an attempt at escape—”
“Well! and if I were?” said Charney, with a smile.
“Thunder and hail!—you’d find Ludovico a stout obstacle in your way! I’d
order the sentry to fire at you, with as little scruple as at a rabbit!
Such are my instructions! But as to doing mischief to a poor harmless
gilly-flower, I look upon that man they tell of who killed the pet-spider
of the prisoner under his charge, as a wretch not worthy to be a jailer!
’Twas a base action, _eccellenza_—nay, a crime!”
Charney felt amazed and touched by the discovery of so much sensibility
on the part of his jailer. But now that he had begun to entertain an
esteem for the man, his vanity rendered it doubly essential to assign a
rational motive for his passion.
“Accept my thanks, good Ludovico,” said he, “for your good-will. I own
that the plant in question affords me scope for a variety of scientific
observations. I am fond of studying its physiological phenomena.”
Then (as Ludovico’s vague nodding of the head convinced him that the
poor fellow understood not a syllable he was saying) he added, “More
particularly as the class to which it belongs possesses medicinal
qualities, highly favourable to a disorder to which I am subject.”
A falsehood from the lips of the noble Count de Charney! and merely to
evade the contempt of a jailer, who, for the moment, represented the
whole human species in the eyes of the captive.
“Indeed!” cried Ludovico; “then all I have to say is, that if the poor
thing is so serviceable to you, you are not so grateful to it as you
ought to be. If I hadn’t been at the pains of watering it for you now and
then, on my way hither with your meals, _la povera picciola_ would have
died of thirst. _Addio, Signor Conte!_”
[Illustration]
“One moment, my good friend,” exclaimed Charney, more and more amazed
to discover such delicacy of mind so roughly enclosed, and repentant at
having so long mistaken the character of his jailer. “Since you have
interested yourself in my pursuits, and without vaunting your services,
accept, I entreat you, this small memento of my gratitude! Should better
times await me, I will not forget you!”
And once more he tendered the goblet; which this time Ludovico examined
with a sort of vague curiosity.
“Gratitude, for _what, Signor Conte_?” said he. “A plant wants nothing
but a sprinkling of water; and one might furnish a whole parterre of them
in their cups, without ruining oneself at the tavern. If _la picciola_
diverts you from your cares, and provides you with a specific, enough
said, and God speed her growth.”
And having crossed the room, he quietly replaced the goblet in its
compartment of the dressing-box.
Charney, rushing towards Ludovico, now offered him his hand.
“No, no!” exclaimed the jailer, assuming an attitude of respect and
constraint. “Hands are to be shaken only between equals and friends.”
“Be my friend, then, Ludovico!” cried the Count.
“No, _eccellenza_, no!” replied the turnkey. “A jailer must be on his
guard, in order to perform his duties like a man of conscience, to-day,
to-morrow, and every day of the week. If you were my friend, according
to _my_ notions of the word, how should I be able to call out to the
sentinel, Fire! if I saw you swimming across the moat? I am fated to
remain your keeper, jailer, _e divotissimo servo_!”
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
CHAPTER V.
In the course of his solitary meditations, after Ludovico’s departure,
Charney was compelled to admit that, in his relations with the jailer,
the man of genius and education had fallen below the level of the man of
the people. To what wretched subterfuges had he descended, in order to
practice upon the feelings of this kind-hearted and simple being! He had
even soiled his noble lips with an untruth.
He was startled to discover the services recently rendered by Ludovico to
the “_povera picciola_.” The boor, the jailer, morose only when invited
to a breach of duty, had actually watched him in secret, not to exult
over his weakness, but to render him a service; nay, by his obstinate
disinterestedness, the man persisted in imposing an obligation on the
Count de Charney.
In his walk next morning, the Count hastened to share, with his little
favourite, the cruise of water allotted to his use; not only watering
the roots, but sprinkling the plant itself, to refresh its leaves
from dust or insects. While thus occupied, the sky became darkened by
a thunder-cloud, suspended like a black dome over the turrets of the
fortress. Large rain-drops began to fall: and Charney was about to take
refuge in his room, when a few hail-stones mingling with the rain,
pattered down on the pavement of the court. _La povera picciola_ seemed
on the point of being uprooted by the whirlwind which accompanied the
storm. Her dishevelled branches and leaves shrinking up towards their
stalks for protection against the chilling shower, trembled with every
driving blast of wind that howled, as if in triumph, through the court.
Charney paused. Recalling to mind the reproaches of Ludovico, he looked
eagerly around for some object to defend his plant from the storm; but
nothing could be seen. The hail-stones came rattling down with redoubled
force, threatening destruction to its tender stem; and, notwithstanding
Charney’s experience of its power of resistance against such attacks,
he grew uneasy for its safety. With an effort of tenderness, worthy of
a father or a lover, he stationed himself between his protegée and the
wind, bending over her, to secure her from the hail; and, breathless with
his struggles against the violence of the storm, devoted himself, like a
martyr, to the defence of _la picciola_.
At length the hurricane subsided. But might not a recurrence of the
mischief bring destruction to his favourite at some moment when bolts
and bars divided her from her protector? He had already found cause to
tremble for her safety, when the wife of Ludovico, accompanied by a huge
mastiff, one of the guardians of the prison, occasionally traversed the
yard; for a single stroke with its paw, or a snap of its mouth, might
have annihilated the darling of the philosophical captive; and Charney
accordingly passed the remainder of the day in concocting a plan of
fortification.
The moderate portion of wood allowed him for fuel, scarcely supplied his
wants in a climate whose nights and mornings are so chilly, in a chamber
debarred from all warmth of sunshine. Yet he resolved to sacrifice his
comfort to the safety of the plant. He promised himself to retire early
to rest, and rise later; by which means, after a few days of self-denial,
he amassed sufficient wood for his purpose.
“Glad to see you have more fuel than you require,” cried Ludovico, on
noticing the little stock. “Shall I clear the room for you of all this
lumber?”
“Not for the world,” replied Charney, with a smile. “I am hoarding it to
build a palace for my lady-love.”
The jailer gave a knowing wink, which signified, however, that he
understood not a word about the matter.
Meanwhile, Charney set about splitting and pointing the uprights of his
bastions; and carefully laid aside the osier bands which served to tie
up his daily fagots. He next tore from his trunk its lining of coarse
cloth; out of which he drew the strongest threads: and his materials
thus prepared, he commenced his operations the moment the rules of the
prison and the exactitude of the jailer would admit. He surrounded his
plant with palisades of unequal height, carefully inserted between the
stones of the pavement, and secured at the base by a cement of earth,
laboriously collected from the interstices, and mortar and saltpetre
secretly abstracted from the ancient turret-walls around him. When the
labours of the carpenter and mason were achieved, he began to interlace
his scaffolding at intervals with split osiers, to screen _la picciola_
from the shock of exterior objects.
The completion of his work acquired, during its progress, new importance
in his eyes, from the opposition of Ludovico. The jailer shook his head
and grumbled when first he noticed the undertaking. But before the close
of the performance the kind-hearted fellow withdrew his disapprobation;
nay, would even smoke his pipe, leaning against the wicket of the
courtyard, and watching, with a smile, the efforts of the unpractised
mechanic; interrupting himself in the enjoyment of his favourite
recreation, however, to favour Charney with occasional counsels, the
result of his own experience.
The work progressed rapidly; but, to render it perfect, the Count was
under the necessity of sacrificing a portion of his scanty bedding;
purloining handfuls of straw from his palliasse, in order to band up
the interstices of his basket-work, as a shelter against the mountain
wind, and the fierceness of the meridian sun, which in summer would be
reflected from the flint of the adjacent wall.
One evening, a sudden breeze arose, after Charney had been locked in
for the night—and the yard was quickly strewn with scattered straws and
slips of osier, which had not been worked in with sufficient solidity.
Charney promised himself to counteract next day the ill effects of his
carelessness; but on reaching the court at the usual hour, he found
that all the mischief had been neatly repaired: a hand more expert than
his own had replaced the matting and palisades. It was not difficult to
guess to whom he was indebted for this friendly interposition. Meanwhile,
thanks to her friend—_thanks to her friends_, the plant was now secured
by solid ramparts and roofing: and Charney, attaching himself, according
to the common frailty of human nature, more tenderly to the object on
which he was conferring obligation, had the satisfaction to see the plant
expand with redoubled powers, and acquire new beauties every hour. It was
a matter of deep interest to observe the progress of its consolidation.
The herbaceous stem was now acquiring ligneous consistency. A glossy
bark began to surround the fragile stalk; and already, the gratified
proprietor of this gratuitous treasure entertained eager hopes of the
appearance of flowers among its leaves. The man of paralysed nerves—the
man of frost-bound feelings, had at length found something to wish
for! The action of his lofty intellect was at last concentrated into
adoration of an herb of the field. Even as the celebrated Quaker, John
Bartram, resolved, after studying for hours the organization of a violet,
to apply his powers of mind to the analysis of the vegetable kingdom,
and eventually acquired high eminence among the masters of botanical
science, Charney became a natural philosopher.
A learned pundit of Malabar is said to have lost his reason in attempting
to expound the phenomena of the sensitive plant. But the Count de Charney
seemed likely to be restored to the use of _his_ by studies of a similar
nature; and, sane or insane, he had at least already extracted from his
plant an arcanum sufficiently potent to dispel the weariness of ennui,
and enlarge the limit of his captivity.
“If it would but flower!” he frequently exclaimed, “what a delight to
hail the opening of its first blossom! a blossom whose beauty, whose
fragrance, will be developed for the sole enjoyment of my eager senses.
What will be its colour, I wonder! what the form of its petals?—time will
show! Perhaps they may afford new premises for conjecture—new problems
for solution. Perhaps the conceited gipsy will offer a new challenge to
my understanding? So much the better! Let my little adversary arm herself
with all her powers of argument. I will not prejudge the case. Perhaps,
when thus complete, the secret of her mysterious nature will be apparent?
How I long for the moment! Bloom, picciola! bloom—and reveal yourself in
all your beauty to him to whom you are indebted for the preservation of
your life!”
“PICCIOLA!” Such is the name, then, which, borrowed from the lips
of Ludovico, Charney has involuntarily bestowed upon his favourite!
“Picciola!” _la povera picciola_, was the designation so tenderly
appropriated by the jailer to the _poor little thing_ which Charney’s
neglect had almost allowed to perish.
“Picciola!” murmured the solitary captive, when every morning he
carefully searched its already tufted foliage for indications of
inflorescence; “when will these wayward flowers make their appearance!”
The Count seemed to experience pleasure in the mere pronunciation of a
name uniting in his mind the images of the two objects which peopled his
solitude—his jailer and his plant!
Returning one morning to the accustomed spot, and, as usual,
interrogating Picciola branch by branch, leaf by leaf, his eyes were
suddenly attracted towards a shoot of unusual form, gracing the principal
stem of the plant. He felt the beatings of his heart accelerated, and,
ashamed of his weakness, the colour rose to his cheek, as he stooped for
re-examination of the event. The spherical shape of the excrescence which
presented itself, green, bristly, and imbricated with glossy scales, like
the slates of a rounded dome surmounting an elegant kiosk, announced a
bud! Eureka! A flower must be at hand!
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
CHAPTER VI.
The fly-catcher, who occasionally made his appearance at his grated
window, seemed to take delight in watching the assiduities of Charney
towards his favourite! He had observed the Count compose his cement,
weave his osier-work—erect his palisades; and, admonished by his own long
captivity of the moral influence of such pursuits, readily conjectured
that a whole system of philosophy was developing itself in the mind of
his fellow-prisoner.
One memorable day, a new face made its appearance at the window—a female
face—fair, and fresh, and young. The stranger was a girl, whose demeanour
appeared at once timid and lively; modesty regulated the movements of
her well-turned head, and the brilliancy of her animated eyes, whose
glances were veiled by long silken eyelashes of raven darkness. As she
stood behind the heavy grating, on which her fair hand bent for support,
her brow inclining in the shade as if in a meditative mood, she might
have stood for a chaste personification of the nymph Captivity. But when
her brow was uplifted, and the joyous light of day fell on her lovely
countenance, the harmony and serenity of her features, her delicate but
brilliant complexion, proclaimed that it was in the free air of liberty
she had been nurtured, not under the dispiriting influence of the bolts
and bars of a dungeon. She was, perhaps, one of those tutelary angels of
charity, whose lives are passed in soothing the sick and solacing the
captive?—No!—the instinct which brought the fair stranger to Fenestrella
was still more puissant—even that of filial duty. Only daughter to
Girardi the fly-catcher—Teresa had abandoned the gay promenades and
festivities of Turin, and the banks of the Doria-Riparia, to inhabit
the cheerless town of Fenestrella, not that her residence near the
fortress afforded free access to her father: for some time she found it
impossible to obtain even a momentary interview with the prisoner. But
to breathe the same air with him—and think of him nearer to herself, was
some solace to her affliction. This was her first time of admittance
into the long-interdicted citadel; and such is the origin of the delight
which Charney sees beaming in her eyes, and the colour which he observes
mantling on her cheek. Restored to the arms of her father, Teresa Girardi
has indeed a right to look gay, and glad, and lovely!
It was a sentiment of curiosity which attracted her to the window; a
feeling of interest soon attaches her to the spot. The noble prisoner and
his occupation excite her attention; but finding herself noticed in her
turn, she tries to recede from observation, as if convicted of unbecoming
boldness. Teresa has nothing to fear! The Count de Charney, engrossed by
Picciola and her flower-bud, has not a thought to throw away on any rival
beauty!
A week afterwards, when the young girl was admitted to pay a second visit
to her father, she turned her steps, almost unconsciously, towards the
grated window for a glimpse of the prisoner; when Girardi, laying his
hand upon her arm, exclaimed, “My fellow-prisoner has not been near his
plant these three days. The poor gentleman must be seriously ill.”
“Ill; seriously ill!” exclaimed Teresa, with emotion.
“I have noticed more than one physician traversing the court: and from
what I can learn from Ludovico, they agree only to a single point—that
the Count de Charney will die.”
“Die!” again reiterated the young girl, with dilating eyes, and terror
rather than pity expressed in her countenance. “Unhappy man—unhappy man!”
Then turning towards her father, with terror in her looks, she exclaimed,
“People DIE, then, in this miserable place!”
[Illustration]
“Yes, the exhalations from the old moats have infected the citadel with
fever.”
“Father, dearest father!”
She paused—tears were gathering under her eyelids; and Girardi, deeply
moved by her affliction, extended his hand tenderly towards her. Teresa
seized and covered it with tears and kisses.
At that moment Ludovico made his appearance. He came to present to
the fly-catcher a new captive whom he had just arrested—neither more
nor less than a dragon-fly with golden wings, which he offered with a
triumphant smile to Girardi. The fly-catcher smiled, thanked his jailer,
and, unobserved by Ludovico, set the insect at liberty; for it was the
twentieth individual of the same species, with which he had furnished him
during the last few days. He profited, however, by the jailer’s visit to
ask tidings of his fellow-prisoner.
“_Santissimo mio padrono!_ do you fancy I neglect the poor fellow?” cried
Ludovico, gruffly: “though still under my charge, he will soon be under
that of St. Peter. I have just been watering his favourite tree.”
“To what purpose—since he is never to behold its blossoms?” interrupted
the daughter of Girardi.
“_Perche, damigella—perche?_” cried the jailer, with his accustomed
wink, and sawing the air with a rude hand, of which the forefinger was
authoritatively extended; “because, though the doctors have decided
that the sick man has taken an eternal lease of the flat of his back,
I, Ludovico, jailer of Fenestrella, am of a different opinion. _Non lo
credo—trondidio!_—I have notions of my own on the subject.”
[Illustration]
And turning on his heel he departed; assuming, as he left the room, his
big voice of authority, to acquaint the poor girl, that only twenty-two
minutes remained of the time allotted for her visit to her father. And at
the appointed minute, to a second, he returned, and executed his duty of
shutting her out.
The illness of Charney was indeed of a serious nature. One evening, after
his customary visit to Picciola, an attack of faintness overpowered him
on regaining his room; when, rather than summon assistance, he threw
himself on the bed, with aching brows, and limbs agitated by a nervous
shivering. He fancied sleep would suffice for his restoration.
But instead of sleep, came pain and fever; and on the morrow, when he
tried to rise, an influence more potent than his will nailed him to his
pallet. Closing his eyes, the Count resigned himself to his sufferings.
In the face of danger, the calmness of the philosopher and the pride of
the conspirator returned. He would have felt dishonoured by a cry or
murmur, or an appeal to the aid of those by whom he was sequestered from
the breathing world—contenting himself with instructions to Ludovico
respecting the care of his plant, in case he should be detained in
bed, the _carcere duro_ which was to render still harder his original
captivity. Physicians were called in, and he refused to reply to their
questioning. Charney seemed to fancy that, no longer master of his
existence, he was exempted from all care for his life. His health was
a portion of his confiscated property; and those who had appropriated
all, might administer to _that_ among the rest. At first, the doctors
attempted to overcome his spirit of perversity; but finding the sick man
obstinately silent, they began to interrogate his disorder instead of his
temper.
The pathognomonic symptoms to which they addressed themselves, replied in
various dialects and opposite senses; for the learned doctors invested
their questions, each in the language of a different system. In the
livid hue of Charney’s lips, and the dilated pupils of his eyes, one saw
symptoms of putrid fever; another, of inflammation of the viscera; while
the third inferred, from the coloration of the neck and temples, the
coldness of the extremities, and the rigidity of the countenance, that
the disorder was paralytic or apoplectic—protesting that the silence of
the patient was involuntary, the result of the cerebral congestion.
Twice did the captain-commandant of the fortress deign to visit the
bedside of the prisoner. The first time to inquire whether the Count
had any personal requests to make—whether he was desirous of a change
of lodging, or fancied the locality had exercised an evil influence
over his health; to all which questions Charney replied by a negative
movement of the head. The second time, he came accompanied by a priest.
The Count had been given over by his doctors as in a hopeless state. His
time was expired; it became necessary to prepare him for eternity; and
the functions of the commandant required that he should see the last
consolations of religion administered to his dying prisoner.
Of all the duties of the sacerdotal office, the most august, perhaps, are
those of the ordinary of a prison—of the priest whose presence sanctifies
the aspect of the gibbet! Yet the scepticism of modern times has flung
its bitter mockeries in the face of these devoted men! “Hardening their
hearts under the cuirass of habit,” says the voice of the scorner,
“these officials become utterly insensible. They forget to weep with
the condemned—they forget to weep for them; and the routine of their
professional exhortations has neither grace nor inspiration in its forms
of prayer.”
Alas! of what avail were the most varied efforts of eloquence—since the
exhortation is fated to reach but once the ear of the victim? Alas! what
need to inveigh against a calling which condemns the pure and virtuous
to live surrounded by the profligate and hard-hearted, who reply to
their words of peace and love, with insults, imprecations, and contempt?
Like yourselves, these devoted men might have tasted the luxuries and
enjoyments of life—instead of braving the contact of the loathsome rags
of misery, and the infected atmosphere of a dungeon. Endued with human
sensibilities, and that horror of sights of blood and death inherent in
all mankind, they compel themselves to behold, year after year, the gory
knife of the guillotine descend on the neck of the malefactor; and such
is the spectacle, such the enjoyment, which men of the world denounce as
likely to wear down their hearts to insensibility!
[Illustration: _The priest at Charney’s bedside._]
In place of this “man of sorrows and acquainted with grief,” devoted
for a lapse of years to this dreadful function, in place of this humble
Christian, who has made himself the comrade of the executioner, summon
a new priest to the aid of every criminal! It is true, he will be more
deeply moved; it is true, his tears will fall more readily—but will he be
more capable of the task of imparting consolation? His words are rendered
incoherent by tears and sobs; his mind is distracted by agitation. The
emotion of which he is so deeply susceptible, will communicate itself to
the condemned, and enfeeble his courage at the moment of rendering up his
life a sacrifice to the well-being of society. If the fortitude of the
new almoner be such as enables him to command at once composure in his
calling, be assured that his heart is a thousand times harder than that
of the most experienced ordinary.
No—cast not a stone at the prison priest; throw no additional obstacles
in the way of so painful a duty! Deprive not the condemned of their last
friend. Let the cross of Christ interpose, as he ascends the scaffold,
between the eyes of the criminal and the fatal axe of the executioner.
Let his last looks fall upon an object proclaiming, trumpet-tongued, that
after the brief vengeance of man comes the everlasting mercy of GOD!
The priest summoned to the bedside of Charney was fortunately worthy of
his sacred functions. Fraught with tenderness for suffering humanity, he
read at once, in the obstinate silence of the Count, and the withering
sentences which disfigured his prison walls, how little was to be
expected of so imperious and scornful a spirit; and satisfied himself
with passing the night in prayers by his bedside, charitably officiating
with Ludovico in the services indispensable to the sufferer. The
Christian priest waited, as for the light of dawning day, an auspicious
moment to brighten with a ray of hope the fearful darkness of incredulity!
In the course of that critical night, the blood of the patient
determining to the brain, produced transports of delirium, necessitating
restraint to prevent the unfortunate Count from dashing himself out of
bed. As he struggled in the arms of Ludovico and the priest, a thousand
incoherent exclamations and wild apostrophes burst from his lips; among
which the words “_Picciola—povera Picciola!_” were distinctly audible.
“_Andiamo!_” cried Ludovico, the moment he caught the sound. “The moment
is come! Yes, yes, the Count is right; the moment is come,” he reiterated
with impatience. But how was he to leave the poor chaplain there alone,
exposed to all the violence of a madman? “In another hour, it may be too
late!” cried Ludovico. “_Corpo di Dio!_ it will be too late. Blessed
Virgin, methinks he is growing calmer! Yes, he droops! he closes his
eyes! he is sinking to sleep! If at my return he is still alive, all’s
well. Hurra! reverend father, we shall yet preserve him, hurra, hurra!”
And away went Ludovico, satisfied, now the excitement of Charney’s
delirium was appeased, to leave him in the charge of the kind-hearted
priest.
In the chamber of death, lighted by the feeble flame of a flickering
lamp, nothing now was audible but the irregular breathing of the dying
man, the murmured prayers of the priest, and the breezes of the Alps
whistling through the grating of the prison-window. Twice, indeed, a
human voice mingled in these monotonous sounds—the “_qui vive?_” of the
sentinel, as Ludovico passed and repassed the postern on his way to his
lodge, and back to the chamber of the Count. At the expiration of half an
hour, the chaplain welcomed the return of the jailer, bearing in his hand
a cup of steaming liquid.
“_Santo Christo!_ I had half a mind to kill my dog!” said Ludovico, as
he entered. “The brute, on seeing me, set up a howl, which is a sign
of evil portent! But how have you been going on here? Has he moved? No
matter! I have brought something that will soon set him to rights! I have
made bold to taste it myself—bitter, saving your reverence’s presence, as
five hundred thousand _diavoli_! Pardon me! _mio padre!_”
But the priest gently put aside the offered cup.
“After all,” said Ludovico, “’tis not the stuff for us. A pint of good
muscadello, warmed with a slice or two of lemon, is a better thing for
sitters-up with the sick—eh, _Signore Capellano_? But _this_ is the job
for the poor Count; _this_ will put things in their places. He must drink
it to the last drop; for so says the prescription.”
And, as he spoke, Ludovico kept pouring the draught from one cup to
another, and blowing to cool it; till, having reduced it to the proper
temperature, he forced the half-insensible Count to swallow the whole
potion, while the chaplain supported his shoulders for the effort. Then,
covering the patient closely up, they drew together the curtains of the
bed.
“We shall soon see the effects,” observed the jailer to his companion.
“I don’t stir from hence till all is right. My birds are safe locked in
their cages; my wife has got the babe to keep her company. What say you,
_Signore Capellano_?”
And Ludovico’s garrulity having been silenced by the almoner, by a motion
of the hand, the poor fellow stationed himself in silence at the foot
of the bed, with his eyes fixed on the dying man; retaining his very
breath in the anxiousness of his watchfulness for the event. At length,
perceiving no sign of change in the Count, he grew uneasy. Apprehensive
of having accelerated the last fatal change, he started up, and began
pacing the room, snapping his fingers, and addressing menacing gestures
to the cup, which was still standing on the table.
Suddenly he stopped short, and fixed his eyes on the livid face of
Charney.
“I have been the death of him,” cried he, accompanying the apostrophe
with a tremendous oath. “I have certainly been the death of him.”
The chaplain raised his head, when Ludovico, unappalled by his air of
consternation, began anew to pace the room, to stamp, to swear, to snap
his fingers with all the energy of Italian gesticulation, till, tired out
by his own impetuosity, he threw himself on his knees beside the priest,
hiding his head in the bedclothes, and murmuring his _mea culpa_, till,
in the midst of a paternoster, he fell asleep.
At dawn of day the chaplain was still praying, and Ludovico still
snoring; when a burning hand, placed upon the forehead of the latter,
suddenly roused him from his slumbers.
“Give me some drink,” murmured the faint voice of Charney.
And, at the sound of a voice which he had supposed to be for ever
silenced, Ludovico opened his eyes wide with stupefaction to fix them
on the Count, upon whose face and limbs the moisture of an auspicious
effort of nature was perceptible. The fever was yielding to the effect
of the powerful sudorific administered by Ludovico; and the senses of
Charney being now restored, he proceeded to give rational directions to
the jailer concerning the mode of treatment to be adopted; then, turning
towards the priest, still humbly stationed on his knees at the bedside,
he observed—
[Illustration]
“I am not yet dead, sir! Should I recover (as I have every hope of
doing), present the compliments of the Count de Charney to his trio
of doctors, and tell them I dispense with their further visits, and
the blunders of a science as idle and deceptions as all the rest. I
overheard enough of their consultations to know that I am indebted to
chance alone for my recovery.”
“_Chance!_” faltered the priest—“chance!”—And, having raised his eyes to
Heaven in token of compassion, they fell upon the fatal inscription on
the wall—
“CHANCE, THOUGH BLIND, IS THE SOLE AUTHOR OF THE CREATION.”
The chaplain paused, after perusing this frightful sentiment; then,
having gathered breath by a deep and painful inspiration, he added, in a
solemn voice, the last word inscribed by Charney—
“_Perhaps!_”
And ere the startled Count could address him, he had quitted the
apartment.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
CHAPTER VII.
Elated by success, Ludovico lent his ear, in a sort of idiotic ecstasy,
to every syllable uttered by the Count. Not that he comprehended their
meaning:—_There_, luckily, he was safe. But his dead man was alive again;
had resumed his power of speaking, thinking, acting—a sufficient motive
of exultation and emotion to the delighted jailer.
“_Viva!_” cried he; “_viva, evviva_. He is saved. All’s well! _Che
maraviglia!_ Saved!—and thanks to whom?—_to what?_”
And, waving in the air his earthen vessel, he proceeded to hug and
embrace it, saluting it with the tenderest diminutives of the Tuscan
vocabulary.
“Thanks to what?” echoed the sick man. “Why, to your friendly care, my
good Ludovico. Nevertheless, should my cure be perfected, you will find
those doctors yonder claiming all honour for their prescriptions; and the
priest for his prayers.”
“Neither they nor I have any title to the victory,” cried Ludovico,
with still wilder gesticulation. “As to the _Signore Capellano_, _his_
handiwork may have done something: ’tis hard to say. But as to the
other—ay, ay—as to the other bringer of salvation—”
“To whom do you allude?” interrupted Charney, expecting that the
superstitious Ludovico would attribute his recovery to the interposition
of some favourite saint. “_Who_ has deigned to become my protector?”
“Say _protectress_, and you will be nearer the mark,” cried Ludovico.
“The Madonna—eh?” demanded Charney, with an ironical smile.
“Neither saint nor Madonna!” replied the jailer, stoutly. “She who has
preserved you from the jaws of death and the claws of Satan (for dying
without confession you were damned as well as dead), is no other than my
pretty little god-daughter.”
“Your god-daughter!” said the Count, lending a more attentive ear to his
rhapsodies.
“Ay, _Eccellenza_, my god-daughter, _Picciola_, _Picciolina_,
_Piccioletta_. Was not I the first to baptize your favourite? Did I not
give her the name of _Picciola_? Have you not often told me so yourself?
Ergo—the plant is my god-daughter, and I her godfather—_per Bacco!_ I’m
growing proud of the distinction!”
“_Picciola!_” exclaimed Charney, starting up, and resting his elbow on
his pillow, while an expression of the deepest interest took possession
of his countenance. “Explain yourself, my good Ludovico, explain
yourself!”
“Come, come, no shamming stupid, my dear lord!” said the jailer, resuming
the customary wink of the eye, “as if ’twas the first time that she had
saved your life!”
“The first time?”
“Didn’t you tell me yourself that the herb was the only specific against
the disorder to which you were subject? Lucky job I hadn’t forgotten
it; for the Signora Picciola proves to have more wisdom in one of her
leaves, than the whole faculty of Montpellier in the noddles that
fill its trencher-caps. _Trondidio_, my little god-daughter is able to
defeat a regiment of doctors! ay, in full complements—four battalions,
and four hundred picked men to each. Pray, did not your three humbugs
in black throw back the coverlid on your nose, and pronounce you to be
a dead man? while Picciola, the stout-hearted little weed (God send her
seed in her harvest!), brought you round in the saying of a paternoster?
’Tis a recipe I mean to keep like the apple of my eye; and if ever poor
little Antonio should fall sick, he shall drink broths of the herb, and
eat salads of it; though, good truth, ’tis as bitter as wormwood. A
single cup of the infusion, and all acted like a charm. _Vittoria! Viva
l’illustrissima Signorina Picciola!_”
Charney had not the heart to resent these tumultuous ecstasies of his
worthy keeper. The idea of being indebted for his life to the agency
of the feeble favourite, which had embellished his days of health,
insensibly brought a smile to his still feverish lips. But a vague
apprehension oppressed his feelings.
“In what way, my good Ludovico, did you manage to apply your remedy?”
said he, faintly.
“Faith! easily enough! A pint of scalding water poured upon the leaves”
(Charney bit his lips with anxiety), “in a close kettle, which, after a
turn or two over the stove, furnished the decoction.”
“Indeed!” exclaimed the Count, falling back on his pillow, and pressing
his hand to his forehead. “You have then destroyed the plant! I must
not reproach you, Ludovico; you did it for the best. And yet, my poor
_Picciola_! What will become of me, now I have lost my little companion!”
“Come, come! compose yourself!” answered Ludovico, assuming the paternal
tone of a father comforting his child for the loss of a favourite
plaything. “Compose yourself, and do not expose your limbs to cold, by
throwing off your clothes in this way. Listen to reason!” he continued,
disposing the covering round the person of his patient. “Was I to
hesitate between the life of a gilly-flower and the life of a _man_?
Certainly not! ’Twould have been a sin—a murder!”
Charney groaned heavily.
“However, I hadn’t the heart to plunge the poor thing head foremost into
the smoking kettle. I thought a loan might do as well as total pillage;
so, with my wife’s scissors, I snipped off leaves enough for a strong
infusion (sparing the buds; for the jade has now _three_ flower-buds
for her top-knot), and though her foliage is a little the thinner, I’ve
a notion the plant will not suffer from thinning. _Picciola_ will,
perhaps, be the better for the job, as well as her master. So now, be
prudent, _eccellenza_! only be prudent, and all will go by clock-work at
Fenestrella.”
Charney, directing a glance of grateful affection towards his jailer,
extended towards him a hand which, _this_ time, Ludovico felt himself
privileged to accept; for the eyes of the Count were moistened by
tears of emotion. But suddenly recollecting himself, and angry with
his own infraction of the rule he had traced for his conduct towards
those committed to his charge, the muscles of Ludovico’s dark face
contracted, and he resumed his harsh, surly, every-day tone. Though still
holding within his own the hand of his prisoner, he affected to give a
professional turn to his attitude.
“See!” cried he, “in spite of my injunctions, you still persist in
uncovering yourself. Remember, sir, I am responsible for your recovery!”
And, after further remonstrances, made in the dry tone of office,
Ludovico quitted the room, murmuring to the accompaniment of his rattling
keys, the burden of his favourite song:
“I’m a jailer by my trade;
A better ne’er was made.
Easy ’tis to laugh for those that win, man!
I’d rather turn the key
Than have it turned on me.
Better out of doors than always in, man!
With a lira-lira-la—driva din, man!”
[Illustration]
CHAPTER VIII.
During the remainder of that and the following day Charney exhibited
the depression of mind and body which results from every great physical
crisis. But on the third day he resumed his powers of thought and action;
and, if still detained by weakness on his pillow, the time was not far
distant when he was likely to resume his former habits of life.
What delight to renew his acquaintance with his benefactress! All his
thoughts were now turned towards Picciola! There seemed to be something
beyond the common course of events in the fact that a seed, accidentally
shed within the precincts of his prison, should have germinated in order
to cure in the first instance his moral disorder—ennui: and in the
second, the perilous physical disease to which he had been about to fall
a victim. He, whom the splendour of wealth had failed to enliven—he,
whom the calculations of human learning had failed to restore—had been
preserved, first and last, by a plant! Enfeebled by illness, he was no
longer able to apply his full force of reasoning to the development
of the question; and a superstitious feeling, accordingly, began to
attach him with redoubled force to the mysterious PICCIOLA. It was
impossible to ground upon a rational basis his sentiments of gratitude
towards a non-sentient being; nevertheless Charney found it impossible
to refuse his affection in exchange for the existence bestowed upon him.
Where reason is paralysed, imagination exercises her influence without
restraint. Charney’s regard for his benefactress now became exalted into
a religious feeling, or rather into a blind superstition. Between him
and his favourite there existed a mysterious sympathy of nature, like
the attraction which draws together certain inanimate substances. He
even fancied himself under a charm—a spell of enchantment. Who knows?
Perhaps the arrogant refuter of the existence of a GOD is about to fall
into the puerilities of judicial astrology. For in the secrecy of his
cell, Charney does not hesitate to apostrophize Picciola as his star—his
destiny—his talisman of light and life!
It is a curious fact that scarcely one illustrious man, remarkable for
knowledge or genius, convicted of doubt in the agency of a Providence,
but has been in his own person the slave of superstition; while
attempting to throw off the yoke of servitude, submitting to become
threefold slaves. In the blind eagerness of their pride to arrogate to
their own merit the power or glory they have attained—those deep-seated
instincts of religion which they have attempted to stifle in their
souls—thrust out of their natural channel—force a way of their own
towards daylight, and acquire a wild and irregular character. The
homage they arrest in its course to heaven, falls back upon the earth.
They would fain judge, though they refuse to believe; and the genius
whose horizon they have circumscribed, requites the forced contraction
by seeing things in part instead of a whole, and losing all power of
estimating the homogeneous design of the great Master of all! They attach
themselves to details, because an isolated fact is within the scope of
their judgment, and do not so much as notice the points of union which
connect it with universal nature. For what is the whole creation—earth,
air, water—the winds, the waves, the stars—mankind—the universe, but an
infinite being, complete, premeditated, varied into inscrutable details,
and breathing and palpitating under the omnipresent hand of GOD?
Subdued, however, by the strength of his pride and the weakness of
his health, Charney saw nothing to admire in nature but his weed—his
plant—his Picciola; and, as if to justify his folly by analogy, dived
into the vast stores of his memory for a precedent.
[Illustration]
He called to mind all the miraculous plants recorded from the earliest
times, by poet or historian; the _holly_ of Homer—the palm-tree of
Latona—the oak of Odin—nay, even the golden herb which shines before
the eyes of the ignorant peasants of Brittany, and the May-flower,
which preserves from evil thoughts the simple shepherdess of La Brie.
He recollected the sacred fig-tree of the Romans—the olive of the
Athenians—the Teutatés of the Celts—the vervain of the Gauls—the lotus of
the Greeks—the beans of the Pythagoreans—the mandrake of the Hebrews. He
remembered the green campac which blossoms everlastingly in the Persian’s
paradise; the touba tree which overshadows the celestial throne of
Mahomet; the magic camalata, the sacred amreet on whose branches the
Indians behold imaginary fruits of Ambrosia and of voluptuous enjoyment.
He recurred with pleasure to the symbolical worship of the Japanese,
who elevate the altars of their divinities on pedestals of heliotropes
and water-lilies, assigning the throne of Love himself to the corolla
of a nenuphar. He admired the religious scruples of the Siamese, which
make it sacrilege to exterminate or even mutilate certain consecrated
shrubs. A thousand superstitions which in former times excited his pity
and contempt toward the short-sightedness of human nature, tended now
to elevate his fellow-creatures in his estimation. For the Count had
discovered that, from the vegetation of an humble flower, may emanate
lessons of wisdom; and doubted not, that all these idolatrous customs
must have originated in sentiments of gratitude unexampled by tradition.
“From his imperial throne of the west,” thought Charney, “Charlemagne did
not disdain to exhort the nation submitted to his rule, to the culture of
flowers. And have not Ælian and Herodotus recorded that the great Xerxes
himself took such delight in the beauty of an oriental plane-tree, as to
caress its stem—press it tenderly in his arms—sleep enraptured under its
shade—decorating it with bracelets and chains of gold, when compelled to
bid adieu to his verdant favourite!”
As the convalescence of the Count proceeded, he was seated one morning
reclining absorbed in thought in his own chamber, of which he had not yet
ventured to cross the threshold, when his door was suddenly burst open,
and Ludovico, with a radiant countenance, hastened towards him.
“Vittoria!” cried he. “The creature is in bloom. _Picciola! Piccioletta!
figlioccia mia!_”
“In bloom?” cried Charney, starting up. “Let me see her. I _must_ see the
blossom.”
In vain did the worthy jailer represent the imprudence of going too soon
into the air, and implore the Count to delay the undertaking for a day or
two. The morning was uncertain—the atmosphere chilly. A relapse might
bring the invalid once more to the gates of death. But Charney was deaf
to all remonstrance! He consented only to wait an hour, in order that the
sun might become one of the party.
“Picciola is in bloom!” repeated Charney to himself. And how long, how
tedious did that hour appear, which was still to divide him from the
darling of his imagination! For the first time since his illness, he
judged it necessary to dress. He chose to dedicate his first toilet to
Picciola in bloom. He actually looked into his pocket-glass while he
arranged his hair to do honour to his visit to a flower! A _flower_?
Nay! surely something more? His visit is that of the convalescent to
his physician—of the grateful man to his benefactress—_almost_ of the
lover to his mistress! He was surprised to notice in the glass the
ravages which care and sickness had wrought in his appearance. He began
to suspect, for the first time, that bitter and venomous thoughts may
tend to canker the human frame; and milder contemplations produce a more
auspicious temperament.
At the appointed moment Ludovico reappeared, to offer to the Count de
Charney the support of his arm down the steep steps of the winding
stone staircase; and scarcely had the sick man emerged into the court,
when the emotion caused by a sudden restoration to light and air,
operating on the sensitiveness of an easily excitable nervous system,
produced a conviction on his mind that the whole atmosphere was vivified
and embalmed by the emanations of his flower. It was to Picciola he
attributed the delightful emotions which agitated his bosom.
The enchantress had, indeed, attired herself in all her charms! The
coquette was shining in all her beauty. Her brilliant and delicately
streaked corolla, in which crimson, pink, and white were blended by
imperceptible gradations, her large transparent petal bordered by a
little silvery fringe or ciliation, which the scattered rays of the sun
seemed to brighten into a halo encircling the flower, exceeded the utmost
anticipations of the Count, as he stood gazing with transport upon his
queen! He feared, indeed, to tarnish the delicacy of the blossom by the
contact of his hand or breath. Analysis or investigation seemed out of
the question, engrossed as he was by love and admiration for the delicate
thing whose fragrance and beauty breathed enchantment upon every sense!
But he was soon startled from his reveries! The Count noticed, for the
first time, traces of the mutilation by which he had been restored to
health; branches half cut away, and fading leaves still wounded by
contact with the scissors of Ludovico. Tears started into his eyes!
Instead of admiration for the delicate lines and perfumes of those
expanding blossoms, he experienced only gratitude for the gift of life!
He beheld a benefactress in his Picciola.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
CHAPTER IX.
The physician of the prison condescended to authorize on the morrow the
Count de Charney’s resumption of his daily exercise. He was allowed the
freedom of the little court, not only at the usual hours, but at any
moment of the day. Air and exercise were considered indispensable to his
recovery; and thus, the prisoner was enabled to apply himself anew to his
long-interrupted studies.
In the view of committing to writing his scientific observations on the
development of his plant, from the moment of its germination, he tried
to seduce Ludovico into furnishing him with pens and paper. He expected,
indeed, to find the jailer resume on this occasion an air of importance,
and raise a thousand difficulties, but probably yield in the sequel out
of love for his captive, or his god-daughter, or worldly pelf; for where
perquisites were concerned, turnkey-nature was still uppermost. But to
Charney’s great surprise, Ludovico received his propositions with the
most frank good-humour.
“Pens and ink? Nothing more easy, _Signor Conte_!” said he, tapping his
pipe and turning aside his head to keep it alive by a whiff or two; for
he made it a point to abstain from smoking in presence of the Count, to
whom the smell of tobacco was disagreeable. “I, for my part, have no
objection. But you see, such little tools as pens and paper remain under
the lock and key of the governor, not under mine; and if you want writing
materials, you have only to memorialize the captain-commandant, and your
business is done!”
Charney smiled, and persevered.
“But in order to frame my petition, good Ludovico,” said he, “pens, ink,
and paper are, in the first instance, indispensable?”
“True, _eccellenza_, true! But we must drag back the donkey by the
tail to make it get on—no uncommon method with petitions,” quoth the
jailer, half aside, crossing his hands consequentially behind him. “I
must go straight to the governor, and tell him you have a request to
make, no matter about what. That is not my business, but his and yours.
If inconvenient to him to visit you in person, he’ll send his man of
business, who will furnish you with a pen and a piece of stamped paper,
just one sheet, ruled in form for a petition, on which you must inscribe
your memorial in his presence; after which, he places his seal on it in
yours; you return the pen to him, he makes you a bow, and away he goes
with the petition!”
“But it is not from the governor I ask for paper, Ludovico, ’tis from
yourself.”
“From me? You don’t then happen to know my orders!” replied the jailer,
resuming his accustomed severity. Then drawing a deep breath of his pipe,
he exhaled the smoke with much deliberation, eying the Count askance
during the process, turned on his heel, and quitted the room.
Next day, when Charney returned to the charge, Ludovico contented himself
with winking his eye, shaking his head, and shrugging his shoulders. Not
a word now was to be extracted from him.
Too proud to humiliate himself to the governor, but still bent upon his
project, Charney now set to work to make a pen for himself out of a
crow-quill tooth-pick. With some soot, carefully dissolved in one of
the golden cups of his dressing-case, he furnished himself with ink and
inkstand; while his cambric handkerchiefs, relics of a former splendour,
were made to serve for writing-paper. With these awkward materials, he
resolved to record the peculiarities of Picciola; occupying himself, even
when absent from his favourite, with details of her life and history.
What profound remarks already presented themselves for inscription! What
pleasure would Charney have found in communicating his observations to
any intelligent human being! His neighbour, the fly-catcher, might have
been a satisfactory auditor; for Charney had now found occasion to admire
the bland and benevolent expression of a countenance at first sight
commonplace. Whenever the old man stood contemplating from his little
window, with an inquiring and propitious eye, the beauty of Picciola,
and the attentions of her votary, the Count felt irresistibly attracted
towards his fellow-prisoner. Nay, smiles and salutations with the hand
had been exchanged between them; and it was only the rigid interdiction
of all intercourse between prisoners at Fenestrella, which prevented
mutual inquiries after each other’s health and pursuits. The solitary
explorers into the mysteries of nature were therefore compelled to keep
to themselves their grand discoveries in botany and entomology.
First among those by which Charney was interested, after the flowering
of his plant, was the faculty exhibited by Picciola of turning her
sweet face towards the sun, and following him with her looks throughout
his daily course, as if to imbibe the greatest possible portion of his
vivifying rays. When clouds obscured the orb of day, or there was a
prospect of rain, her petals instantly closed, like a vessel furling its
canvas before a storm. “Are light and heat so necessary, then, to her
existence?” mused the Count; “and why should she fear to refresh herself
with a sprinkling shower? Why? why? Picciola will explain! I have perfect
confidence in Picciola!”
Already his darling had fulfilled towards him the functions of a
physician. She was now about to become his compass and barometer, perhaps
even his timepiece; for by dint of constantly inhaling her fragrance,
Charney found he could discover that her perfumes varied in power and
quality at different hours of the day. At first, this phenomenon seemed
an illusion; but reiterated experiments convinced him that he was not
mistaken; and he was soon able to designate to a certainty the hour of
the day, according to the varying odour of the flower.[1]
[1] Sir James Smith notices this property in the _Antirrhinum
repens_. _Flora Britannica_, vol. ii. p. 638.
Innumerable blossoms already studded his beautiful plant: towards
evening their exhalations were as delicious as they were potent; and
at that moment, what a relief to the weary captive to draw near to his
favourite! He now constructed a rude bench, with some planks derived from
the munificence of Ludovico, and pointed a few logs, which he contrived
to insert into the interstices of the pavement. A rough plank, nailed
transversely, afforded him a leaning place, as he sat for hours musing
and meditating in the fragrant atmosphere of his plant. He was happier
there than he had ever felt on his silken ottomans of former days; and
hour after hour would he sit reflecting on his wasted youth, which had
elapsed without the attainment of a single real pleasure, or genuine
affection! withering away in the midst of vain chimeras and premature
satiety.
Often, after such retrospections, Charney found himself gradually soothed
into reveries between sleep and waking; his senses subdued into a sort
of apathetic torpor, his imagination excited to a visionary ecstasy,
perplexing the desolate Count with scenes of days past and days to come.
He sometimes fancied himself in the midst of those brilliant fêtes,
where, though himself the victim of ennui, he used to lavish upon others
all the pleasures and luxuries of life. He seemed to stand gazing, some
night of the Carnival, beside the illuminated façade of his hotel in the
Rue de Verneuil, the rolling of a thousand carriages vibrating in his
ear. One by one, they entered, by torchlight, his circular courtyard,
depositing successively in the vestibule, covered with rich carpets,
and protected by silken hangings, the fashionable belles of the day,
enveloped in costly furs, under which was audible the rustling of satin
or brocade; the beaux of the imperial court, with their high-crowned
hats, cravats up to their ears, and redundant knee strings; artists of
eminence, with naked throats, Brutus-heads, and a costume half French,
half Greek; and men of science or letters, wearing the distinctive
academic collar of green. A crowd of lackeys clustered on all sides,
insolently defying, under their new liveries, the absolute decrees of the
once puissant conventional republic of France.
The fancy of Charney next ascended to the crowded saloons in which were
assembled all that was illustrious or notorious of the capital. The
toga and chlamyda were jumbled together with jackets, or frock-coats.
High-heeled shoes, with rosettes, trod the same floors as jockey-boots,
with spur on heel, nay, even with the caliga and cothurnus. Men of the
law, the pen, the sword, moneyed men and moneyless, artists and ministers
of state, all were confounded in this _olla podrida_ of the Directory.
An actor stood hand in glove with an ex-bishop, a _ci-devant_ peer with
a _ci-devant_ pauper; aristocracy and democracy were united like twin
brothers; wealthy ignorance paraded itself arm in arm with starving
erudition. Such was the regeneration of society, rallying round a common
centre in masses, of which each felt itself still too feeble to stand
alone. The marshalling of the crowd was deferred to some more convenient
season; there would be a time for that hereafter! Such is the system of
a play-ground, where all classes of a school mingle together under the
impulse of a common thirst after amusement. As the boys grow older, the
powerful influence of the spirit of social order insensibly estranges
them from unbecoming companions, and high and low mechanically range
themselves under their appointed banners.
[Illustration: _A reverie._]
With a silent smile did Charney contemplate this phantasmagoric display
of piebald civilization. That which had once excited the bitter sneers
of the man of the world, now served to divert him, as the memento of
the wasted years spent by his native country in shallow, theoretic
experiments, exposing it to the contempt of Europe.
At times, brilliant orchestras appeared to strike into animating and
joyous measures; and lo! the opening of the ball! Charney fancied he
could recognise the favourite airs of former days, but more impressive
than at their first hearing. The glittering radiance of the lustres,
their prismatic reflection in the numerous mirrors, the soft and perfumed
atmosphere of a ball-room—the aroma of a banquet—the mirth of the
guests—the wild hilarity of the waltzers, who rustled against him in the
mazy round—the light and frivolous topics which excited their merriment,
all tended to stimulate him to a degree of joyousness such as the reality
of the dream had never succeeded in producing.
Women, too—ivory-shouldered, slender-waisted, swan-throated—women,
arrayed in sumptuous brocades, gauzes striped with gold, and gems of
sparkling lustre, thronged around him, smiling as they returned his
salutations. One by one, he recognised those lovely beings; the grace
and ornaments of his entertainments, when, opulent and free, the Count
de Charney was cited as one of the favoured ones of the earth. There
figured, unrivalled, the majestic Tallien, arrayed in the classic tunic
of Greece, and covered with gems and costly rings, even to the toes
of a foot from which might have been modelled that of some Venus of
antiquity, naked but for the slight concealment of a golden sandal;
the fair Recamier, to whom Athens would have erected altars; and
Josephine, _ci-devant_ Countess of Beauharnais, who, by dint of grace
and affability, often passed for the fairest of these three graces of
the Consulate. But even by the side of these, a hundred lovely women
distinguished themselves, by their beauty or their elegance; and how
exquisite did they now appear in the dreaming eyes of Charney! How
much fairer, how much softer, than when they courted his smiles! How
gladly had he _now_ commanded liberty of choice among so many consummate
enchantresses!
Sometimes, in the wildness of his reveries, he _did_ venture on
selection!—from the brilliant crowd he singled out one—undistinguished,
however, by the lustre of ivory shoulders or a tiara of diamonds. Simple
in attire as in deportment, _his_ beauty lingered behind the rest, with
downcast eyes, and cheeks suffused with blushes; a girl, a young girl,
arrayed in simple white, and the no less spotless array of perfect
innocence. She had never shone in his galas of other times; though now
she stood out prominent on the canvas, while all others vanished into
shade. At last, she seemed alone; and Charney began to reconsider her,
charm by charm, feature by feature. His feelings were gently agitated
by the lovely vision. But how much more when, on raising his eyes to
the dark braids of her raven hair, he beheld a flower blooming there,
_his_ flower, the flower of Picciola! Involuntarily he extended his
arms towards the beauteous apparition, when, lo! all grew confused and
misty; and the distant music of the orchestra became once more audible,
as the fair maiden and fair flower appeared to melt into each other.
The fragrant corolla, expanding, enclosed with its delicate petals the
loveliest of human faces, till all was hidden from his view. Instead
of the gorgeous hangings and gilded walls of the ball-room, a hovering
exhalation presented itself to the eyes of the Count. The lustres
gradually extinguished, vanished in the distance, emitting a feeble
arch of light on the outskirts of the gathering clouds. Rude pavement
replaced the smooth and lustrous floor; stern Reason reappeared to take
possession of her throne; and the gracious illusions of fancy expired at
her approach. A touch of the fatal wand of Truth dispelled at once the
dream of the captive.
Charney woke to find himself musing on his rustic bench, his feet resting
on the stones of the courtyard, and the daylight fading over his head.
But Picciola—thanks be to Heaven, Picciola is still before him!
The first time the Count became conscious of this species of vertigo
he noticed that it was only when meditating in the atmosphere of his
plant that such gentle visions descended upon his mind. He recollected
that the emanations of certain flowers are of so intoxicating a nature
as even to produce asphyxia. It was, therefore, under the influence of
his favourite, that these delicious dreams visited his imagination; and
for his fête—his houris—his banquets—his music—he was still indebted to
Picciola.
But the fair girl—the modest, gentle girl by whose image he had been so
powerfully impressed—from whence has he derived _her_ image? Did he ever
behold her among the haunts of men? Is she, like the other divinities of
his dream, the creature of reminiscence? Memory had nothing to reply!
The past afforded no prototype for her charms! But the future—if the
vision his fancy has created should be the creature of anticipation,
of presentiment rather than of recollection? alas! of what avail
anticipations—of what avail revelations of the future to the unfortunate
Charney! In a sentence of imprisonment for life, the destinies of the
captive are accomplished.
All human hope, therefore, must be laid aside. The young girl of blooming
blushes, and draperies of virgin white, shall be the Picciola of his
imagination—Picciola in the poetical personification of a dream—his idol,
his love, his bride. The sweet countenance and graceful form revealed to
him shall image forth the guardian spirit of his plant: with that, his
reveries shall be brightened, and the aching void in his heart and soul
filled up for ever! She shall dwell with him, muse with him, sit by his
side, accompany his lonely walks, reply to him, smile upon him, enchant
him with her ethereal love! She shall share his existence, his breath,
his heart, his soul. He will converse with her in thought, and close his
eyes to gaze upon her beauty! They shall form but one, in order that he
may be alone no longer.
These emotions superseded the graver studies of the prisoner of
Fenestrella, the enjoyments of the heart succeeding to those of the
mind. Charney now gave himself up to all that poetry of existence, from
whose sphere the soul returns laden with perfumes, as the bee, after
extracting from the breast of the flower a harvest of honey. There was a
life of daily hardship and captivity to be endured; there was a life of
love and ecstasy to be enjoyed; and united, though apart, they completed
the measure of existence of the once envied, but most unhappy Count de
Charney. His time was shared between Picciola, his mortal flower, and
Picciola, his immortal love: to reason, or rather reasoning, succeeded
happiness and love!
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
CHAPTER X.
Induced at length to renew his experimental inquiries into the process of
inflorescence, Charney became enchanted by the prodigious and immutable
congruities of Nature. For some time, indeed, his eyes were baffled
by the infinite minuteness of the phenomena to which his attention
was directed; when, just as his patience became exhausted by his own
incapacity, Ludovico conveyed to him, from his neighbour the fly-catcher,
a microscopic lens, with which Girardi had been enabled to number eight
thousand oculary facets on the cornea of a fly’s eye.
Charney was transported with joy at the acquisition! The most occult
portion of the flower now became manifested for his investigation; and
already he fancied himself advancing with gigantic strides in the path
of science. Having carefully analyzed the texture of his flower, he
convinced himself that the brilliant colours of the petal, their form,
their crimson spots, the bands of velvet or satin which adorn their bases
or fringe their extremities, are not intended for the mere gratification
of the eye, but for the purpose of reflecting, attracting, or modifying
the rays of the sun, according to the necessities of the flower during
the grand process of fructification. The polished crowns or studs of
the calyx, lustrous like porcelain, are doubtless glandular masses for
the absorption of the air, light, and moisture, indispensable to the
formation of the seed: for without light, no colour—without air and
moisture, no vitality. Moisture, light, and heat, are the elements of
vegetable life, which, on its extinction, it bequeaths in restitution to
the universe.
Unknown to Charney, his reveries and studies had attracted two deeply
interested spectators: Girardi and his daughter. The latter, educated
in habits of piety and seclusion, by a father imbued with reverential
religious sentiments, was blessed with one of those ethereal natures
in which every good and holy interest seems united. The beauty and
excellence of Teresa Girardi, the graces of her person and mind, had
not failed to attract admirers; and her deep and expansive sensibility
seemed to announce a predisposition for human affections. But if a vague
preference had occasionally influenced her feelings amid the _fêtes_ of
Turin, every impulse of her gentle heart was now concentrated into grief
for the captivity of her father.
Her soul was humbled, her spirits subdued. Two only objects predominated
in her heart: her father in prison—her Saviour on the cross; despair on
earth, but trust in immortality. Not that the fair daughter of Italy
was of a melancholy mind. Her duties were easy to her, her sacrifices a
delight; and where tears were to be dried or smiles awaked, there was
the place of Teresa: hitherto, she had accomplished this task towards
her father only; but from the moment of beholding Charney, his air of
depression excited a two-fold compassion in her bosom. A captive like her
father, and with her father, a mysterious analogy seemed to unite their
destinies. But the Count is even more deserving pity than her father. The
Count had no earthly solace remaining but a poor plant; and with what
tenderness does he cultivate this last remaining affection! The noble
countenance and fine person of the prisoner might, perhaps, unsuspected
by Teresa, tend to enhance her compassion; but had she become acquainted
with him in his days of splendour, when surrounded by the deceptious
attributes of happiness, these would never have sufficed to distinguish
him in her eyes. His isolation—his abandonment—his calamity—his
resignation, have alone attracted her interest, and prompted the gift of
her tenderness and esteem. In her ignorance of men and things, Teresa is
induced to include misfortune in her catalogue of virtues.
As bold in pursuance of a good action, as timid in personal deportment,
she often directed towards Charney the good offices of her father; and
one day when Girardi advanced to the window, instead of contenting
himself, as usual, with a salutation of the hand, he motioned to the
Count to draw as near as possible to the window; and, having moderated
his voice to the lowest pitch, whispered—
“I have good news for you.”
“And I my thanks to return,” replied Charney, “for the microscope you
have been kind enough to send me.”
“It is rather to my daughter your thanks are due,” replied Girardi. “It
was Teresa who suggested the offer.”
“You have a daughter; and are you allowed the happiness of seeing her?”
demanded the Count, with interest.
“I am indeed so fortunate,” replied the old man; “and return daily thanks
to Heaven for having bestowed on me an angel in my child. During your
illness, sir, none were more deeply interested in your welfare than my
Teresa. Have you never noticed her at the grating, watching the care you
devote to your flower?”
“I have some idea that——”
“But, in talking of my girl,” interrupted the old man. “I neglect to
acquaint you with important news. The Emperor is on his way to Milan, for
his coronation as King of Italy.”
“King of Italy!” reiterated Charney. “Doubtless, then, alas! to be our
master. As to the microscope,” continued the Count, who cared less
for king or kaiser than for his ruling passion, “I have detained it
too long: you may be in want of it. Yet, as my experiments are still
incomplete, perhaps you will permit——”
“Keep it,” interrupted the fly-catcher with a beneficent smile,
perceiving, by the intonation of Charney’s voice, with what regret he
was about to resign the solace of his solitude, “keep it in remembrance
of a companion in misfortune, who entertains a lively interest in your
welfare.”
Charney would have expressed his gratitude; but his generous friend
refused all thanks. “Let me finish what I have to communicate, ere we
are interrupted,” said he. Then, lowering his voice again, he added, “It
is rumoured that a certain number of prisoners will be released, and
criminals pardoned, in honour of the coronation. Have you friends, sir,
in Turin or Milan? Are there any to intercede for you?”
The Count replied by a mournful negative movement of the head. “I have
not a friend in the world!” was his reply.
“Not a friend!” exclaimed the old man, with a look of profound pity.
“Have you, then, exhibited mistrust of your fellow-creatures?—for
friendship is unpropitious only to those who withhold their faith. I,
Heaven be thanked, have friends in abundance, good and faithful friends,
who might, perhaps, be more successful in your behalf than they have been
in mine.”
“I have nothing to ask of General Bonaparte,” said Charney, in a harsh
tone, characteristic of all his former animosities.
“Hush! speak lower! I hear footsteps,” said Girardi.
There was an interval of silence; after which the Italian resumed, in a
tone which softened, by almost paternal tenderness, the rebuke which it
conveyed.
“Your feelings are still imbittered, my dear companion in adversity.
Surely your study of the works of Nature ought to have subdued a hatred
which is opposed to all the commandments of God, and all the chances of
human happiness! Has not the fragrance of your flower poured balm into
your wounds? The Bonaparte, of whom you speak so vindictively, surely I
have more cause to hate him than yourself! My only son perished under his
banner of usurpation.”
“True! And did you not seek to avenge his death?”
“The false rumour, then, has reached you,” said the old man, raising his
head with dignity towards heaven, as if in appeal to the testimony of the
Almighty. “_I_ revenge myself by a deed of blood! No, sir! no! My utmost
crime consisted in the despair which prompted me, when all Turin saluted
the victor with acclamations, to oppose to them the cries of my parental
anguish. I was arrested on the spot; a knife was found on my person, and
I was branded with the name of assassin; _I_, an agonized father, who had
just learned the loss of an only son.”
“Infamous injustice! infamous tyranny!” cried the Count, with indignation.
“Nay,” remonstrated Girardi, “I thank Heaven I am able to perceive
that Bonaparte may have been deceived by appearances. His character
is neither wicked nor cruel; or what was there to prevent him from
putting us both to death? By restoring me to liberty, he would only
atone an error; nevertheless, I should bless him as a benefactor. I
find captivity, however, by no means insupportable. Full of trust in
the mercy of Providence, I resign myself to the event; but the sight of
my imprisonment afflicts my daughter; and for _her_ sake I desire my
liberation. I would fain shorten her exile from the world, her alienation
from the pleasures of her age. Say!—have _you_ no human being who sorrows
over _your_ misfortunes?—no _woman_ who weeps for you in secret, to whom
you would sacrifice even your _pride_, as an oppressed and injured man?
Come, come, my dear brother in adversity! authorize my friends to include
your name in their petitions!”
Charney answered with a smile—“No woman weeps for me! no one sighs for
my return: for I have no longer gold to purchase their affection. What
is there to allure me anew into the world, where I was even less happy
than at Fenestrella? But even were troops of friends awaiting me—had I
still wealth, honour, and happiness in store—I would refuse the gift of
freedom from that hand, whose power and usurpations I devoted myself to
overthrow.”
“You deny yourself even the enjoyment of hope?” said Girardi.
“Never will I bestow the title of emperor on one who is either my equal
or my inferior.”
“Beware of sacrificing yourself to a sentiment, the offspring of vanity
rather than of patriotism!” cried Girardi.
“But peace! silence!” said he, more cautiously. “Some one approaches in
earnest. _Addio_, away!” And the venerable Italian disappeared from the
grated window.
[Illustration]
“Thanks!—a thousand thanks for the microscope!” was Charney’s last
exclamation, as Girardi vanished from his view. And at that moment the
door of the courtyard creaked on its hinges, and Ludovico made his
appearance with the basket of provisions, forming the daily allowance of
his prisoner. Observing the Count to be silent and absent-minded, the
jailer accosted him only by rattling the plates as a signal that his
dinner was ready. Then, having ascended to place all in order in the
little chamber, amused himself, as he recrossed the court, with making
a silent obeisance to the _Signor_ and _Signora_, as he was now in the
habit of qualifying the Count de Charney and his plant.
“The microscope is mine!” mused Charney, when he found himself alone.
“But how have I merited such kind consideration on the part of a
stranger? Ludovico, too, has become my friend. Under the rough exterior
of the jailer, beats a kind and noble heart. There exist, then, after
all, virtuous and warm-hearted men. But where! _In a prison!_”
“Be thankful to adversity,” remonstrated conscience, “which has made
you capable of appreciating a benefit received. To what amounts the
generosity of these two men? One of them watered your plant for you
in secret; the other has conferred on you the means of analyzing its
organization.”
“In the smallest services consists the truest generosity,” argued Charney
in reply.
“True,” resumed the voice, “when such services are dedicated to your own
convenience. Had Picciola never sprung to life, these two beings would
have remained in your eyes—the one a doting old man, engrossed by puerile
pursuits; the other, a gross and sordid clod, absorbed by the love of
gain. In your world of other days, Sir Count, to what, pray, did _you_
attach yourself? To nothing. Your soul recoiled upon itself, and no man
cared for you. By love comes love. It is your attachment to Picciola
which has obtained you the affection of your companions. Picciola is the
talisman by which you have attracted their regard.”
Charney interrupted this mono-dialogue by a glance from the microscope
towards Picciola. He has already forgotten the announcement of “Napoleon,
Emperor of the French, and King of Italy!”—one half of which formerly
sufficed to convert him into a conspirator and a captive. How unimportant
in his eyes, now, those honours conferred by nations, and based upon
the liberties of Europe! An insect hovering over his plant, threatening
mischief to its delicate vegetation, seems more alarming than the
impending destruction of the balance of power, by the conquests of a new
Alexander.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
CHAPTER XI.
Armed with his glass, Charney now extended his field of botanical
discovery; and, at every step, his enthusiasm increased. It must be
owned, however, that inexperienced as he was in the method of scientific
inquiry, devoid of first principles and appropriate instruments, he often
found himself defeated; and the spirit of paradox became insensibly
roused to existence by the cavilling temper of his mind.
He invented half a hundred theories on the circulation of the sap; on
the coloration of the various parts of the flower; on the secretion of
different kinds of aroma by different organs of the stem, the leaves, the
flowers; on the nature of the gum and resin emitted by vegetables, and
the wax and honey extracted by bees from the nectary. At first, ready
answers suggested themselves to all his inquiries; but new systems arose,
to confute on the morrow those of the preceding day. Nay, Charney seemed
to take delight in the impotence of his own judgment, as if affording
wider scope to the efforts of his imagination, and an indefinite term to
the duration of his experiments and inferences.
A day of joy and triumph for the enthusiast was now approaching! He
had formerly heard, and heard with a smile of incredulity, allusion to
the loves of plants, and the sublime discoveries of Linnæus concerning
vegetable generation. It was now his pleasing task to watch the gradual
accomplishment of maternity in Picciola; and when, with his glass fixed
on the stamens and pistils of the flower, he beheld them suddenly endowed
with sensibility and action, the mind of the sceptic became paralyzed
with wonder and admiration! By analogical comparison, his perceptions
rose till they embraced the vast scale of the vegetable and animal
creation. He recognised with a glance the mightiness, the immensity,
the harmony of the whole. The mysteries of the universe seemed suddenly
developed before him. His eyes grew dim with emotion—the microscope
escaped his hand. The atheist sinks back overpowered on his rustic bench,
and after nearly an hour of profound meditation, the following apostrophe
burst from the lips of Charney:—
“_Picciola!_” said he, in a tone of deep emotion—“I had once the whole
earth for my wanderings—I was surrounded by those who called themselves
my friends—by men of letters and science: and not one of the learned ever
bestowed upon me as much instruction as I have received from thee!—not
one of the friendly ever rendered me such good offices as thine! In
this miserable courtyard, between the stones of whose rugged pavement
thou hast sprung to life, I have reflected more, and experienced more
profound emotions, than while traversing in freedom all the countries of
Europe! Blind mortal that I have been!—When first I beheld thee, pale,
feeble, puny, I looked on thee with contempt! And it was a companion
that was vouchsafed to me—a book that was opened for my instruction—a
world that was revealing itself to my wondering eyes! The COMPANION
solaces my daily cares—attaching me to the existence restored me by her
aid, and reconciling me with mankind, whom I had unfairly condemned.
The BOOK teaches me to despise all works of human invention, convicting
my ignorance, and rebuking my pride—instructing me that science, like
virtue, is to be acquired through lowliness of mind. Inscribed in
the living characters of a tongue so long unknown to me, it contains
a thousand enigmas, of which every solution is a word of hope. The
WORLD is the region of the soul—the abstract and criterion of celestial
and eternal nature—the revelation of the organic law of love, from
which results the order of the universe, the gravitation of atoms, the
attraction of suns, and the electric union of all created things, from
the highest star to the hyssop on the wall—from the crawling insect to
man, who walks the earth with his brows elevated towards heaven—perhaps
in search of the omnipotent Author of his being!”
The breast of Charney swelled with irrepressible emotion as he spoke.
Thought succeeded thought in his brain; feeling after feeling arose in
his heart—till, starting from his seat, he began to traverse the court
with hurried footsteps. At length, his agitation exhausted, he returned
towards his Picciola, gazed upon her with ineffable tenderness, raised
his eyes to heaven, and faintly articulated—“Oh! mighty and unseen GOD!
the clouds of learning have too much confused my understanding—the
sophistries of human reason too much hardened my heart, for thy divine
truths to penetrate at once into my understanding. In my unworthiness to
comprehend thy glorious revelations, I can yet only call upon thy name,
and humbly seek thy infinite but invisible protection.”
And with grave demeanour, Charney retraced his steps to his chamber;
where the first sentence that met his eyes, inscribed with his own hand
upon the wall, was—
“GOD is but a word!”
In another moment he had superadded to the inscription—“a word, which
serves perhaps to solve the great enigma of creation!”
“_Perhaps_”—the master word of doubts, still disfigured the phrase! But
it was something for the arrogant Charney to have arrived at _doubt_,
from the extreme of absolute _negation_. He was recoiling in the path
of falsehood he had so long pursued. He no longer pretended to rely
for support upon his own strength—his own faculties. He is willing now
to learn, eager to perpetuate the soft emotions by which his pride has
been subdued, and it is still to the insignificant Picciola he turns for
instruction—for a creed—a GOD—an immortality.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
CHAPTER XII.
Thus passed the days of the prisoner; and after whole hours devoted to
inquiry and analysis, Charney loved to turn from the weariness of his
studies to the brightness of his illusions—from Picciola the blooming
plant, to Picciola the blooming girl. Whenever the awakening perfumes of
his flower ascended to his chamber, oppressing his senses, and creating
misty confusion before his eyes, he used to exclaim, “To-night Picciola
will hold her court; I must hasten to Picciola.”
Thus predisposed to reverie, his mind was promptly attuned into the sort
of doze in which, during the absence of reason, “mimic fancy wakes.” Oh!
were it not, indeed, a dearer enjoyment than any yet vouchsafed to human
nature, if man could so far acquire authority over his dreams, as to live
at will that secondary life where events succeed each other with such
rapidity; where centuries cost us but one breathing hour; where a magic
halo environs all the actors of the drama, and where nothing is read but
the emotions of our thrilling hearts? Would you have music? Harmonious
concerts might arise in spontaneous unison, unprefaced by discordant
tuning, the anxious looks of the musicians, or the ungraceful and quaint
forms of their instruments. Such is the world of dreams! Pleasure without
repentance; the rainbow without the storm!
To such illusions did Charney resign himself. Faithful to the gentle
image of his Picciola, it was to _her_ he invariably appealed; and
the vision came at his call, simple, modest, and beautiful, as at
its first advent. Sometimes he surrounded her with the companions of
his early studies; sometimes, united with his mother and sister, his
imaginary love served to create around him the domestic happiness of his
youth. Sometimes she seemed to introduce him into a dwelling cheered
by competence, and adorned with elegance, where pleasures, hitherto
unknown, came wooing his enjoyment. After evoking the joys of memory and
calling up reminiscences of the past, she gave existence to hope, to ties
undreamed of, and joys unknown. Mysterious influence! Where was he to
find the solution of the mystery? With the view of future comparison, the
Count actually began to record on his cambric pages the wild illusions of
his dreams!
One evening, in the midst of a flight of fancy, Picciola for the first
time dispelled the charm of happiness and serenity, by the exercise of
a sinister influence! At a later moment he recurred to the event as the
effect of a fatal presentiment!
It was just as the fragrance of the plant indicated the sixth hour
of evening, and Charney was musing at his accustomed post. Never had
that aromatic vapour exercised its powers more potently: for more than
thirty full-blown flowers were emitting the magnetic atmosphere, so
influential over the senses of the Count. He fancied himself surrounded
once more by the crowds of society; having drawn aside from which,
towards an esplanade of verdure, his beloved Picciola deigned to follow
his footsteps. The graceful phantom advanced smiling towards him; and
Charney, in a musing attitude, stood admiring the supple grace of the
young girl, around whose well-turned form the drapery of her snow-white
dress played in harmonious folds, and her raven tresses, amid which
bloomed the never absent flower! On a sudden he saw her start, stagger,
and extend her arms towards him. He tried to rush towards her; but an
insurmountable obstacle seemed to separate him from her side. A cry of
horror instantly escaped his lips, and lo! the vision disappears! He
wakes, but it is to hear a second cry, respondent to his own; yes, the
cry, the voice of a female!
Nevertheless, the Count is still in his usual place—in the old court, and
reclining on the rustic bench beside his Picciola! But at the grating
of the little window appeared the momentary glimpse of a female form! A
soft and melancholy countenance, half hid in shade, seems gazing upon
him; but when, rising from his seat, he hastens towards it, the vision
vanishes, or rather the young girl hastens from the window. However swift
her disappearance, Charney was able to distinguish her features, her
hair, her form, the whiteness of her robe. He paused. Is he asleep, or
waking? Can it be that the insurmountable obstacle which divides him from
Picciola is no other than the grating of a prison?
At that moment Ludovico hastens towards him with an air of consternation.
“Are you again indisposed, _Signor Conte_?” cried the jailer. “Have you
had another attack of your old disorder? _Trondidio!_ If we are obliged,
for form’s sake, to send for the prison doctor, I’ll take care, _this_
time, that no one but Madame Picciola and myself have a hand in the cure!”
“I am perfectly well,” replied Charney, trying to recover his composure.
“What put it into your head that I was indisposed?”
“The fly-catcher’s daughter came in search of me. She saw you stagger,
and hearing you cry aloud, fancied you were in need of assistance.”
The Count relapsed into a fit of musing. It seemed to occur to him, for
the first time, that a young girl occasionally inhabited that part of the
prison.
“The resemblance I fancied I could discover between the stranger and
Picciola, is doubtless a new delusion!” said he to himself. And he now
recalled to mind Teresa’s interest in his favour, mentioned to him by the
venerable Girardi. The young Piedmontese had compassionated his condition
during his illness. To _her_ he is indebted for the possession of his
microscope. His heart becomes suddenly touched with gratitude, and in
the first effusion, a sudden remark seems to sever the double image,
the young girl of his dreams, from the young girl of his waking hours;
“Girardi’s daughter wore no flower in her hair.”
That moment, but not without hesitation, not without self-reproach, he
plucked with a trembling hand from his plant a small branch covered with
blossoms.
“Formerly,” thought Charney, “what sums of money did I lavish to adorn,
with gold and gems, brows devoted to perjury and shame! upon how many
abandoned women and heartless men did I throw away my fortune, without
caring more for them than for the feelings of my own bosom, which, at the
same moment, I placed in the dust under their feet! Oh, if a gift derives
its value from the regard in which it is held by the donor, never was a
richer token offered by man to woman, my Picciola, than these flowers
which I borrow from thy precious branches to bestow on the daughter of
Girardi!”
Then, placing the blossomed bough in the hands of the jailer, “Present
these in my name to the daughter of my venerable neighbour, good
Ludovico!” said he. “Thank her for the generous interest she vouchsafes
me; and tell her that the Count de Charney, poor, and a prisoner, has
nothing to offer her more worthy her acceptance.”
Ludovico received the token with an air of stupefaction. He had begun to
enter so completely into the passion of the captive for his plant, that
he could not conjecture by what services the daughter of the fly-catcher
had merited so distinguished a mark of munificence.
“No matter! _Capo di San Pasquali!_” exclaimed Ludovico, as he passed the
postern. “They have long admired my god-daughter at a distance. Let us
see what they will say to the brightness of her complexion, and sweetness
of her breath, on a nearer acquaintance, _Piccioletta mia, andiamo!_”
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
CHAPTER XIII.
Many sacrifices of a similar kind, however, were now required of Charney.
The epoch of fructification is arrived. The brilliant petals of many of
the flowers have fallen, and their stamens become useless: decaying, like
the cotyledons, after the first leaves had attained maturity. The ovary
containing the germ of the seeds begins to enlarge within the calyx. The
fertile flowers lay aside their beauty, like matrons who, in achieving
their maternal triumphs, begin to disdain for themselves the vain
adornments of coquetry.
The Count now devotes his attention to the most sublime of all the
mysteries of nature, the perpetuation of created kinds, and the
reproduction of life. In opening and analyzing a bud detached some time
before from the tree, by the injury of an insect, Charney had noticed
the primary germ destined to fertilization, but demanding protection
and nutriment from the flower before its feeble organization could be
perfected. Admirable foresight of nature, as yet unexplained by the
logic of science. But now the reproduction of a future Picciola is to
be completed; and the narrow seed must be made to comprehend all the
development of a perfect plant. The curious observer is to direct his
notice to the fecundation of the vegetable egg; and for this purpose,
Picciola must be submitted to further mutilation. No matter! She is
already preparing herself for the reparation of her losses. On all sides
buds are reappearing. From every joint of her stem, or branches, new
shoots are putting forth to produce a second flowering.
[Illustration]
In pursuance of this task, Charney soon took his usual seat with the
grave demeanour of an experimentalist. But scarcely had he cast his
eyes upon the plant when he is shocked by the air of languor apparent
in his favourite. The flowers inclining on their peduncles seem to
have lost their power of turning towards the sun; their leaves curling
inwards their deep and lustrous verdure. For a moment Charney fancies
that a heavy storm is at hand, and prepares his mats and osier bands to
secure Picciola from the force of the wind or hail. But no! the sky is
cloudless—the air serene—and the lark is heard singing out of sight,
overhead, secure in the breathlessness of the blue expanse of heaven.
Charney’s brow becomes overcast. “She is in want of water,” is his first
idea; but having eagerly fetched the pitcher from his chamber, and on his
knees beside the plant, removed the lower branches, in order at once to
reach the root, he is struck motionless with consternation. All—all—is
explained. His Picciola is about to perish!
While the flowers and perfumes were multiplying to increase his studies
and enjoyments, the stem of the plant, also, was increasing unobserved.
Enclosed between two stones of the pavement, and strangled by their
pressure, a deep indentation first gave token of her sufferings, the
surface of which being at length crushed and wounded by the edges of the
granite, the sap has begun to exude from the fissures, and the strength
of the plant is exhausted!
Limited in the allotment of soil for her nutriment, her sap unnaturally
expanded, her strength overtasked, Picciola must die, unless prompt
relief can be afforded! Her doom is sealed! One only resource remains.
By removing the stones that weigh upon her roots, the plant may yet be
preserved. But how to effect this, without an implement to assist her
efforts? Rushing towards the postern and knocking vehemently, the Count
summons Ludovico to his aid. But although on the jailer’s arrival the
explanation of the disaster and the sight of his expiring god-daughter
overwhelm him with sorrow, no other answer can be obtained by Charney
to his entreaties that the pavement may instantly be removed, than
“_Eccellenza_, the thing is impossible!”
Without hesitation, the Count attempted to conciliate the jailer’s
acquiescence by the offer no longer of the gilt goblet of his
dressing-case, but the whole casket.
But Ludovico, assuming his most imposing attitude, folded his arms upon
his breast, exclaiming, in his half-provincial, half-Piedmontese dialect,
“_Bagasse, bagasse!_ Ludovico is too old a soldier to submit to bribery.
I know my orders. I know my duty. It is to the captain-commandant you
must address yourself.”
“No,” cried Charney. “Rather would I tear up the stones with my hands,
even were my bleeding nails sacrificed in the attempt!”
“Ay, ay! time will show!” replied Ludovico, resuming the pipe, which he
was in the habit of holding half-extinguished under his thumb, during his
colloquies with the Count; and after a puff or two, turning on his heel
to depart.
“Good Ludovico! I have hitherto found you so kind—so charitable! Can you
do nothing for my assistance?” persisted Charney.
“_Trondidio!_” answered the jailer, trying to conceal by an oath the
emotion gaining upon his feelings, “can’t you leave me a moment’s
peace—you and your accursed gilly-flower! As to the _poverina_, I forgive
her—’tis no fault of Picciola! but as to you, whose obstinacy will
certainly be the death of the poor thing——”
“What would you have me do, then?” exclaimed the Count.
“Petition the commandant, I tell you, petition the commandant!” cried
Ludovico.
“Never!”
“There you are again; but if your pride is so tetchy, will you give _me_
leave to speak to him?”
“No,” replied Charney; “I forbid you.”
“_You_ forbid me!” cried the jailer. “_D——e!_ is it _your_ orders I am to
obey? If I choose to speak to him, who is to prevent me?”
“Ludovico!”
“Set your mind at ease; I am not going to undertake any such fool’s
errand. What business is it of mine? Let her live, let her die; _che
m’ importa?_ If you want to put an end to the plant, ’tis your own
affair—_Buona notte!_”
“But has your commandant sense enough to understand me?” demanded the
Count, detaining him.
“Why not? do you take him for a kinserlick? Tell him your story straight
on end: pack it into pretty little sentences, like a scholar who knows
what he is about; for now’s the time to put your learning to some use.
Why shouldn’t _he_ enter into your love for a flower as well as I have?
Besides, I shall be there to put in a word. I can tell him what a capital
tisane is to be made of the herb. The commandant’s an ailing man himself.
He has got a sharp fit of the rheumatism upon him at this very moment,
which will perhaps make him enter into the case.”
Charney still hesitated; but Ludovico pointed with one of his knowing
winks to Picciola, sick and suffering; and, with a gesture of anxiety
from the Count, off went the jailer on his errand.
Some minutes afterwards, a man in a half-military, half-civil uniform,
made his appearance in the court, with an inkstand and a sheet of paper
bearing a government stamp. As Ludovico had announced, this person
remained present while Charney wrote out his petition; and received it
sealed into his hands, and, with a respectful bow, departed, carrying
off the inkstand.
[Illustration]
Reader, despise not the self-abasement of the haughty Count de Charney,
marvel not at the readiness with which he has consented to an act of
humiliation. Remember that Picciola is all in all to the poor prisoner.
Reflect upon the influence of isolation on the firmest mind, the proudest
spirit. Had he recourse to submission when _himself_ oppressed with
suffering, pining after the free air of liberty, overpowered by the walls
of his dungeon, as Picciola by its pavement? No! for his own woes the
Count had fortitude; but between himself and his favourite, a league
of mutual obligation subsists—sacred enjoyments have arisen. Picciola
preserved _his_ life; must her own be sacrificed to his self-love?
The venerable Girardi presently beheld the Count pacing the little court
with agitated footsteps, and gestures of anxiety and impatience. How
tediously were the moments passing—how cruel the delay to which he was
exposed! Three hours had elapsed since he despatched his petition; and
no answer. As the sap of the expiring plant oozed from the wounded bark,
Charney felt that he had rather his own blood were required of him. The
old man, addressing him from the window, tried in vain to afford him
consolation; but at length, more experienced than himself in accidents
of the vegetable and animal kingdom, indicated a mode of closing up the
wounds of the stems, so as to remove at least one source of peril.
With a mixture of finely chopped straw and moistened clay, he forms a
mastic, easily fixed upon the bark with bandages of torn cambric. An hour
passed rapidly in the performance; but at its close, the Count has to
bewail anew the silence of the governor.
[Illustration]
At the usual dinner hour, Ludovico made his appearance with a vexed
and careworn countenance, annunciatory of no good tidings. The jailer
scarcely deigns a reply to the interrogations of Charney, except by
monosyllables, or the roughest remonstrances.
“Can’t you wait? What use in so much hurry? Give him time to write!”
Ludovico seemed preparing himself for the part which he found he should
be required to play in the sequel.
Charney touched not a morsel: the sentence of life or death was impending
over Picciola; and he sat trying to inspire himself with courage, by
protesting that none but the most cruel of men could refuse so trifling
a concession as he had asked. But his impatience did but increase with
his arguments, as if the commandant could have no business more important
in hand than to address an immediate answer to his memorial. At the
slightest noise, Charney’s eyes turned eagerly towards the door by which
he was expecting the fiat of the governor.
Evening came—no news; night—not a word! The unfortunate prisoner did not
close his eyes that night!
[Illustration]
CHAPTER XIV.
On the morrow, the anxiously expected missive was delivered to him. In
the dry and laconic style of office, the commandant announced that no
change could be made in the distribution of the walls, moats, or ditches
of the fortress of Fenestrella, unless by the express sanction of the
Governor of Turin; “and the pavement of the court,” added the commandant,
“is virtually a wall of the prison.”
Charney stood confounded by the stupidity of such an argument! To make
the preservation of a flower a state question—a demolition of the
imperial fortification—to wait a reply from the Governor of Turin! wait a
century, when a day’s delay was likely to prove fatal! The Governor might
perhaps refer him to the prime minister, the minister to the senate, the
senate to the emperor himself. What profound contempt for the littleness
of mankind arose in his bosom at the idea! Even Ludovico appeared little
better in his eyes than the assistant of the executioner: for on the
first outburst of his indignation, the jailer remonstrated in the tone
of an underling of the administration, replying to all his entreaties by
citing the rules and regulations of the fortress.
[Illustration]
Charney drew near to the feeble invalid whose bloom was already
withering; with what grief did he now contemplate her fading hues!
The happiness—the poetry of his life seemed vanishing before him. The
fragrance of Picciola already indicated a mistaken hour, like a watch
whose movements are out of order. Every blossom drooping on its stem had
renounced the power of turning towards the sun; as a dying girl closes
her eyes that she may not behold the lover, the sight of whom might
attach her anew to a world from which she is departing.
While Charney was giving way to these painful reflections, the voice of
his venerable companion in captivity appealed to his attention.
“My dear comrade,” whispered the mild and paternal accents of the old
man, “if she should die—and I fear her hours are numbered—what will
become of you here alone? What occupation will you find to fill the
place of those pursuits that have become so dear to you? You will
expire, in your turn, of lassitude and ennui; solitude once invaded,
becomes insupportable in the renewal! You will sink under its weight,
as I should, were I now parted from my daughter—from the guardian angel
whose smile is the sunshine of my prison. With respect to your plant,
the Alpine breezes doubtless wafted hither the seed, or a bird of the
air dropped it from his beak; and even were the same circumstance to
furnish you with a second Picciola, your joy in the present would be
gone, prepared as you would be to see it perish like the first. My dear
neighbour, be persuaded! suffer me to have your liberty interceded for
by my friends. Your release will perhaps be more easily obtained than
you are aware of. A thousand traits of clemency and generosity of the
new emperor are everywhere rumoured. He is now at Turin, accompanied by
Josephine.”
And this last name was pronounced by the old man as if it contained the
promise of success.
“At Turin!” exclaimed Charney, eagerly raising his drooping head.
“For the last two days,” replied Girardi, delighted to see his advice
less vehemently rejected than usual by the Count.
“And how far is it from Turin to Fenestrella?” continued Charney.
“By the Giaveno and Avigliano road, not more than seven leagues.”
“What space of time is necessary for the journey?”
“Four or five hours, at the least: for at this moment the roads are
obstructed by troops, baggage-waggons, and the equipages of those who are
hastening to the approaching festival. The road that winds through the
valleys by the riverside is certainly the longest, but in the end would
probably cause less delay.”
“And do you think it possible,” resumed Charney, “to procure a messenger
for me who would reach Turin this very night?”
“My daughter would try to find a trustworthy person.”
“And you say that General Bonaparte—that the First Consul——”
“I said _the Emperor_,” gravely interrupted Girardi.
“The Emperor, then—you say that the Emperor is at Turin?” resumed
Charney, as if gathering courage for some strong measure. “I will address
a memorial, then, to the Emperor.” And the Count dwelt upon the latter
word, as if to accustom himself to the new road he had determined to
follow.
[Illustration]
“Heaven’s mercy be praised!” ejaculated the old man: “for Heaven itself
has inspired this victory over the instigations of sinful human pride!
Yes—write! let your petition for pardon be worded in proper form; and
my friends Fossombroni, Cotenna, and Delarue, will support it with all
their interest, with Marescalchi, the minister, with Cardinal Caprara,
and even with Melzi, who has just been appointed chancellor of the new
kingdom. Who knows? We may perhaps quit Fenestrella on the same day! you
to recommence a life of usefulness and activity—I, to follow the gentle
guidance of my daughter.”
“Nay, sir—nay,” cried the Count. “Forgive me if I decline the protection
to which your good-will would generously recommend me. It is to the
Emperor in person that my memorial must be remitted—to-night, or early in
the morning. Do you answer to me for a messenger?”
“I do,” said the old man, firmly, after a momentary pause.
“One question more,” added Charney. “Is there no chance of your being
compromised by the service you are so kind as to render me?”
“The pleasure of being of use to you leaves me no leisure for
apprehension,” answered Girardi. “Let me but lend my aid to the
alleviation of your afflictions, and I am content. Should evil arise, I
know how to submit to the decrees of Providence.”
Charney was deeply touched by these simple expressions. Tears glistened
in his eyes as he raised them towards the good old man.
“What would I give to press your hand!” cried he; and he stretched out
his arm with the utmost effort, in hopes to reach the grated window,
while Girardi extended _his_ between the bars. But it was all in vain. A
movement of mutual sympathy was the utmost that could pass between them.
When Charney took leave of Picciola, on his way to his chamber, he could
not refrain from whispering, “Courage! I shall save thee yet!” And,
having reached his miserable _camera_, he selected the whitest of his
remaining handkerchiefs, mended his tooth-pick with the greatest care,
made up a fresh supply of ink, and set to work. When his memorial was
completed, which was not without a thousand pangs of wounded pride, a
little cord descended from the grating of Girardi’s window, to which the
paper was attached by the Count, and carefully drawn up.
[Illustration]
An hour afterwards, the person who had undertaken to present the petition
to the Emperor was proceeding accompanied by a guide, through the valleys
of Suza, Bussolino, and St. George, along the bank of the river Doria.
Both were on horseback; but the greater their haste, the more perplexing
the obstacles by which their way was impeded. Recent rains had broken
away the bank; the river was, in many spots, overflowing; and more than
one raging torrent appeared to unite the Doria with the lake Avigliano.
Already the forges of Giaveno were reddening in the horizon, announcing
that the day was about to close, when, joyfully regaining the high road,
they entered, though not without having surmounted many difficulties, the
magnificent avenue of Rivoli, and late in the evening, arrived at Turin.
The first tidings by which they were saluted was an announcement that the
emperor-king had already proceeded to Alexandria.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
BOOK II.
CHAPTER I.
At dawn of day, next morning, the city of Alexandria was arrayed in
all its attributes of festivity. An immense population circulated in
the streets, festooned with tapestry, garlands of flowers, and glossy
foliage. The crowd pressed chiefly from the Town Hall, inhabited by
Napoleon and Josephine, towards the triumphal arch, erected at the
extremity of the suburb through which they were to pass on their way to
the memorable plains of Marengo.
The whole way, from Alexandria to the Marengo, the same populace, the
same cries, the same braying of trumpets. Never had the pilgrimage to
the shrine of our Lady of Loretto, never had even the Holy Jubilee of
Rome, attracted such multitudes as were proceeding towards the field of
that tremendous battle, whose ashes were scarcely yet cold in the earth.
On the plain of Marengo, the Emperor has promised to preside over a
sham-fight—a mimic representation, given in honour of the signal victory
obtained five years before upon the spot, by the Consul Bonaparte.
[Illustration]
Tables, raised on trestles, appear to line the road. The people, in
innumerable masses, are eating, drinking, singing, shouting, and acting
plays in the open air. Even preaching is not neglected; for more than one
pulpit has been improvisated between the theatres and wine-shops; from
which hosts of greasy monks, not satisfied with giving their benediction
to the passengers, and exhorting them to temperance and sobriety, gratify
their avarice by the sale of consecrated chaplets, and little virgins,
carved in ivory.
In the long and only street of the village of Marengo, every house,
transformed into an inn, presents a scene of noise and confusion. To
every window, the eyes of the spectators are attracted by strings of
smoked hams or sausages; of quails or red partridges, or pyramids of
gingerbread and cakes. People are pushing in, or pushing out at every
door; Italians and French, soldiers or peasants; heaps of maccaroni, of
marchpane, and other dainties, are beginning to disappear. In the dark
and narrow staircases, people rub quarrelsomely against each other;
some even compelled, by the rapacity of their neighbours, to raise over
their heads the food they are carrying; while a cleverer hand and longer
arm than their own, makes off, unperceived, with the savoury burden:
whether a buttered loaf, figs, grapes, oranges, a Turin ham, a larded
quail, a force-meat pie, or an excellent _stufato_, in its tureen; when
cries of indignation, or shrieks of distress, accompanied by mockeries
and loud laughter, resound on every side. The thief, in the ascending
line upon the staircase, satisfied with his plunder, tries to turn back
and run away. The victim, in the descending line, robbed of his dinner,
attempts to return, and furnish himself with new provisions; and the
flux and reflux of the crowd, disorganized by these irregular movements,
is pushed partly into the street, and partly into the warehouse on the
second story, amid oaths, imprecations, and peals of laughter; while
their discomfiture is hailed, with added uproar, by the drinkers already
established in the wine-shops of the ground floor, in defiance of the
sage counsels of the monks.
From one room to another, among tables covered with dishes and surrounded
with guests, are seen circulating the hostess and _giannine_, or
waitresses of the house; some with gay-coloured aprons, powdered hair,
and the coquettish little poniard, which forms part of their holiday
costume; others with short petticoats, long braids of hair, naked feet,
and a thousand glittering ornaments of tinsel or gold.
But to these animated scenes in the village or the road—the chamber or
the street—to these cries, songs, exclamations, the noise of music,
dancing, talking, and the jingling of plates and glasses, other sounds of
a different nature are about to succeed.
In an hour the thundering noise of cannon will be heard; cannon almost
harmless, indeed, and likely only to break the windows of the houses.
The little street will echo with the word of command, and every house be
eclipsed by the smoke of volleys of musketry, charged with powder. Then,
beware of pillage, unless every remnant of provision has been placed in
safety; nay, let the gay _giannina_ look to herself: for a mimic war is
apt, in such particulars, to imitate its prototype. In great particulars,
however, no less: for nothing can exceed the majesty of the preparations
for the sham-fight upon the plain of Marengo.
A magnificent throne, planted round with tri-coloured standards, is
raised upon one of the few hillocks which diversify the field. Already
the troops, in every variety of uniform, are defiling towards the spot.
The trumpet appeals to the cavalry; the rolling of drums seems to cover
the whole surface of the plain, which trembles under the heavy progress
of the artillery and ammunition-waggons. The aide-de-camps, in their
glittering uniforms, are galloping hither and thither; the banners waving
to the wind, which causes, at the same time, a pleasing undulation of
the feathers, aigrettes, and tri-coloured plumes; while the sun, that
ever-present guest at the fêtes of Napoleon, that radiant illustrator of
the pomps and vanities of the empire, casts its vivid reflections upon
the golden embroideries, the brass and bronze of the cannon, helmets,
cuirasses, and the sixty thousand bayonets bristling the tumultuous field.
By degrees, the troops, arriving with hurried march at the appointed
spot, continue to force backward, in a wild semi-circle of retreat, the
crowds of curious spectators, broken up like the rippling billows of
the ocean, by the progress of one enormous wave; while a few horsemen
charging along the line, proceed to clear the field for action.
The village is now deserted; the gay tents are struck, the trestles
removed, the songs and clamours reduced to silence. On all sides are to
be seen, scattered along the vast circuit of the plane, men interrupted
in their sport or repast, and women dragging away their children,
terrified by the flashing sabres, or loud neighing of the chargers.
It is no difficult matter to discern, by attentively examining the
countenances of the men still collected under the same colours, to
_which_ among them the orders of the general-in-chief, Marshal Lannes,
has assigned, in the coming fray, the glory of victory—to _which_ the
duty of being vanquished; while the gallant marshal himself, followed by
a numerous _état major_, is seen tracing and reconnoitring the ground,
on which it has been already his lot to figure with such distinction.
He now distributed to each brigade its part in the coming battle; taking
care, however, to omit in the representation the blunders of that great
and terrible day, the 14th of June, 1800: for, after all, it is but a
delicate flattery in military tactics, a madrigal, composed with salvos
of artillery, which is about to be recited in honour of the new sovereign
of Italy.
[Illustration: _Napoleon reviewing the troops._]
The troops now proceed to form into line, deploy, and form again, at the
word of command; when military symphonies are heard from the side of
Alexandria; vague murmurs increase from the mass of human population,
which, protected by the streams of the Tanaro, the Bormida, the Orba,
and the ravines of Tortona, form the moving girdle of the vast arena.
Suddenly, the drums beat to arms; cries and huzzas burst from amid
circling clouds of dust; sabres glitter in the sunshine; muskets are
shouldered, as if by a mechanical movement; while a brilliant equipage,
drawn by eight noble horses, caparisoned and emblazoned with the arms of
Italy and France, conveys to the foot of their throne, the Emperor and
Empress—Napoleon and Josephine.
The Emperor, after receiving homage from all the deputations of Italy,
the envoys of Lucca, Genoa, Florence, Rome, and even Prussia, mounts
impatiently on horseback; and, instantaneously, the whole plain is
overspread with fire and smoke.
Such were the sports of the youthful hero! War for his pastime, war for
the accomplishment of his puissant destinies! Nothing less than war could
satisfy that ardent temperament, formed for conquest and supremacy, to
which the subjugation of the whole world would alone have left an hour of
leisure!
An officer, appointed by the Emperor, stood explaining to Josephine, as
she sat solitary on her throne, half terrified by the spectacle before
her, the meaning of the various manœuvres, and the object of every
evolution. He showed her the Austrian general, Melas, expelling the
French from the village of Marengo, overpowering them at Pietra-Buona,
at Castel-Ceriola; and Bonaparte suddenly arresting him in the midst of
his victorious career, with only nine hundred men of the consular guard.
Her attention was next directed to one of the most important movements of
the battle.
The republicans appear to be giving way, when Desaix suddenly appears
on the Tortona road; and the terrible Hungarian column, under Zach,
marches to meet him. But, while the officer was yet speaking, Josephine’s
attention is diverted from the military movements by a sort of confusion
around her; on demanding the cause of which, she is informed that “a
young girl, having imprudently cleared the line of military operations,
at the risk of being crushed by the artillery, or trampled by charges
of cavalry, is creating farther confusion by her obstinacy in pressing
towards the presence of her majesty, the Empress-Queen.”
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
CHAPTER II.
Teresa—for the intruder was no other than the daughter of Girardi—had
been for a moment overcome by the intelligence she received at Turin
of the departure of the Emperor for Alexandria. But it was fatigue
rather than discouragement which made her pause; and nothing but the
recollection that an unhappy captive was dependent upon her for the
accomplishment of his only wish on earth, would have urged her forward
upon her perilous errand. Without regard, therefore, to her weariness or
loss of time, she signified to the guide her intention of proceeding at
once to Alexandria.
“_To Alexandria!_ ’Tis twice as far as we have come already!” cried the
man.
“No matter, we must set out again immediately.”
“I, for my part, shall not set out again before to-morrow,” replied the
guide; “and then, only to return to Fenestrella; so a pleasant journey to
you, signora!”
All the arguments she could use were unavailing to change his
determination. The man, who had enveloped himself in the iron obstinacy
of the Piedmontese character, speedily unsaddled his horses, and laid
himself down between them in the stable for a good night’s rest.
But Teresa, firmly devoted to her enterprise, would not now recede from
the undertaking. Having made up her mind to pursue her journey, she
entreated the landlady of the inn in the _Dora Grossa_, where she had
put up, to procure her the means of proceeding to Alexandria without
a moment’s delay; and the hostess instantly despatched her waiters in
various directions through the city in search of a conveyance, but
without success. From the Suza gate to that of the Po, from the Porta
Nuova to that of the palace, not a horse, carriage nor cart, public or
private, was to be seen; all had long been engaged in consequence of the
approaching solemnization at Alexandria.
[Illustration]
Teresa now gave herself up to despair. Absorbed in anxious thought, she
stationed herself with downcast looks on the steps of the inn, where
luckily the gathering darkness secured her from recognition by the
inhabitants of her native city, when suddenly the sound of approaching
wheels became audible, accompanied by the tinkling of mule-bells; and at
the very door where she was standing there appeared two powerful mules
drawing one of those long caravans in use among travelling merchants,
of which the boxes, closed by heavy padlocks, are made to open and form
a movable shop, but the only accommodation of which, for passengers,
consists in a narrow leathern seat in front, half under cover of a small
awning of oil-cloth.
The man and woman, owners of the cart and its merchandise, having
alighted, began to stretch their arms and yawn aloud, stamping with their
feet by way of rousing themselves after a long and heavy slumber. At
length, having familiarly saluted the hostess, they took refuge in the
chimney-corner, holding out their hands and feet towards the vine-stocks
blazing on the hearth; and after ordering the mules to be unharnessed
and carefully attended to, they began to congratulate each other on the
conclusion of their tedious journey, ordered supper, and talked of bed.
The hostess, too, was preparing for rest. The yawning waiters closed up
the doors and window-shutters; and poor Teresa, watching with tearful
eyes all these preparations, thought only of the hours that were passing
away, the dying flower, and the despair of the Count de Charney.
“A night, a whole night!” she exclaimed; “a night of which every minute
will be counted by that unhappy man; while _I_ shall be safe asleep.
Nay, even to-morrow, it will be perhaps impossible for me to find a
conveyance!”
And she cast her wistful eyes upon the two travellers, as if her last
hope lay in their assistance. But she was still ignorant of the road
they were to take, or whether they could or would be troubled with her
company; and the poor girl, unaccustomed to find herself alone among
strangers, still less among strangers of such a class, impelled by
anxiety, but withheld by timidity, advanced a step towards them, then
paused, mute, trembling, and undecided; when she was startled by the
approach of a female servant, holding a candle and a key, who pointed out
to her the room into which she was to retire for the night. Forced by
this proposition to take some immediate step, Teresa put aside the arm
of the _giannina_, and advancing towards the couple, engaged in munching
their supper, entreated pardon for the interruption, and inquired what
road they were to take on quitting Turin.
“To Alexandria, my pretty maid,” replied the woman, starting at the
question.
“To Alexandria! ’Twas then my guardian angel who brought you hither!”
cried Teresa, overjoyed.
“I wish he had picked out a better road, then, signorina,” cried the
woman, “for we are all but ground to powder!”
“But what do you want with us? How can we serve you?” interrupted the man.
“Urgent business carries me to Alexandria. Can you give me a cast?”
inquired Teresa.
“Out of the question,” said the wife.
“I will pay you handsomely; two pieces of St. John the Baptist; that is,
ten livres of France.”
[Illustration]
“I don’t know how we could manage it,” observed the man. “In the first
place, the bench is so narrow that it will be scarcely possible to sit
three; though I own, signorina, ’tis no great matter of room you will
take up. In the next place, we are going only as far as the _Mercato_ of
Renigano, near Asti, which is only half-way to Alexandria.”
“No matter,” cried Teresa; “convey me only so far as to the gates of
Asti. But we must set out this very night—this very moment.”
“Impossible! quite impossible!” exclaimed both husband and wife at the
same moment. “We made no bargain of our night’s rest.”
“The sum shall be doubled,” said Teresa, in a lower voice, “if you will
only oblige me.”
The man and the woman interchanged looks of interrogation. “No,” cried
the wife, at last; “we shall fall ill of fatigue on the road. Besides,
Losca and Zoppa want rest. Do you wish to kill the poor mules?”
“Four pieces, remember!” murmured the husband. “Four pieces!”
“What is that to the value of Losca and Zoppa!”
“Double price, recollect, for only half the fare, and no danger to the
beasts.”
“Pho! pho! a single Venetian sequin is worth two _parpaîole_ of Genoa.”
Nevertheless, the notion of four crowns to be earned so easily was not
without its charm for either wife or husband, and at last, after farther
objections on one side, and supplications on the other, the mules were
brought out and re-harnessed. Teresa, enveloped in her mantle, to protect
her from the night air, arranged herself as well as she could on the
bench between the grumbling couple; and at length they set off on their
expedition. All the clocks in Turin were striking eleven as they passed
the gate of the city.
In her impatience to arrive and procure good tidings for transmission to
Fenestrella, Teresa would fain have found herself carried away by the
speed of impetuous coursers towards Alexandria. But alas! the vehicle
in which she had secured a place lumbered heavily along the road. The
mules paced steadily along, lifting their legs with measured precision,
so as to put in motion the little chime of bells, which imparted a still
cooler character to the nonchalance of their movements. For some time,
indeed, the fair traveller took patience, hoping the animals would become
gradually excited, or that the driver might urge them with a touch of
the whip. But finding his incitement limited to a slight clicking of the
tongue, she at length took courage to inform him that it was essential
to make all speed towards Asti, that she might arrive by day-break at
Alexandria.
“Take my word for it, my pretty maid,” replied the man, “that ’tis not a
whit more amusing to us than to yourself, to pass the night in counting
the stars. But the cobbler must stick to his last. My cargo, young lady,
consists of crockery ware, which I am conveying for sale to the fair of
Renigano, and if my mules were to take to the trot, I should have only
potsherds to produce at the end of my journey.”
“Are you, then, a crockery merchant?” exclaimed Teresa, in a tone of
consternation.
“China merchants,” remonstrated the wife.
“Alas! alas!” exclaimed the disappointed girl—“is it then impossible for
you to go a little faster?”
“Except by knocking to pieces my whole freight.”
“It is so important for me to arrive in time at Alexandria!”
“And for us to keep an eye to our goods.”
As an act of concession, however, he condescended to bestow a few
additional clickings upon his beasts; but the mules were too well broken
to their pace to risk their master’s property by quickening their speed.
Teresa now began to reproach herself with inconsideration, in not having
acquainted herself with the length of time necessary to reach Asti, or
personally attempted to discover in Turin some more expeditious mode
of conveyance. But she had nothing now left for it but patience. The
vehicle jogged on at its accustomed rate, Losca and Zoppa soon managed
to take the soft sides of the road, avoiding the rough jumbling of the
pavement; and at length, the merchant and his wife, after a few mutual
consultations respecting their chance of success at the fair of Renigano,
relapsed into silence; in the midst of which, soothed by the darkness,
oppressed by the cold, and lulled by the monotonous tinkling of the
mule-bells, Teresa was overpowered with drowsiness. Her head, which
wandered in search of a resting-place from the shoulder of the driver to
that of his wife, at length inclined heavily on her own bosom.
“Lean upon me, my poor child; and happy dreams to you!” said the man,
in a compassionate tone; and having accepted his offer, the overwearied
Teresa was soon in a deep sleep.
When she opened her eyes again, daylight was shining brightly upon
her. Startled to find herself in the open air, on the high road, she
strove to recall her bewildered recollections; and on attaining perfect
consciousness, perceived with horror that the vehicle was standing still,
and appeared to have been some time stationary. The merchant, his wife,
the very mules were fast asleep; not the slightest sound proceeded from
the chime of bells!
[Illustration]
Teresa now perceived at some distance on the road they had been
traversing the pinnacles of several steeples; and through the fantastic
grouping of the morning mists, fancied she could discern the heights of
the Superga, the Château of Mille Fiori, the Vigna della Regina, the
Church of the Capuchins, all the rich adornments of the noble hills
overhanging Turin.
“Merciful Heaven!” vociferated the poor girl—“we have scarcely got beyond
the suburbs!”
Roused by this exclamation, the driver rubbed his eyes and hastened to
reassure her. “We are approaching Asti,” said he. “The steeples you see
behind you are those of Renigano. No cause to find fault with Losca and
Zoppa; they can only just have begun their nap. Poor beasts! they have
earned their rest hardly. Heaven send they may not have profited by mine,
to make a trot of it.” Teresa smiled. “Gee! away with you, jades!” he
continued, with a crack of the whip which awoke both his wife and the
mules. And soon afterwards, at the gates of Asti, the worthy china-man
took leave of his passenger, assisted her to alight, and after signing
the cross over the twenty livres he received for her fare, turned
straight round with his mules, and made off deliberately for Renigano.
Half of her way to Alexandria was thus accomplished; but, alas! it was
now scarcely possible to arrive in time for the levee of the Emperor.
“Yet no doubt an Emperor must be late in rising!” thought Teresa; and
oh! how she longed to thrust below the horizon again the sun which was
just making its importunate appearance! Expecting that every thing
around her would bear tokens of her own agitation, she fancied the whole
population of Asti must be already astir, in preparation for a journey
to Alexandria; and that amid the confusion of carriages and carts about
to take the road, it would be easy to secure a place in some public
conveyance.
[Illustration]
What, therefore, was her astonishment, on entering the town, to find
the streets still silent and deserted, and the sun scarcely yet high
enough to shine on more than the roofs of the highest houses and the
dome of the church! It occurred to her at that moment that one of her
maternal relations resided at Asti, who might render her assistance;
and perceiving through the ground-floor window of a mean-looking house
the red glimmering of a fire, she knocked, and ventured to inquire her
way to the abode of her kinsman. A harsh voice answered her through the
window that, for the last three months, the individual in question had
been residing at his country-house at Monbercello; and thus disappointed,
and alone in the solitary streets of a strange town, Teresa began to
feel terrified and uneasy. To reanimate her courage, she turned towards
a Madonna, before which, in an adjoining niche, a lamp was burning, and
breathed her morning prayer. Scarcely had she concluded her orisons, when
she was startled by the sound of approaching footsteps, and a man soon
made his appearance.
“Can you tell me of a conveyance to Alexandria?” said she, civilly
accosting the stranger.
“Too late, my pretty one! every cart and carriage has been bespoken this
week past!” he replied, and hastened on his way.
A second man came by, to whom Teresa ventured to address the same
inquiry. But this time the answer was delivered in a harsh and reproving
tone.
“You want to be running after the French, then, _razza male_, _detta_?”
cried he, making off after his companion.
Teresa stood silent and intimidated at the accusation. At last,
perceiving a young workman singing as he proceeded gaily to his business,
she ventured to renew her inquiries.
“Aha, signorina!” cried he, in a tone of bantering, “you must needs make
one in the battle, eh? But there will be little room left yonder for
pretty damsels; better stay with us here, at Asti. ’Tis a fête to-day.
The dancing will begin early in the afternoon; and the _drudi ballarini_
will fall to breaking each other’s heads, to have you for a partner.
Faith, you are worth the trouble of a fight! Eh! what say you to a
skirmish in your honour?”
And, approaching Teresa Girardi, he was about to throw his arm round her
waist; but, startled by her indignant glance and exclamation, desisted,
and resumed his song and his occupation.
A fourth, a fifth, now traversed the street, but the poor girl no
longer hazarded an inquiry, but kept watching every opening door, and
peeping into every courtyard in hopes to find some carriage in waiting.
At length, by especial favour, she managed to obtain a place as far as
Annone. Between Annone and Felizano—between Felizano and Alexandria—she
was perplexed by a thousand farther difficulties. But with courage and
perseverance all were at length surmounted, and she arrived happily
at Alexandria. As she anticipated, the Emperor had already taken his
departure for Marengo; and without pausing a moment for deliberation,
she followed the crowd which was pouring from the suburbs along the road
towards the field of battle.
Hurried on with the multitude, pressed and jostled on all sides, watching
eagerly for openings in the crowd, skirting the outermost edges of the
road, Teresa neglected no opportunity of pushing forward. Undisturbed
by the clamour of the trumpets, the sports of the merry-andrews, or
the discourses of the monks, she pursued her way in the midst of the
laughing, yelling, shouting populace, which went leaping on in the heat
and dust—a poor solitary stranger, apart from the sports and the joys of
the day—her countenance anxious—her eye haggard—and raising her hand at
intervals to wipe away the dew from her weary brows.
But the whole force and fortitude of Teresa’s mind were devoted to her
progress. She has scarcely even found a moment for the contemplation of
the farther means to be adopted. But a halt being suddenly imposed upon
the crowd on reaching the outskirts of the field, she began to reflect on
the uneasiness the prolongation of her absence would cause to her father
(since the guide who had deserted her at Turin would not be permitted
to enter the prison). She thought of Charney accusing his messenger
of neglect and indifference; then felt for the petition in her bosom,
apprehensive that, by some unlucky chance, it might have escaped her.
At the idea of her father grieving over the unwonted absence of his
child, tears rushed into the eyes of Teresa; and it was from a reverie
produced by these painful emotions that she was recalled to herself by
the cries of joy bursting from the surrounding multitude. An open space
had been formed just beside the spot where she was resting, around which
the crowd seemed circling; and the moment Teresa turned her head to
ascertain the cause of the tumult, her hands were seized, and in spite of
her resistance, her depression, her fatigue, she found herself compelled
to take part in a _farandola_, which went whirling along the road,
recruiting all the pretty girls and sprightly lads who could be involved
in the diversion.
[Illustration]
Vexatious as was the interruption, Teresa at length found means to
disengage herself from such unsatisfactory society; and having contrived
by a painful effort to push her way through the crowd, she at length
obtained a glimpse of the vast plain glittering with troops; and her eyes
having wandered for some minutes over the splendid army, paused upon
the little hillock occupied by the imperial court. At the sight of the
throne, the aim and end of her perilous journey, Teresa’s heart leaped
for joy; her courage returned, her strength seemed renewed. All her
preceding cares were forgotten. But how to attain the wished-for spot?
How to traverse those battalions of men and horses? There was madness in
the very project!
But that which at first sight presented an obstacle, soon appeared to
farther her intentions. The foremost ranks of the crowd pouring in
torrents from Alexandria, having deployed to the right and left, on
reaching the plain, were gradually gaining the banks of the Tanaro and
the Bormida; where, at one moment, they pushed on so impetuously as to
seem on the point of taking possession of the field of battle. A small
body of cavalry instantly galloped towards the spot, waving their naked
sabres, and by the plunging of their chargers causing the terrified
crowd to return to the limits assigned them. The intruders evacuated
the territory as rapidly as they had gained it, with the exception of a
single individual: that individual was Teresa Girardi!
In an adjacent hollow of the plain, surrounded by a strong quickset
hedge, and sheltered by a small thicket of trees, flowed a spring of
limpid water; towards which, thrust onwards by the crowd of spectators,
the poor girl, whose eyes were fixed upon the throne in the distance,
found herself irresistibly impelled. Apprehensive every moment of
being crushed in the throng, she seized in her arms the trunk of the
nearest poplar tree; and closing her eyes, like a child who fancies
the danger has ceased to exist which it is not obliged to look upon,
remained motionless, her hearing confused by the rustling of the
surrounding foliage. The advance and retreat of the mob was, in fact, so
instantaneous, that when Teresa re-opened her eyes she was quite alone,
separated from the troops by the hedge and thicket, and from the crowd by
a column of dust, produced by the last detachment of fugitives. Throwing
herself at once into the little copse, she found herself in the centre
of about twenty poplar and aspen trees, overshadowing a crystal spring
welling out of the ground over a bed of ivy, moss and celandine, till,
bubbling onward in a silver thread, it gradually formed a brook capable
of traversing the plain, over which its course was defined by painted
tufts of blue forget-me-not, and the clusters of the white ranunculus.
The refreshing exhalations of the shady spot assisted to restore the
self-possession and strength of the exhausted girl. Teresa felt as though
she had reached an oasis of verdure in the desert, sheltered from dust,
and heat, and disturbance.
Meanwhile the plain has become suddenly quiet; she hears neither the word
of command, the huzza of the crowd, nor the neighing of the horses. All
she can discern is a singular movement overhead; and, looking up, Teresa
perceives every bough and spray of the trees to be covered with flights
of sparrows, driven to shelter from all quarters of the plain by the
alarming movement of the troops and the incursions of the crowd. The poor
birds, like the poor girl contemplating them, have taken refuge in that
verdant solitude, their little wings and throats apparently paralysed by
affright; for not a sound breaks from the band of feathered fugitives.
Even on the advance of a brigade of cavalry towards the thicket,
accompanied by the braying of trumpets, not a bird is seen to stir. They
appear to wait anxiously for the result; while a similar feeling prompts
Girardi’s daughter to look through the foliage upon the field.
Her eyes are quickly attracted by files of troops, which appear to have
cut off all communication between the thicket and the road.
“After all,” thought the trembling Teresa, “it is but a _sham_-fight that
is about to take place; and if I have been imprudent in venturing hither,
the Almighty, who knows the innocence of my heart, will keep me in time
of trouble!”
And, directing her attention through the opposite extremity of the
thicket, she discerns, at the distance of about three hundred paces,
the throne of Josephine and Napoleon. The space between is occupied by
the manœuvres of the soldiers; but every now and then the ground is
sufficiently cleared to admit of passing. Teresa now takes courage!—she
feels that a decisive moment is at hand. Having opened a way through the
hedge, she is about to advance, when the disorder of her toilet suddenly
occurring to her mind, brings blushes into her cheeks. Her tresses,
unbraided and dishevelled, are floating over her shoulders; her hands,
her face, her person, are disfigured with dust. To present herself in
such a condition before the sovereigns of Italy and France, were perhaps
to insure her rejection, and the failure of her anxious mission.
Re-entering the thicket, therefore, and drawing near to the spring, she
unties her large Leghorn hat, shakes out and smooths down her raven
hair, braids up the flowing tresses, bathes her hands and face; and,
having completed her morning toilet, breathes a prayer to Heaven for its
blessing upon the merciful purpose which hast cast her, thus defenceless,
into the ranks of an army.
While watching for an auspicious moment to recommence her course, the
stunning detonations of the cannon roar, from twenty different points,
into her ears. The ground seems to tremble under her feet; and, while
the poor girl stands motionless with consternation, the scared birds,
fluttering from the trees above, with discordant cries and bewildered
wings, make off for the woods of Valpedo and Voghera.
The fight has begun! Teresa, deafened by the roar of artillery and the
universal clamour, stands transfixed, gazing towards the throne, which is
sometimes concealed from her by clouds of smoke; sometimes by a screen of
lances or bayonets.
[Illustration]
After the lapse of half an hour, during which every idea seemed to
abandon her mind, but that of indescribable terror, the energy of
her soul resumed its force. She examined, with greater composure,
the obstacles with which she is beset; and decided that it may still
be possible to attain the imperial throne. Two columns of infantry,
prolonged into a double line, to which the flanks of the thicket form a
centre, were beginning to engage in an animated fire upon each other.
Under cover of the clouds of smoke, she trusted to make her way between
them, unobserved. Still, however, Teresa trembled at the attempt, when a
troop of hussars, burning with thirst, suddenly invaded her asylum, and
the maiden hesitated no longer. Her courage was roused, the moment her
modesty took the alarm. She rushed forth at once between two columns of
infantry; and when the smoke began to subside, the soldiers raised a cry
of astonishment, on perceiving in the midst of them the white dress and
straw hat of a young girl—a young and pretty Piedmontese—whom each made
it his immediate business to capture.
[Illustration]
At that moment a squadron of cuirassiers was galloping up to re-enforce
one of the lines, the captain of which was on the point of trampling down
the unfortunate Teresa; but, pulling up his horse in time, he gave her in
charge to two soldiers of the line; not, however, without a few oaths and
great wonder at such an apparition on the field of battle.
One of the two cuirassiers deputed to escort her to quarters quickly
raised her to his saddle; and it was thus she was conveyed to the
rear of the hillock, where a few ladies belonging to the suite of the
Empress were stationed, accompanied by an aid-de-camp and the _corps
diplomatique_ of the Italian deputations.
Teresa now fancied that her enterprise was accomplished. She had
surmounted too many difficulties to be discouraged by the few remaining;
and when, on her demand to be admitted to the Emperor, she was informed
that he was on the field, at the head of the troops, she entreated an
audience of the Empress. But this request appeared no less inadmissible
than the other. To get rid of her importunities, the bystanders had
recourse to intimidation, but Teresa’s courage rose against their
efforts. They insisted that she should at least wait the conclusion of
the evolutions; and were astonished to find her persist in forcing her
way towards the throne. Detained and threatened, her struggles became the
more vehement. It was then that, raising her voice in self-defence, its
piteous accents reached the ear of Josephine, to which the voice of a
female in distress and appealing to her protection, were never known to
be addressed in vain.
[Illustration]
CHAPTER III.
Scarcely were the commands of the Empress issued that no farther
obstruction should be offered to the young stranger, when the brilliant
crowd opened, to yield a passage to Teresa Girardi, who appeared in the
midst of the throng, in a suppliant attitude, as if scarcely aware of
being released from the detention of her captors.
But on a sign from Josephine—a gracious sign, instantly recognised by
those around as a token of indulgence—the young Piedmontese was set at
liberty; and, on finding herself free, Teresa rushed to the foot of the
throne, breathless with agitation, and, bending low before the Empress,
proceeded to unfold a handkerchief which she had taken from her bosom.
“A poor prisoner, madam,” said she, “implores the clemency of your
majesty.” But, with every disposition to indulgence, it was impossible
for the Empress to divine the meaning of the strange-looking handkerchief
which Teresa Girardi, sinking on one knee, tendered to her hands.
“Have you a petition to present to me?” demanded Josephine at last, of
the trembling girl, in a tone of encouragement.
“_This_, madam, is a petition; this is the memorial of an unfortunate
captive!” persisted Teresa, still holding up the handkerchief. But tears
of terror and anxiety, flowing down her cheeks, almost concealed the
smile which the gracious affability of the Empress had for a moment
called into existence.
“Rise, my poor girl, rise!” said Josephine, in a tone of compassion. “You
appear deeply interested in the welfare of the petitioner!”
Teresa blushed, and hung down her head. “I have never even spoken to him,
madam,” she replied; “but he is so deserving of pity! If your majesty
would deign to read the statement of his misfortunes——”
Josephine now unfolded the handkerchief, touched to the heart by the
evidence of misery and destitution conveyed in such a substitute for
writing-paper. Pausing, however, after she had perused the first line of
the petition, she exclaimed, “But this is addressed to the emperor!”
“And are you not his wife?” cried Teresa. “Deign, deign to read on! Every
moment is of consequence. Indeed, there is no time to be lost!”
[Illustration: _Teresa before the Empress._]
The fight was now at the hottest. The Hungarian column, though exposed to
the severe fire of Marmont’s artillery, was formidable in its movements:
Zach and Desaix were face to face; and the result of their encounter was
to decide the destinies of the battle. The cannonade became general;
the field seemed to vomit flames and smoke; while the clamour of the
soldiers, uniting with the clang of arms, and call of trumpets, agitated
the air like a tempest. And it was while all this was proceeding around
her, that the Empress attempted to give her attention to the following
lines:
“SIRE: The removal of two stones from the pavement of the court
of my prison will scarcely shake the foundation of your empire;
and such is the favour I presume to ask of your majesty. It
is not for myself I appeal to your protection. But in the
stony desert in which I am expiating my offences against your
government, a single living thing has solaced my sufferings,
and shed a charm over my gloomy existence! A plant—a flower
springing spontaneously among the stones of Fenestrella, is
the object of my solicitude. Let not your majesty accuse me
of folly—of madness; it needs to have been a prisoner, to
appreciate the value of such a friend. To this poor flower am
I indebted for discoveries which have dispelled the mists of
error from my eyes, for my restoration to reason, for my peace
of mind, nay, for my very life! It is dear to me, sire, as
glory to yourself.
[Illustration]
“Yet, at this moment, my precious plant is perishing before
my eyes, for want of a little space for the expansion of its
roots; and the Commandant of Fenestrella would fain submit
to the Governor of Turin my petition for the removal of the
two miserable stones that impede its growth. By the time that
wisdom has decided the question, the plant will be dead; and
it is therefore to your compassion, sire, I appeal for the
preservation of my plant. Issue orders that may yet preserve
it from destruction, and myself from despair—I implore it on
my bended knees; and should you deign to favour my suit, the
benefit vouchsafed by your majesty shall be recorded in the
inmost depths of my heart!
“I admit, sire, that this poor plant has softened the vengeance
doomed by your majesty to fall upon my devoted head; but it has
also subdued my pride, and cast me a suppliant at your feet.
From the height of your double throne, deign, therefore, to
extend a pitying glance towards us. It is not for your majesty
to appreciate the power exercised by solitary confinement
over even the strongest heart, the most iron fortitude. I
do not complain of my captivity; I support my sentence with
resignation. Be its duration as that of my own life; but spare,
oh, spare my plant!
“The favour I thus presume to implore, must be conceded,
sire, on the spot, without the delay of a single hour! On
the brow of the human criminal, justice may hold her sword
suspended, in order to enhance the after-sentence of pardon;
but nature’s laws are more prompt in their operation. Delay
but a single day, and even the mighty power of your majesty
will be unavailing to farther the petition of the prisoner of
Fenestrella.
CHARNEY.”
At that instant a sudden discharge of artillery seemed to rend asunder
the atmosphere, and immediately the thick smoke, cut into circles and
lozenges by the thousand lightnings of the discharge, seemed to cover
the field with a network of light and shade. But on the cessation of
the firing, the curtain of smoke seemed gradually drawn aside; and a
brilliant spectacle was given to view, sparkling under the radiance of
the sun—even that noble charge, in the original of which Desaix lost his
life. Zach and his Hungarians, repulsed in front by Bondet, harassed on
the left flank by the cavalry of Kellermann, were already thrown into
disorder; after which, the intrepid consul, re-establishing his line
of battle from Castel-Ceriola to St. Julian, resumed the offensive,
overthrew the imperialists at every point, and forced Melas to a speedy
retreat.
This sudden change of position, these grand movements of the army, this
flux and reflux of the human tide, at the command of a single voice,
the voice of a chief, motionless and calm in the midst of the general
disorder, might have sufficed to produce an impression on the coldest
imagination. From the groups surrounding the throne, accordingly, burst
cries of triumph, and exulting acclamations; when the Empress, startled
by the contrast afforded by these “vivats” to the hoarse uproar of the
battle-field, was instantly roused from her reverie to a sense of what
was passing around her. For to all those brilliant manœuvres and imposing
spectacles the future Queen of Italy had remained insensible; her
feelings and looks alike preoccupied by the extraordinary memorial that
still fluttered in her hand.
Teresa Girardi, meanwhile, attentive to every gesture of the Empress,
felt instantaneously reassured by the soft smile of sympathy which
overspread the countenance of Josephine while perusing the petition.
With a beating heart, she stooped to imprint a grateful kiss on the hand
extended towards her, a hand how puissant amid all its fragile fairness,
for on its slender finger glittered the nuptial ring of Napoleon!
Dismissed by this gracious movement from the presence of the Empress,
Teresa now hastened towards the women’s quarters; and as soon as the
field of Marengo was cleared of its multitudes, proceeded to the nearest
chapel, to tender to her sovereign protectress, the Holy Virgin, an
offering of prayer and tears, the token of her heartfelt gratitude; for
in the condescension of Josephine she fancied she had obtained a pledge
for the eventual fulfilment of her wishes.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
CHAPTER IV.
The sympathy of the Empress-Queen had been, in fact, warmly excited by
the memorial of the captive of Fenestrella. Every word of the petition
conveyed the most touching appeal to her feelings. Josephine herself
was an almost idolatrous lover of flowers; as the permanent advantages
derived in France from her liberal encouragement of botanical science and
patronage of its professors continue to attest. Escaping from the cares
and splendours of sovereignty, often did the empress recede from the
courtier throng, to watch the expansion of some rare exotic, in her fine
conservatories at Malmaison. There was the favourite empire of Josephine!
She loved the imperial purple of the rich cactus, at that period a
splendid novelty to European eyes, better than the hues of the rich
mantle adorning her throne; and the delicate fragrance of her clustering
magnolias proved more intoxicating than the soothing but fatal breath of
courtly adulation. At Malmaison she reigned despotic over thousands of
beauteous subjects, collected from all quarters of the globe. She knew
them face by face, name by name—was fond of disposing them in classes,
castes, or regiments; and when some fresh subject presented itself for
the first time at her levee, was able to interrogate the new-comer, so
as to ascertain his family and connections, and assign him an appropriate
station in the community of which every brigade had its banner, and every
banner a fitting standard-bearer.
Following the example of Napoleon, she respected the laws and customs
of those she rendered tributary. Plants of all countries found their
native soil and climate restored to them by her providence. Malmaison
was a world in miniature; within whose circumscribed limits were to be
found rocks and savannas—the soil of virgin forests and the sand of the
desert—banks of marl or clay—lakes, cascades, and strands liable to
inundation. From the heat of a tropical climate, you might fly to the
refreshing coolness of the temperate zone; and in these varied specimens
of atmosphere and soil, flourished, side by side, the various races of
vegetative kind, divided only by green edges or an intrenchment of glass
windows.
When Josephine held her field-days at Malmaison, the review was indeed
calculated to excite the tenderest associations. First in the ranks was
the hydrangea, which had recently borrowed from her charming daughter
its French name of Hortensia. Glory, too, found its reminiscences there,
as well as maternal affection. Following the victories of Bonaparte, she
contrived to reap her share in the plunder of conquered countries; and
Italy and Egypt paid tribute to her triumphant parterres. Blooming in
resplendent union at Malmaison were the soldanella of the Alps—the violet
of Parma—the adonis of Castiglione—the carnation of Lodi—the willow and
plane of Syria—the cross of Malta—the water-lily of the Nile—the hibiscus
of Palestine—the rose of Damietta. Such were the conquests of Josephine:
and of those, at least, France still retains the benefits!
But even in the midst of these treasures, Josephine still cultivated,
by predilection, a plant reminding her of her days of happy childhood;
that beautiful jasmine of Martinique, whose seeds, gathered and resown by
her own hand, served to bring to her recollection not only the sports of
girlhood and the roof of her fathers, but her earliest home of wedded
love.
With such pursuits and attachments, how could she fail to appreciate
the passion of the prisoner for his flower—his only flower—his only
companion! The widow of Beauharnais was not always the happy and
prosperous inmate of a consular or imperial palace. Josephine has herself
tasted the bitterness of captivity; and the lesson is not thrown away.
Nor has she altogether forgotten the brilliant, successful, but proud
and _insouciant_ Count de Charney; formerly so contemptuous amid the
pleasures of the world, and so incredulous in the existence of human
affections. To what is she to attribute the singular change in his style
and temper? What influence has sufficed to soften that haughty character?
He, who once refused the homage of his knee to the Most High, now kneels
to a human throne to supplicate in utmost humility for the preservation
of a plant!
“The flower which has wrought so great a miracle,” thought the Empress,
with a smile, “deserves to be preserved from destruction!” And eager to
accomplish her benevolent purpose, she grew impatient of the protraction
of the fight, and would fain have put an end to the last evolutions, in
order to hasten her measures in favour of her petitioner.
[Illustration]
The moment Napoleon, surrounded by his generals, made his reappearance,
exhausted by his exertions, and doubtless expecting compliments from her
lips, the Empress presented the handkerchief to his astonished eyes,
exclaiming, “An order from your hand, sire; an order for the commandant
of Fenestrella! and an express to despatch it to the fortress!”
In the earnestness of her purpose, her voice assumed an imperial tone,
and her eyes an expression of impatience, as if some new conquest were
within reach, and it was _her_ turn to assume command and authority.
But after surveying her from head to foot with an air of surprise and
dissatisfaction, the Emperor turned on his heel and passed on without a
word. As if still reviewing his troops, he appeared only to be finishing
his inspection by the last individual of the brigade.
[Illustration]
Impelled by the force of habit, he next proceeded to examine the field of
action, unmoistened indeed with blood, but covered with trophies of the
early harvest, cut down by his victorious troops: fields of corn and rice
were trampled or hacked into chaff! In some spots, the earth itself was
ploughed into deep channels by the manœuvres of the artillery; while here
and there were scattered the buff-leather gloves of the dragoons, broken
plumes, or shreds of gold lace—nay, even a few limping foot-soldiers and
chargers, lamed in the affray, still encumbered the ground.
At one moment of the day, however, more serious consequences than
these appeared imminent. The French soldiers appointed to occupy, as
Austrians, the village of Marengo, resenting the part assigned them as
beaten troops, had chosen to prolong their resistance beyond the period
specified in the programme; and a violent struggle took place between
them and their opponents. The two regiments happened to be irritated
against each other by the jealousies of garrison rivalship; and mutual
insults and challenges having been exchanged on the spot, bayonets were
crossed in earnest between the two corps.
But for the immediate intervention of the general officers present, a
terrible contest would have taken place; and the mimic fight become only
too fatally a reality. With some difficulty, the troops were made to
fraternise, by an exchange of gourds; and these being unluckily empty,
in order to perfect the reconciliation, the cellars of the village
were laid under contribution. Excess now succeeded to obstinacy, but a
unanimous cry of “_Vive l’Empereur_” having been fortunately raised by
the men, the whole breach of discipline was placed to the account of
military enthusiasm; and, after twenty healths had been tossed off, the
gallant Austrians consented to stagger defeated from the field; while
the victorious French made their triumphal entry into Marengo, dancing
the farandola, singing the Marseillaise, and mingling occasionally in
their hurrahs the now forbidden cry of “_Vive la République_.” But
their insubordination was now justly attributed to the enthusiasm of
intemperance.
[Illustration]
The troops having been formed once more into line, Napoleon proceeded to
a distribution of crosses of honour among the old soldiers, who, five
years before, had fought with him on that memorable spot. A few of the
more eminent of the Cisalpine magistrates also received decorations on
the field: after which, accompanied by Josephine, the Emperor laid the
first stone of a monument, intended to perpetuate the victory of Marengo;
and the ceremonies of the morning accomplished, the whole court, followed
by the whole army, took their way back towards Alexandria.
All this time the destinies of Picciola remained undecided!
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
CHAPTER V.
To conclude the solemnities of the day, a public banquet was offered to
the Emperor and Empress by the city of Alexandria, in the Town Hall,
which was splendidly decorated for the occasion; after which, their
majesties, wearied by their exertions, retired to pass the evening in one
of the private apartments allotted to their use. The Emperor and Empress
were now together, attended only by the secretary of the former; and,
while dictating his despatches, Napoleon continued to pace the room,
rubbing his hands with an air of satisfaction. Josephine, meanwhile,
stood beguiling the time allotted by her lord to the duties of empire,
by admiring, in one of the lofty mirrors of the saloon, the elegant
coquetry of her own dress, and the splendour of the jewels in which she
was arrayed.
After the departure of the secretary, the Emperor took his seat; and,
while resting his elbow on a table covered with crimson velvet, richly
fringed with gold, he fell into a train of reflection, announced by the
expression of his countenance, of a highly agreeable nature. But the
silence in which he was absorbed was far from satisfactory to Josephine.
She felt that he had deported himself harshly towards her that morning,
in the affair of the Fenestrella memorial. But she was beginning to
perceive that she had been precipitate in pressing her request at an
inauspicious moment; and promised herself to repair the injury she might
have done her _protégé_, by referring, at a more convenient season, his
petition to the Emperor. The happy moment, she fancied, was now arrived!
Seating herself at the table, exactly opposite to Napoleon, and resting,
like himself, her chin upon her hand, she met his inquiring looks with a
smile, and demanded the subject of his cogitations.
“Of what am I thinking?” replied the Emperor, in a cheerful tone—“that
the imperial diadem is a very becoming ornament; and that I should have
been much to blame if I had not added such a trinket to your majesty’s
casket.”
The smiles of Josephine subsided as he spoke, while those of the
Emperor brightened. He was fond of repressing those nervous tremors
and evil auguries on the part of the Empress, naturally excited by the
extraordinary change of condition which had elevated a simple subject to
the imperial throne.
“Are you not better pleased to salute me Emperor than general?” he
persisted, without noticing her serious looks.
“I am—for the higher title endows you with the prerogative of mercy,” she
replied; “and I have an appeal to make to your clemency.”
It was now Napoleon’s turn to relapse into gravity. Knitting his brows,
he prepared himself sternly for resistance—ever on the watch lest the
influence of Josephine over his mind should beguile him into some
culpable weakness in matters of state.
“How often have you promised me,” said he in a tone of severity, “to
interfere no more with the course of public justice? Do you suppose that
the privilege of according pardon is assigned to sovereigns, that they
may gratify the caprices of their private feelings? Mercy should be
exercised only to soften the too rigorous justice of the laws, or rectify
the errors of public tribunals. To extend one’s hand in continual acts
of forgiveness, is wantonly to multiply and strengthen the ranks of the
enemies of government.”
“Nevertheless, sire,” remonstrated Josephine, concealing with her
handkerchief the tendency to mirth which she could scarcely repress, “you
will certainly comply with the request I am about to make.”
“I doubt it.”
“And I persist in my opinion; for it is an act of justice rather than of
clemency, I implore at your hands. I demand that two oppressors should
be removed from the post they hold! Yes, sire—let them be dismissed with
ignominy—let them be condemned, and discarded for ever from the service
of your majesty!”
“How, Josephine!” cried Napoleon, “it is by _your_ lips that for once I
am instigated to severity? Have _you_ become the advocate of punishment?
Upon whom, pray, are you thus desirous to call down vengeance?”
“Upon two flagstones, sire, which are superfluous in the pavement of
a courtyard!” replied the Empress, indulging, unrestrained, in the
merriment she had so long found it difficult to repress.
“Two flagstones! are you making a jest of me?” cried Napoleon, in a
severe tone, piqued at supposing himself treated with levity by his wife.
“Never was I more truly in earnest,” replied Josephine, “for on the
removal of these two stones depends the happiness of a suffering human
being. Let me entreat your majesty’s attention to a history that requires
your utmost indulgence, both towards myself and its unfortunate object.”
And without farther circumlocution, she proceeded to acquaint him with
the particulars of her singular interview with Teresa Girardi, and the
devoted services of the poor girl towards a friendless prisoner, whose
name she studiously kept concealed. While enlarging on the sufferings of
the captive, on his passion for his plant, and the disinterestedness of
his young and lovely advocate—all the natural eloquence of a humane and
truly feminine heart flowed from her lips, and irradiated her speaking
countenance.
Impressed by the animation of her gestures, a respondent smile played
upon the lips of the Emperor; but that smile, alas! was an exclusive
tribute to the attractions and excellencies of his wife!
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
CHAPTER VI.
During this tedious interval, the unhappy Charney was counting the hours,
the minutes, the seconds, with the utmost impatience: he felt as if the
minutest divisions of time were maliciously heaping themselves together,
to weigh down the head of his devoted flower!
Two days had now elapsed. The messenger brought back no tidings; and even
the venerable Girardi was growing uneasy, and beginning to deduce evil
auguries from the absence of his daughter. Hitherto, however, he had
not named his messenger to the Count; and, while trying to awaken hope
in the heart of his companion, experienced the mortification of hearing
accusations against the zeal and fidelity of the person to whom the
mission had been intrusted. Girardi could no longer refrain from accusing
himself in secret of having hazarded the safety of his child. “Teresa,
my daughter, my dear daughter!” he exclaimed, amid the stillness of his
gloomy chamber, “what—what has become of you?” And, lo! the third day
came, and no Teresa made her appearance.
When the fourth arrived, Girardi had not strength to show himself at the
window. Charney could not even catch a glimpse of his fellow-prisoner;
but had he lent a more attentive ear, he might, perhaps, have overheard
the supplications, broken by sobs, addressed to Heaven by the poor old
man, for the safety of his only child. A dark veil of misery seemed
suddenly to have overspread that little spot; where, but a short time
before, in spite of the absence of liberty, cheerfulness and contentment
diffused their enlivening sunshine.
The very plant was progressing rapidly to its last; and Charney found
himself compelled to watch over the dying moments of his Picciola. He
had now a double cause for affliction: a dread of losing the object of
his attachment, and of having degraded himself by useless humiliation—if
he should have humbled himself in the dust, only to be repulsed from the
footstool of the usurper.
As if the whole world were in a conspiracy against him, Ludovico,
formerly so kind, so communicative, so genuine, seemed unwilling now to
address to him a single word. Taciturn and morose, the jailer came and
went, passed through the court, or returned by the winding staircase,
with his pipe in his mouth, as if to avoid uttering a syllable. He seemed
to have taken a spite against the affliction of his captive. The fact
was, that from the moment the refusal of the commandant had been made
known, the jailer began to prepare for the moment which he foresaw was
about to take place before him, the alternative of his duty and his
inclination. Duty, he knew, must eventually prevail; and he affected
sullenness and brutality, by way of gaining courage for the effort.
Such is the custom of persons unrefined by the polish of education. In
fulfilling whatever harsh functions may be assigned them, they try to
extinguish every generous impulse in their souls, rather than soften
them by courtesy of deportment. Poor Ludovico’s goodness of heart was
rarely demonstrated in _words_; and where kindly _deeds_ were interdicted
by those in authority over him, his secret compassion usually found
vent in surliness towards the very victim exciting his commiseration.
If his ill-humour should call forth resentment, so much the better: his
duty became all the easier. War is indispensable between victim and
executioner, prisoner and jailer.
[Illustration]
When the dinner hour arrived, Ludovico, finding Charney transfixed in
mournful contemplation beside his plant, took care not to present himself
in the gay mood with which he was wont to accost the Count; sometimes
sportively addressing his god-daughter as “_Giovanetta, fanciuletta_,” or
inquiring after the health of the “Count and Countess;” but, traversing
the court in haste, without noticing his prisoner, he pretends to suppose
him in the chamber above. By some accidental movement, however, on the
part of Charney, Ludovico suddenly found himself face to face with the
captive; and was shocked to perceive the change which the lapse of a
few days had effected in his countenance. Impatience and anxiety had
furrowed his brow, and discoloured his lips, and wasted his cheeks; while
the disorder of his hair and beard served to increase the wildness of
his aspect. Against his will, Ludovico stood motionless, contemplating
these melancholy changes; but, suddenly, calling to mind his previous
resolutions, he cast an eye upon the flower, winked ironically, shrugged
his shoulders, whistled a lively air, and was about to take his
departure, when Charney murmured, in a scarcely recognisable voice, “What
injury have I done to you, Ludovico?”
“_Me!_—done to _me_! None, that I know of,” replied the jailer, more
deeply touched than he cared to show, by the plaintiveness of this
apostrophe.
“In that case,” said the Count, advancing towards him and seizing him by
the hand, “be still my friend! Aid me while there is yet time! I have
found means of evading all objections! The commandant can have no farther
scruples—nay, he need not know a word of the matter. Procure me only a
box of earth—we will gently raise the stones for a moment and transplant
the flower——”
“Ta-ta-ta-ta-ta!” interrupted Ludovico, drawing back his hand. “The devil
take the gilly-flower, for aught I care! She has done mischief enough
already; beginning with yourself, who are about, I see, to have another
fit of illness. Better make a pitcher of tisane of her before ’tis too
late.”
Charney replied by an eloquent glance of scorn and indignation.
“If it were only yourself who had to suffer,” resumed Ludovico, “you
would have yourself to thank, and there would be an end on’t. But there
is a poor old man, whom you have deprived of his daughter; for Signor
Girardi will see no more of his unhappy Teresa.”
“Deprived of his daughter!” cried the Count, his eyes dilating with
horror, “how?—in what manner?”
“Ay! _how?_ in what manner?” pursued the jailer, setting down his basket
of provisions, and taking the attitude of one about to administer a harsh
reprimand. “People lay the whip to the horses, and pretend to wonder when
the carriage rolls on. People let fly the stiletto, and pretend to wonder
when blood flows from the wound. _Trondidio! O che frascheria!_ You
choose to write to the Emperor—’twas your own affair: you wrote. Well and
good! You infringed the discipline of the prison, and the commandant will
find ’tis time to punish you. Well and good again. But, because you must
needs have a trusty messenger to convey your unlucky letter, nothing less
would serve you than to employ the _povera damigella_ on your fool’s
errand!”
“How!—you mean that Girardi’s daughter——”
“Ay, ay! open your eyes, and look surprised,” interrupted Ludovico. “Did
you suppose that your correspondence with the Emperor was to be conveyed
by the telegraph? The telegraph, sir, has got other business on hand. All
that I have got to tell you is, that the commandant has discovered the
whole plot; perhaps through the guide (for the _Giovana_ could not hazard
herself alone on such an expedition). And so she is forbid to re-enter
the fortress. Her poor father will behold her face no more. And through
whose fault, I should like to know?”
Charney covered his face with his hands, and groaned aloud.
“Unhappy Girardi! have I, indeed, deprived thee of thine only
consolation?” cried he, at last. Then, turning to Ludovico, he inquired
whether the old man was apprised of what had befallen him.
“He has known it since yesterday,” replied the jailer; “and no doubt
loves you all the better. But make haste! your dinner is getting cold!”
Charney, overwhelmed with grief, sank upon his bench. A momentary pang
suggested to him to crush Picciola at once, executing retributive
justice upon her with his own hand. But he had not courage for a deed so
ruthless; and a faint hope already seemed to glimmer in the distance,
for his favourite. The young maiden, who had thus generously devoted
herself to serve him, must be already returned. Perhaps she had been able
to approach the Emperor? Yes! doubtless she has been admitted to the
honour of an audience; and it is this discovery which has so irritated
the commandant against her. The commandant may possibly have in his
possession an order for the liberation of Picciola! In that case how
dares he venture on further delay? The commands of the Emperor _must_ be
obeyed. “Blessings, blessings,” thought Charney, “on the noble girl who
has befriended us—the girl whom I have been the means of separating from
her father! Teresa! sweet Teresa! how willingly would I sacrifice half my
existence for thy sake—for thy happiness—nay, what would I _not_ give for
the mere power of opening to thee once again the gates of the fortress of
Fenestrella!”
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
CHAPTER VII.
Scarcely half an hour had elapsed after the intimation conveyed by
Ludovico, when two municipal officers, arrayed in their tri-coloured
scarfs of office, presented themselves, accompanied by the commandant,
before the Count de Charney, and requested him to accompany them to his
own chamber; on arriving in which, the commandant addressed his prisoner
with considerable pomposity and deliberation.
The commandant was a man of dignified corpulency, having a round bald
head, and gray and bushy whiskers. A deep scar, extending from his left
eyebrow to the upper lip, seemed to divide his face in two. A long, blue,
uniform coat, with prodigious skirts, buttoned closely to the chin,
top-boots over his pantaloons, a slight tint of powder on his remnant of
a braided pigtail, and scanty side-curls, spurs to his boots (by way of
distinction, doubtless, for the rheumatism had long constituted him chief
prisoner in his own citadel)—such were the outward and visible signs of
the dignitary, whose only warlike weapon was the cane on which his gouty
limbs leaned for support.
Appointed to the custody of prisoners of state alone, most of whom were
members of families of distinction, the commandant piqued himself on his
good breeding, in spite of frequent outbreaks of fury: and, in spite of
certain infractions of prosody and syntax, on the chosen elegance of
his language. He was upright, moreover, as a pikestaff; rejoiced in an
emphatic and sonorous voice; flourished his hand when he attempted a bow,
and scratched his head when he attempted a speech. Thus qualified and
endowed, the brave Morand, captain and commandant of Fenestrella, passed
for a fine soldierlike-looking man, and an efficient public functionary.
From the courteous tone assumed in his initiatory address, and the
professional attitude of the two commissaries by whom he was accompanied,
Charney fancied that their sole business was to deliver to him a reprieve
for his unhappy Picciola. But the commandant’s next sentence consisted
in an inquiry, whether, upon any specific occasion, the prisoner had
to complain of his want of courtesy or abuse of authority. The Count,
still flattering himself that such a preamble augured well for the
accomplishment of his hopes, certified all, and more than all, that
civility seemed to require in reply to this leading question.
“You cannot, I imagine, sir, have forgotten,” persisted the commandant,
“the care and kindness lavished upon you during your illness? If it
was not your pleasure to submit to the prescriptions of the physicians
appointed to visit you, the fault was neither theirs nor mine, but your
own. When it occurred to me that your convalescence might be accelerated
by a greater facility for taking air and exercise, you were instantly
allowed, at all times and seasons, access to the prison-court?”
Charney inclined his head in token of grateful affirmation. But
impatience of the good man’s circumlocution already caused him to
compress his lips.
“Nevertheless, sir,” resumed the commandant, in the tone of a man
whose feelings have been wounded, and whose advances were repaid with
ingratitude, “you have not scrupled to infringe the regulations of the
fortress, of the tenor of which you could not have been ignorant;
compromising me thereby in the eyes of General Menon, the governor of
Piedmont; nay, perhaps, of his gracious majesty the Emperor himself. The
memorial which you have contrived to place before him——”
[Illustration]
“Place before him!” interrupted Charney; “has he then received it?”
“Of course he has received it.”
“And the result—the result!” cried the Count, trembling with anxiety;
“what has been decreed?”
“That, as a punishment for your breach of discipline, you are to be
confined a month in the dungeon of the northern bastion of the fortress
of Fenestrella.”
“But what said the Emperor to my application?” cried the Count, unable to
resign at once all his cherished hopes of redress.
“Do you suppose, sir, that the Emperor has leisure for the consideration
of any such contemptible absurdities?” was the disdainful reply of the
commandant; on which Charney, throwing himself in complete abstraction
into the only chair the chamber happened to contain, became evidently
unconscious of all that was passing around him.
“This is not all!” resumed the commandant; “your communications with
the exterior of the fortress, being thus ascertained, it is natural to
suppose that your correspondence may have been more extensive than we
know of, and I beg to inquire whether you have addressed letters to any
person besides his majesty the Emperor?”
To this address Charney vouchsafed no reply.
“An official examination of your chamber and effects is about to take
place,” added the man in authority. “These gentlemen are appointed by the
governor of Turin for the inquisitorial duty, which they will discharge
punctually, according to legal form, in your presence. But previous to
the execution of the warrant, I request to know whether you have any
personal revelations to make? Voluntary disclosures, sir, might operate
favourably in your behalf.”
Still, however, the prisoner remained obstinately silent; and the
commandant, knitting his brows and contracting his high forehead into a
hundred solemn wrinkles, assumed an air of severity, and motioned to the
delegates of General Menon to proceed with their duty. They immediately
began to ransack the chamber, from the chimney and palliasse of the
bed, to the linings of the coats of the prisoner; while Morand paced up
and down the narrow chamber, tapping with his cane every square of the
flooring, to ascertain whether excavations existed for the concealment
of papers or preparations for flight. He called to mind the escape of
Latude and other prisoners from the Bastille; where moats, both deep and
wide, walls ten feet thick—gratings, counterscarps, drawbridges, ramparts
bristled with cannon and palisades, sentinels at every postern, on every
parapet—had proved insufficient to baffle the perseverance of a man
armed with a cord and a nail! The Bastille of Fenestrella was far from
possessing the same iron girdle of strength and security. Since the year
1796, the fortifications had been in part demolished, and the citadel was
now defended only by a few sentries, planted on the external bastion.
After a search prolonged as far as the limited space would allow, nothing
of a suspicious nature was brought to light, with the exception of a
small vial, containing a blackish liquid, which had probably served the
prisoner for ink. Interrogated as to the means by which it came into his
possession, Charney turned towards the window, and began tapping with his
fingers on the glass, without condescending to reply to the importunate
querists.
The dressing-case still remained to be examined, but, on being required
to give up the key, the Count, instead of presenting it with becoming
respect to the commandant, almost threw it into the hand extended towards
him.
Thus boldly defied in presence of his subordinates, the commandant
disdained all farther attempts at conciliation. He was, in fact,
suffocating with rage. His eyes sparkled, his complexion became livid,
and he bustled up and down the little chamber, buttoning and unbuttoning
his coat, as if to exhaust the transports of his repressed indignation.
[Illustration]
At length, by a spontaneous movement, the two sbirri, occupied in the
examination of the casket, holding it in one hand and turning over its
contents with the other, advanced towards the window, to ascertain
whether it contained secret drawers, and immediately exclaimed, in tones
of triumph, “All’s right! The mystery is in our hands.”
Drawing out from beneath the false bottom of the case a number of
cambric handkerchiefs, closely scribbled over and carefully folded, they
were satisfied of having obtained possession of the proofs of a widely
organized conspiracy; for at this profanation of the sacred archives so
dear to him, Charney started up and extended his hand to snatch back
the treasures of which he saw himself despoiled. Then, struck by the
consciousness of his own incapacity of resistance, he reseated himself in
his chair, without uttering a syllable of remonstrance.
But the impetuosity of his first movements was not lost upon the
governor; who saw at once that the documents which had fallen into his
hands were of the highest importance in the estimation of the Count. The
handkerchiefs, therefore, were deposited, on the spot, in a government
despatch-bag, duly sealed and docketed. Even the soot-bottle and
tooth-pick were confiscated to the state! A report was drawn up of the
proceedings which had taken place, to which the signature of Charney was
formally demanded—impatiently refused—and the refusal duly recorded at
the end of the document; after which, the commandant issued his mandate
for the immediate transfer of the prisoner to the northern bastion.
What vague, confused, and painful emotions prevailed, meanwhile, in
the mind of the prisoner! Charney was alive only to a single stroke of
his afflictions; a stroke which deadened his consciousness of all the
rest. He had not so much as a smile of pity to bestow upon the imaginary
triumph of the blockheads who were carrying off what they supposed to be
the groundwork of a criminal impeachment; but which consisted in a series
of scientific observations upon the growth and properties of his plant.
Yes, even his tenderest recollections snatched from his possession, and
an impassioned lover required to give up the letters of his mistress,
can alone enter into the despair of the captive. To preserve Picciola
from destruction, he had tarnished his honour, his self-esteem; broken
the heart of a benevolent old man; destroyed the happiness of a gentle
and lovely girl; and of all that had sufficed to attach him to a life of
wretchedness. Every trace is now effaced—every record destroyed—the very
journal of those happy hours which he had enjoyed in the presence of his
idol, is torn for ever from his possession!
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
CHAPTER VIII.
The intervention of Josephine in Charney’s favour had not proved so
efficient as might have been supposed. At the conclusion of her mild
intercessions in favour of the prisoner and his plant, when she proceeded
to place in the hands of Napoleon the handkerchief inscribed with his
memorial, the Emperor recalled to mind the singular indifference—so
mortifying to his self-love—with which, during the warlike evolutions of
the morning at Marengo, Josephine had cast her vacant, careless gaze upon
the commemoration of his triumph. And thus predisposed to displeasure,
the obnoxious name of Charney served only to aggravate his ill-humour.
“Is the man mad?” cried he, “or does he pretend to deceive me by a farce?
A Jacobin turned botanist?—about as good a jest as Marat descanting in
the tribune on the pleasures of a pastoral life; or Couthon presenting
himself to the Convention with a rose in his button-hole!”
Josephine vainly attempted to appeal against the name of Jacobin thus
lightly bestowed upon the Count; for, as she commenced her remonstrance,
a chamberlain made his appearance to announce that the general officers,
ambassadors, and deputies of Italy, were awaiting their majesties in the
audience-chamber; where, having hastily repaired, Napoleon immediately
burst forth into a denunciation against visionaries, philosophers,
and liberals, mainly inspired by the recent mention of the Count de
Charney. In an imperious tone, he threatened that all such disturbers of
public order should be speedily reduced to submission; but the loud and
threatening tone he had assumed, which was supposed to be a spontaneous
outbreak of passion, was, in fact, a premeditated lesson bestowed on
the assembly; and more especially on the Prussian ambassador, who was
present at the scene. Napoleon seized the opportunity to announce to the
representatives of Europe the divorce of the Emperor of the French from
the principles of the French revolution!
By way of homage to the throne, the subordinates of the Emperor hastened
to emulate his new profession of faith. The general commandant at Turin,
more especially, Jacques-Abdallah Menon, forgetting or renouncing his
former principles, burst forth into a furious diatribe against the pseudo
Brutuses of the clubs and taverns of Italy and France; on which signal
arose from the minions of the empire a unanimous chorus of execrations
against all conspirators, revolutionists, and more especially Jacobins,
till, overawed by their virulence, Josephine began to tremble at the
storm she had been unwittingly the means of exciting. At length,
drawing near to the ear of Napoleon, she took courage to whisper, in a
tone of mingled tenderness and irony, “What need, sire, of all these
denunciations? My memorial regards neither a Jacobin nor a conspirator;
but simply a poor plant, whose plots against the safety of the empire
should scarcely excite such vast tumults of consternation.”
Napoleon shrugged his shoulders. “Can you suppose me the dupe of such
absurd pretences?” he exclaimed. “This Charney is a man of high
faculties and the most dangerous principles—would you pass him upon me
for a blockhead? The flower, the pavement, the whole romance, is a mere
pretext. The fellow is getting up a plan of escape! It must be looked to.
Menon! let a careful eye be kept upon the movements of those imprisoned
for political offences in the citadel of Fenestrella. One Charney has
presumed to address to me a memorial. How did he manage to forward his
petition otherwise than through the hands of the commandant? Is such the
discipline kept up in the state-prisons of the empire?”
Again the Empress ventured to interpose in defence of her _protégé_.
“Enough, madam, enough of this man!” exclaimed the commander-in-chief;
and discouraged and alarmed by the displeasure expressed in his words
and looks, Josephine cast down her eyes and was silent from confusion.
General Menon, on the other hand, mortified by the public rebuke
of the Emperor, was not sparing in the reprimand despatched to the
captain-commandant of the citadel of Fenestrella; who, in his turn, as we
have seen, vented his vexation on the prisoners committed to his charge.
Even Girardi, in addition to the cruel sentence of separation from his
daughter (who, on arriving full of hopes at the gate of the fortress, was
commanded to appear there no more), had been subjected, like Charney,
to a domiciliary visit, by which, however, nothing unsatisfactory was
elicited.
But emotions more painful than those resulting from the forfeiture of
his manuscripts, now awaited the Count; as he traversed the courtyard on
his way to the bastion with the commandant and his two acolytes, Captain
Morand, who had either passed without notice on his arrival, the fences
and scaffolding surrounding the plant, or was now stimulated by the
arrogant contumacy of Charney to an act of vengeance, paused to point out
to Ludovico this glaring breach of prison discipline manifested before
his eyes.
“What is the meaning of all this rubbish?” cried he. “Is _such_, sir, the
order you maintain in your department?”
“_That_, captain,” replied the jailer, in a half-hesitating,
half-grumbling tone, drawing his pipe out of his mouth with one hand and
raising the other to his cap in a military salute, “_that_, under your
favour, is the plant I told you of—which is so good for the gout and all
sorts of disorders.”
[Illustration]
Then, letting fall his arm by an imperceptible movement, he replaced his
pipe in its usual place.
“Death and the devil!” cried the captain, “if these gentlemen were
allowed to have their own way, all the chambers and courts of the citadel
might be made into gardens, menageries, or shops—like so many stalls at a
fair. Away with this weed at once, and everything belonging to it!”
Ludovico turned his eyes alternately towards the captain, the Count, and
the flower, and was about to interpose a word or two of expostulation.
“Silence!” cried the commandant; “silence, and do your duty.”
Thus fiercely admonished, Ludovico held his peace; removing the pipe
once more from his mouth, he extinguished it, shook out the dust, and
deposited it on the edge of the wall while he proceeded to business.
Deliberately laying aside his cap, his waistcoat, and rubbing his hands
as if to gain courage for the job, he paused a moment, then suddenly,
with a movement of anger, as if against himself or his chief, seized
the haybands and matting, and dispersed them over the court. Next went
the uprights which had supported them, which he tore up one after the
other, broke over his knee, and threw the pieces on the pavement. His
former tenderness for Picciola seemed suddenly converted into a fit of
abhorrence.
Charney, meanwhile, stood motionless and stupefied, his eyes fixed
wistfully upon the plant thus exposed to view, as if his looks could
still afford protection to its helplessness. The day had been cool, the
sky overclouded, and from the stem, which had rallied during the night,
sprang several little healthy, verdant shoots. It seemed as though
Picciola were collecting all her strength to die!
_To die!_ Picciola!—his own, his only!—the world of his existence and
his dreams, the pivot on which revolved his very life, to be reduced
to nothingness! Midway in his aspirations towards a higher sphere,
the flight of the poor captive, over whose head heaven has suspended
its sentence of expiation, is to be suddenly arrested! How will he
henceforward fill up the vacant moments of his leisure? how satisfy the
aching void in his own bosom? Picciola, the desert which thou didst
people is about to become once more a solitary wilderness! No more
visions, no more hopes, no more reminiscences, no more discoveries to
inscribe, no farther objects of affection! How narrow will his prison now
appear—how oppressive its atmosphere—the atmosphere of a tomb—the tomb of
Picciola! The golden branch—the sibylline divining rod, which sufficed
to exorcise the evil spirits by which he was beset, will no longer
protect him against himself! The sceptic—the disenchanted philosopher,
must return to his former mood of incredulity, and bear once more the
burden of his bitter thoughts, with no prospect before him but eternal
extinction! No, death were a thousand times preferable to such a destiny!
As these thoughts glanced through the mind of Charney, he beheld, at
the little grated window, the shadow of the venerable Girardi. “Alas!”
murmured the Count, “I have deprived him of all he had to live for; and
he comes to triumph over my affliction—to curse me—to deride me! And he
is right; for what are sorrows such as mine compared to those I have
heaped upon his revered head?”
Charney perceived the old man clasping the iron window-bars in his
trembling hands, but dared not meet his eyes and hazard an appeal to the
forgiveness of the only human being of whose esteem he was ambitious.
The Count dreaded to find that venerable countenance distorted by the
expression of reproach or contempt; and when at length their glances met,
he was touched to the soul by the look of tender compassion cast upon him
by the unhappy father—forgetful of his own sorrows in beholding those of
his companion in misfortune. The only tears that had ever fallen from
the eyes of the Count de Charney started at that trying moment! But,
consolatory as they were, he dried them hurriedly as they fell, in the
dread of exposing his weakness to the contempt and misapprehension of the
men by whom he was surrounded.
[Illustration]
Among the spectators of this singular scene, the two sbirri alone
remained indifferent to what was passing—staring vacantly at the
prisoner, the old man, the commandant, and the jailer; wondering what
reference their emotions might bear to the supposed conspiracy, and
nothing doubting that the mysterious plant, about to be dislodged, would
prove to have been a cover to some momentous hiding-place.
Meanwhile, the fatal operations proceeded. Under the orders of the
commandant, Ludovico was attempting to take up the rustic bench, which at
first seemed to resist his feeble efforts.
“A mallet—take a mallet!” cried Captain Morand.
Ludovico obeyed; but the mallet fell from his hands.
“Death and the devil! how much longer am I to be kept waiting?” now
vociferated the captain; and the jailer immediately let fall a blow,
under which the bench gave way in a moment. Mechanically, Ludovico bent
down towards his god-daughter, which was now alone and undefended in the
court; while the Count stood ghastly and overpowered, big drops of agony
rising upon his brow.
“Why destroy it, sir? why destroy it? You must perceive that the plant is
about to die!” he faltered, descending once more to the abject position
of a suppliant. But the captain replied only by a glance of ironical
compassion. It was now his turn to remain silent!
[Illustration]
“Nay, then,” cried Charney, in a sort of frenzy, “since it must needs be
sacrificed, it shall die by no hand but mine!”
“I forbid you to touch it!” exclaimed the commandant; and, extending his
cane before Charney, as if to create a barrier between the prisoner and
his idol, he renewed his orders to Ludovico, who, seizing the stem, was
about to uproot it from the earth.
The Count, startled into submission, stood like an image of despair.
Near the bottom of the stem, below the lowest branches, where the sap
had got power to circulate, a single flower, fresh and brilliant, had
just expanded! Already, all the others were drooping, withered, on their
stalks; but this single one retained its beauty, as yet uncrushed by
the rude hand of the jailer. Springing in the midst of a little tuft of
leaves, whose verdure threw out in contrast the vivid colours of its
petals, the flower seemed to turn imploringly towards its master. He even
fancied its last perfumes were exhaling towards him; and, as the tears
rose in his eyes, seemed to see the beloved object enlarge, disappear,
and at last bloom out anew. The human being and the flower, so strangely
attached to each other, were interchanging an eternal farewell!
If, at that moment, when so many human passions were called into action
by the existence of an humble vegetable, a stranger could have entered,
unprepared, the prison-court of Fenestrella, where the sky shed a sombre
and saddening reflection, the aspect of the officers of justice, invested
in their tri-coloured scarfs—of the commandant, issuing his ruthless
orders in a tone of authority—would naturally have seemed to announce
some frightful execution, of which Ludovico was the executioner, and
Charney the victim, whose sentence of death had just been recited to him.
And see, they come! strangers _are_ entering the court—two strangers, the
one, an aide-de-camp of General Menon, the other, a page of the Empress
Josephine. The dust with which their uniforms were covered attests with
what speed they have performed their journey to the fortress; yet a
minute more, and they had been too late!
At the noise produced by their arrival, Ludovico, raising his head,
relaxed his grasp of Picciola, and confronted Charney. Both the jailer
and the prisoner were pale as death!
The commandant had now received from the hands of the aide-de-camp an
order, the perusal of which seemed to strike him with astonishment; but
after taking a turn or two in the courtyard, to compare in his mind
the order of to-day with that of the day preceding, he assumed a more
courteous demeanour, and, approaching the Count de Charney, placed in his
hands the missive of General Menon. Trembling with emotion, the prisoner
read as follows:
“His majesty, the Emperor and King, deputes me, sir, to inform you that
he grants the petition forwarded to him by the prisoner Charney, now
under your custody in the fortress of Fenestrella, relative to a plant
growing among the stones of one of its pavements. Such as are likely to
be injurious to the flower must be instantly removed; for which purpose
you are requested to consult the wishes and convenience of your prisoner.”
“Long live the Emperor!” cried Ludovico.
“Long live the Emperor!” murmured another voice, which seemed to
issue from the adjoining wall; and while all this was proceeding,
the commandant stood leaning on his cane, by way of keeping himself
in countenance; the two officers of justice, completely puzzled, were
trying in vain to connect the new turn of affairs with the plot which
their imagination had created; while the aide-de-camp and page secretly
wondered what could be the motive of the haste which had been so urgently
recommended to them. The latter now addressed Charney, to inform him that
the letter contained a postscript in the handwriting of the Empress; and
the Count, turning over the page, read aloud as follows:
“I earnestly recommend Monsieur the Count de Charney to the
good offices of Captain Morand; to whom I shall feel personally
obliged for any acts of kindness by which he may be enabled to
alleviate the situation of his prisoner.
“JOSEPHINE.”
“Long live the Empress!” cried Ludovico. Charney said not a word. _His_
feelings could not be satisfied with less than raising to his lips the
precious signature of his benefactress. The letter, held for some minutes
in silence before his eyes, served to conceal his face from the curiosity
of the spectators.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
BOOK III.
CHAPTER I.
The commandant of Fenestrella was now unrelaxing in his courtesies
towards the _protégé_ of her majesty the Empress Queen. There was no
further mention of a transfer to the northern bastion; and Charney was
even authorized to reconstruct his fences for the defence of Picciola;
who, feeble and delicate after her recent transplantation, had more than
ever occasion for protection. So completely indeed had Captain Morand’s
irritation of feeling against the prisoner and plant subsided, that every
morning Ludovico appeared with a message of inquiry from the commandant
after the wants and wishes of the Count, and the health of his pretty
Picciola.
Profiting by these favourable dispositions, Charney obtained from
his munificence an allowance of pens, ink, and paper, wherewith to
commemorate the sequel of his studies and observations on vegetable
physiology; for the letter of the Governor of Turin did not go so far
as to cancel the confiscation which had taken place of his former
lucubrations. The two judiciary sbirri, after carrying off his cambric
archives, and submitting them to the most careful examination, admitted
their incompetency to discover a key to the cipher, and transmitted the
whole to the minister of police in Paris, that more able decipherers
might be employed to search out the root of the mystery.
[Illustration]
But Charney had now to deplore a far more important privation. The
commandant, resolved to visit upon Girardi, the only victim within his
reach, the reprimand originally addressed to him by General Menon, had
consigned the venerable Italian to a stronger part of the fortress,
secure from all communication with the exterior; and the Count could not
refrain from bitter self-reproaches, when he reflected upon the miserable
isolation of the poor old man.
The greater portion of the day his eyes remained mournfully fixed upon
the grating in the wall, the little window of which was now closed up.
In fancy he still beheld Girardi extending his arm through the bars,
and trying to bestow upon him a friendly pressure of the hand; nay, he
still seemed to see his precious memorial to the Emperor, fluttering
against the wall and gradually drawn up from his own hands to those of
Girardi—thence to proceed to the hands of Teresa and the Empress. The
very glance of pity and pardon cast down upon him by Girardi in his
moment of anguish seemed to shine ineffaceably on the spot; and often
did he hear again the cry of exultation which burst from the window on
the arrival of Picciola’s reprieve. That very sentence of pardon is
in fact the gift of Girardi and Girardi’s daughter: and though solely
serviceable to himself, has become the fatal origin of their separation
and the sorrows of the parent and his child.
Even the countenance of Teresa was restored, by the efforts of his
imagination, to the spot where alone it had been momentarily revealed to
his eyes, at the close of the uneasy dream which he now believed to have
foreshown the approaching perils of his plant. Inseparably united in his
mind with the Picciola of his dreams, it was always under _her_ form and
features that the living Teresa Girardi was revealed to him.
One day, as, with his eyes upraised towards the grating, the prisoner
stood indulging in these and similar illusions, the dim and dusty window
was flung open, and a female form appeared behind the grating. But the
new-comer was a swarthy, savage-looking woman, with rapacious eyes,
and an enormous goître, in whom the Count soon recognised the wife of
Ludovico.
From that moment Charney never cast his eyes towards the window. The
charm was broken.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
CHAPTER II.
Relieved from all constraint, imbedded in new earth, and capaciously
framed in the wide pavement, Picciola seemed to rise triumphantly from
her tribulations. She had, however, survived her summer blossoms; with
the exception of that single flower, the last to open and the last to
fall.
Charney already foresaw important discoveries to be deduced from the
seed, which was swelling and ripening in the calyx. He promised himself
the triumph of the _Dies Seminalis_, or Feast of the Sowers. For space
was no longer wanting for his experiments: Picciola has more than enough
room for her own expansion. She has every facility to become a mother,
and shelter her uprising children under her branches.
While waiting this important event, the Count becomes eager to ascertain
the real name of the fair companion, to whom he is indebted for so many
happy hours.
“Shall I never be able,” thought Charney, “to bestow upon my foundling,
my adopted child, the name she inherits from science, in common with her
legitimate sisters of the plain or mountain?”
And at the first visit paid by the commandant to his charge, the
Count admitted his desire to procure an elementary botanical work.
Morand, unwilling either to refuse or to take upon himself the vast
responsibility of compliance, thought proper to signify the demand in
punctilious form to the governor of Piedmont. But from General Menon, the
_protégé_ of the Empress was now safe from a refusal; and a botanical
dictionary soon arrived at the fortress, accompanied by all the folios
treating of botany which could be obtained from the Royal Library of
Turin.
“I have the honour,” wrote General Menon, “to facilitate to the utmost
the wishes of the Sieur Charney; for her Majesty the Empress-Queen, a
proficient in botanical science (as in many others), will doubtless be
glad to learn the name of a plant in whose welfare she has deigned to
evince an interest.”
When Ludovico made his appearance with the piles of books, under the
enormous weight of which his back was breaking, Charney could not resist
a smile.
“How!” cried he, “all this heavy artillery, to compel a poor helpless
flower to give up her name?”
Nevertheless, it afforded him satisfaction to _look_ once more upon a
book. In turning over the leaves, his heart thrilled with pleasure, as in
former days, when the attainment of knowledge was his chief delight in
life. What months had now elapsed since printed characters were before
his eyes! Already a plan of sage and sober study was concocting in his
excited mind.
“If ever I am released from captivity,” thought he, “I will certainly
become a botanist. Instead of scholastic and pedantic controversies,
which serve only to bewilder the human intellect, I will devote myself
to a science where nature, ever varying, yet still the same, dispenses
immutable laws to her disciples.”
The books forwarded for the use of the Count de Charney consisted of
the _Species Plantarum_ of Linnæus; the _Institutiones rei Herbariæ_ of
Tournefort; the _Theatrum Botanicum_ of Bauhin; and the _Phytographia_,
_Dendrologia_, and _Agrostographia_ of Plukenet, Aldrovandus, and
Scheuchzer; besides half a hundred works of minor classicality, in the
French, English, and Italian languages.
[Illustration]
Though somewhat startled by so formidable an array of learning, the Count
was not discouraged; and, by way of preparation for the worst, opened
the thinnest volume of the collection, and began to examine the index in
search of the most euphonous titles afforded by botanic nomenclature. He
longed to appropriate to his purpose some of the softer saints of the
floral calendar; such as Alcea, Alisma, Andryala, Bromelia, Celosia,
Coronilla, Euphrasia, Helvelia, Passiflora, Primula, Santolina, or some
other equally soft to the lip and harmonious to the ear.
And, now, for the first time, he began to tremble, lest his pretty
favourite should inherit some quaint or harsh patronymic. A masculine
or neuter termination would put to flight all his poetical vagaries
concerning his gentle friend. What, for instance, would become of
his ethereal Picciola, if her earthly prototype were to be saluted
as _Rumex obtusifolius_, _Satyrium_, _Hyoscyamus_, _Gossypium_,
_Cynoglossum_, _Cucubalus_, _Cenchrus_, _Buxus_; or, worse still, and in
more vulgar phrase, as Old Man, Dogtooth, Houndstongue, Cuckoo-flower,
Devil-in-a-bush, Hen and Chickens, or Spiderwort! How should he support
such a disenchantment of his imagination! No! better not to risk the
vexation of such an ordeal.
Yet, in spite of himself, he found it impossible to resist the temptation
of opening every successive volume—led on from page to page by the
development of the mighty mysteries of nature, but irritated by the love
of system prevailing among the learned, by whom so charming a science has
been rendered the harshest, most technical, and most perplexed, of all
the branches of natural history.
[Illustration]
For a whole week he devoted himself to the analysis of his flower, with
a view to classification, but without success. In the chaos of so many
strange words, varying from system to system—bewildered by the vast
and ponderous synonymy, which, like the net of Vulcan, overspreads the
beauties of botany, overpowering them by its weight, he soon gave up
the attempt; having consulted each author in succession, for a clew,
wandering from classes to orders, from orders to tribes, from tribes
to families, from families to species, from species to individuals;
and losing all patience with the blind guides, ever at variance among
themselves with respect to the purpose and denomination of the parts of
organization in vegetable life.
At the close of his investigations, the poor little flower, the last
upon the tree, examined petal by petal, and to the very depth of her
calyx, suddenly fell off one day into the hand of the operator, bearing
with it Charney’s hopes of inquiry into the progress of the seed, the
reproduction of his favourite, the maternity of the lovely Picciola!
“She shall have no other title than PICCIOLA!” cried Charney. “Picciola,
the flower of the captive. What do I want to know more of her name or
nature? To what purpose this idle thirst after human knowledge?”
In a moment of petulance, Charney even threw down the vast heap of folios
which had served to perplex him; when, from one of the volumes, came
fluttering forth a slip of paper, on which had been recently inscribed,
in the handwriting of a woman, the following verse, purporting to be a
quotation from the Holy Scriptures:
“Hope, and bid thy neighbour hope: for, behold, I have not forsaken ye,
and a day of consolation is at hand.”
[Illustration]
CHAPTER III.
Charney perused and re-perused a hundred times a sentence which he
could not but believe to have been especially addressed to himself. His
correspondent was evidently a woman; but it grieved him to reflect that
the only one to whom he was indebted for real acts of service, the only
woman who had ever devoted herself to his cause, was still so imperfectly
known to him, that he was ignorant of the very sound of her voice, and
by no means sure of recognising her person, should she present herself
before him.
But by what means had Teresa contrived to evade the vigilance of his
Argus in the transmission of her letter?
Poor girl! Afraid to compromise her father by the mere mention of his
name! Unhappy father! to whom he is unable to afford consolation by the
sight of the handwriting of his child!
Often, indeed, had Charney’s nights been rendered sleepless by the idea
of the solitary old man, to whom he had been the innocent cause of such
irreparable injury, when one night, as he was lying awake, absorbed in
these afflicting recollections, his ear was struck by an unaccustomed
sound in the chamber above his own, which had remained uninhabited during
the whole period of his confinement at Fenestrella.
[Illustration]
Next morning Ludovico entered his apartment, his countenance full of
meaning, which he vainly attempted to compose to its usual vacuity of
expression.
“What is the matter?” demanded the Count; “has anything unusual occurred
in the citadel?”
“Nothing particular, _Signor Conte_; nothing of any consequence, only we
have had a sudden influx of prisoners; and the chambers of the northern
and southern turrets being full, the commandant is under the necessity
of placing another state prisoner in this part of the fortress, who must
share with you the use of the courtyard. But this need be no hindrance
to your pursuits. We receive at Fenestrella only gentlemen of high
consideration—that is, I mean we have no thieves or robbers among our
prisoners. But stay, here _is_ the new-comer, waiting to pay you his
visit of inauguration.”
Charney half rose at this announcement, scarcely knowing whether to
grieve or rejoice at the intelligence; but, on turning to do the honours
to his unexpected guest, what was his amazement to behold the door open
for the admission of—Girardi!
After gazing upon each other for a moment in silence, as if still
doubtful of the reality of their good fortune, the hands of the two
prisoners were suddenly pressed together in mutual gratulations.
“Well and good,” cried Ludovico, with a cordial smile; “no need, I see,
of a master of the ceremonies between you; the acquaintance has been
quickly made;” and away he went, leaving them to the enjoyment of each
other’s society.
“To whom are we indebted, I wonder, for this happy meeting?” was
Charney’s first exclamation.
“To my daughter—doubtless to my daughter,” replied Girardi. “Every
consolation of my life reaches me through the hands of my Teresa.”
“Do you know this handwriting?” inquired Charney, drawing from his casket
the slip of paper he so dearly treasured.
“It is Teresa’s!” cried Girardi; “it is the writing of my child!
She has not neglected us; nor have her promises been tardy in their
accomplishment. But how did this letter reach your hands?”
The Count related all the circumstances, then carelessly put forth his
hand to receive back the slip of paper; but, perceiving that the poor old
man silently detained it, perusing it word by word, letter by letter, and
raising it a thousand times, with trembling hands, to his lips, he saw
that the pledge was lost to him for ever; and experienced a regret at the
loss, which appeared almost unbearable.
After the first moments passed in conjectures, concerning Teresa and the
spot where she was likely to have taken refuge, Girardi began to examine
the lodgings of his new friend; and gravely proceeded to decipher the
inscriptions on the wall. Two among them had been already modified; and
the old man could readily discern, in this recantation, the influence
exercised by Picciola over her votary. One of the maxims of Charney
ran as follows: “Mankind maintain, upon the surface of the earth, the
position they will one day hold below it—side by side, without a single
bond of union. Physically considered, the world is a mob, where millions
meet and jostle together: morally speaking, it is a solitary wilderness.”
[Illustration]
To this withering sentence, the hand of Girardi added, “_Unless to him
who has a friend_.” Then, turning to his young companion, the old man
extended his arms towards him, and a mutual embrace sealed between them a
compact of eternal friendship.
Next day, they dined together in the _camera_ of the Count—Charney seated
upon the bed, and his venerable guest upon the chair—the sculptured
table between them being covered with double rations, viz.: a fine
trout from the lake of Avigliano, crayfish from the Cenise, a bottle of
excellent Mondovi wine, and a piece of the celebrated Millesimo cheese,
known over Italy under the name of _rubiola_. The feast was a noble
one for a prison; but Girardi’s purse was richly replenished, and the
commandant willing to sanction every accommodation which Ludovico could
afford to the two prisoners, within the letter of his instructions from
headquarters.
Never had Charney more thoroughly enjoyed the pleasures of the table. The
happiest spirit of social intercourse was already established between
them. If exercise, and the waters of the Eurotas, imparted a zest to
the black broth of the Lacedæmonians, how much more the presence and
conversation of a friend to the flavour of the choice viands of Piedmont!
Their hearts expanded with the sense of enjoyment. Without scruple,
without preamble, but as if in fulfilment of the sacred engagements
conveyed in their promises of friendship, Charney began to relate the
presumptuous studies and idle vanities of his youth; while Girardi, by
way of encouragement to this candour, did not hesitate to avow the early
errors of his own.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
CHAPTER IV.
Girardi was a native of Turin; in which city his progenitors had
established a considerable manufactory of arms. From time immemorial,
Piedmont has afforded a medium for the transmission of opinions and
merchandise from Italy to France, and a medium for the transmission of
merchandise and opinions from France to Italy; some portion of each, of
course, being detained on the road. The breezes of France had breathed
on Girardi’s father, who was a philosopher, a reformer, a disciple of
Voltaire: the breezes of Italy upon his mother, who was a zealot to the
utmost extent of bigotry. The boy, loving and respecting both parents,
and listening to both with equal confidence, participating in both their
natures, became, of necessity, an amphibious moralist and politician.
A republican, as well as a devotee, he was incessantly projecting the
union of Liberty and Religion—a holy alliance which he purposed to
accomplish after a manner of his own. For Girardi was but twenty; and at
that period, people were young at twenty years of age.
The enthusiastic youth was soon compelled to give pledges on both sides.
The Piedmontese nobility retained certain nobiliary privileges—such as
an exclusive right to appear in a box at the theatre, or to dance at
a public ball; and dancing was held to be an aristocratic exercise,
in which the middle classes must content themselves with the part of
spectators.
[Illustration]
At the head of a band of young people of his own age, Giacomo Girardi
chose, however, one day to infringe the national rule established by his
betters; and at a public ball, headed a quadrille of untitled dancers, in
the very face of the aristocratic portion of the assembly. The patrician
dancers, indignant at the innovation, would fain have put a stop to the
attempt; but vociferous cries of “_Amusement for all alike—dancing for
high and low_,” were raised by the plebeians; and to this outbreak of
sedition succeeded other cries of a liberal nature. In the tumult that
ensued, twenty challenges were given and refused, not from cowardice, but
pride; and the imprudent Giacomo, carried away by the impetuosity of his
age and character, ended with inflicting a blow upon the proudest and
most insolent of his adversaries.
The unpremeditated insult proved of serious moment. The influential
family of San Marsano swore that it should not pass unpunished; the
knights of St. Maurice, of the Annunciation, all the chivalry and
nobility of the country (which an infringement of privilege is sure to
render unanimous), affected to resent the offence, both individually and
collectively. At his father’s suggestion, the young man took refuge with
one of his relations, vicar of a small village in the principality of
Masserano, in the environs of Bielle, and, in consequence of his flight,
Girardi was condemned, as contumacious, to five years’ banishment from
Turin.
The dignity to which the whole business was rashly elevated by all this
notoriety, investing a boyish affray with the importance of a conspiracy,
imparted considerable consequence to Giacomo Girardi in the eyes of his
fellow-countrymen. Some saluted him as champion of the liberties of the
people; others as one of those dangerous innovators who still dreamed of
restoring the independence of Piedmont; but while, at the court of Turin,
the insolent chastiser of nobility was denounced as a leading member of
the democratic faction, the poor little partisan was quietly ministering
to the performance of a village mass, after the fervent fulfilment of his
own religious duties!
This stormy commencement of a life which had seemed predestined to peace
and tranquillity, exercised a powerful influence over the fortunes of
Giacomo Girardi. In his old age, he was fated to pay a severe penalty for
the follies of his boyhood, for, upon his arrest on the groundless charge
of having attempted the life of the First Consul, his accusers did not
fail to recur to his early disorders, as an evidence of his dangerous
tendency as a disturber of the public peace. But from the moment of
quitting Turin, and during the whole period of his exile, Giacomo,
indifferent to the love of equality instilled into him by his father,
resigned himself to the influence of the religious principles derived
from his mother. He even carried them to excess; and his relative, the
worthy priest, whose faith was sincere, but whose capacity narrow and
uncultivated, instead of checking the exalted fervour of the young
enthusiast, excited it to the utmost, in the hope that the loveliness
of Christian humility would impose a check upon the impetuosity of his
character. But in the sequel, the worthy vicar repented the rashness of
his calculations: for Giacomo would hear of nothing now but embracing
the sacerdotal profession. The wild, hot-headed young man insisted on
becoming a priest of the altar.
In the hope of arresting a measure which would deprive them of their
only son, his father and mother got him recalled home; and by the utmost
eloquence of parental tenderness, prevailed upon him to resign his
projects, and acquiesce in their own. In a few months, Giacomo Girardi
was married to a beautiful girl, selected for him by his family. But,
to the great astonishment of his friends, the young fanatic not only
persisted in regarding his lovely bride as an adopted sister, but
exercised over her mind so strong an influence as to persuade her to
retire into a convent, while _he_ returned to his pious calling in the
neighbourhood of Bielle.
[Illustration]
At a short distance from his favourite village, rose the last branch of
the Pennine Alps—a vast and towering chain of mountains; the highest peak
of which, Monte Mucrone, overshadowed a gloomy little valley—shaggy with
overhanging rocks, obscured by mists, bordered by awful precipices, and
appearing at a distance to imbody all the horrors with which Dante and
Virgil have invested the entrance to the infernal regions. But on drawing
nearer to the defile, the impending rocks were found to be clefted with
verdure; the precipices to be relieved by gentle slopes, where flowering
shrubs afforded a beautiful ladder of vegetation, interspersed with
natural bowers and thickets; while the mists, varying in hue according
to the reflections of the sun, after becoming white, pink, or violet,
evaporated altogether under the influence of the noontide radiance. It
was then that, deep in the lovely valley, a lake of about five hundred
feet in length became apparent, alimented by crystal springs, and giving
rise to the little river called the Oroppa, which at some distance
farther encircled and formed into an island one of the verdant hillocks
of the valley, on which the piety of the inhabitants has erected,
at great cost, and consecrated to the Holy Virgin, one of the most
remarkable churches in the country. If the legend is to be believed,
St. Eusebius himself, on his return from a pilgrimage to the Holy Land,
deposited there a wooden statue of the Virgin, carved by a hand no less
holy than that of St. Luke the Evangelist, which he was desirous of
securing from the profanations of the Arians.
[Illustration]
In this sequestered vale, on the banks of this lonely lake, surrounded by
the shrubby rocks and gentle precipices—in this church, and at the foot
of the miraculous statue, did Giacomo Girardi dream away five years of
his young existence—rejecting the adoration of his lovely bride for that
of the wooden lady of Oroppa!
Incapable of distinguishing between credulity and faith, unaware that
superstition may degenerate into idolatry, that all extremes are
unacceptable to God, he little suspected that it was not the Mary of
Scripture—the mother of the Redeemer—to whom he dedicated his prayers;
but a divinity of his own—the tutelary genius of the place. Before the
miraculous image, he passed his nights and days, in prayers and tears,
praying for a higher spiritualization, and weeping over imaginary faults.
His heart was that of a child—his mind that of a fanatic. In vain did
the vicar, his worthy relative, labour to repress this unnatural
fervour, and bring him back to reason. In vain, to distract his thoughts
from one fixed and dangerous idea, did he suggest a pilgrimage to other
spots of peculiar sanctity, dedicated to the worship of the Virgin.
Giacomo would not hear of our Lady of Loretto, or the Saint Mary of
Bologna or of Milan. He was infatuated by the pretended virtue of a
material image, a piece of black and worm-eaten wood; and renounced all
homage to its celestial prototype.
The sentiments of the enthusiast, if they eventually lost in depth,
gained only in extent. The Virgin of Oroppa was surrounded by a whole
court of saints and saintesses—and to each of these, the infatuated
Giacomo assigned some peculiar duty of intercession. From one, he
implored the dispersion of the clouds charged with hail-showers, which
from the heights of Monte Mucrone, sometimes rattled down upon his
beloved valley. To another, he assigned the task of comforting his
mother for his absence, and sustaining the spiritual weakness of his
young wife. A third, he implored to watch over him in sleep—a fourth,
to defend him against the temptations of Satan. His devotion, by this
means, degenerated into an impure polytheism, and Mount Oroppa into a new
Olympus, where every divinity but the one Almighty GOD was honoured with
a shrine.
Subjecting himself to the severest discipline, the most painful
privations, he continued to macerate himself, to fast, to remain whole
days without nourishment; and the exhaustion that ensued was qualified
with the name of divine ecstasy! He saw visions, he heard revelations.
After the delusions of the Quietists, he fancied that by subjugating his
physical nature, he could develop and render visible his soul. But, while
resigning himself to this chimera, and holding imaginary discourse with
his immaterial nature, Girardi’s health gave way, and his reason became
disordered.
One day, a voice seemed to address him from on high, commanding him to
go and convert the heretic Waldenses, remnants of which persecuted sect
still exist in the Valais. He accordingly set off, traversed the country
adjoining the river Sesia, attained the summit of the Alps, near Monte
Rosa, and there, suddenly arrested in his course by the snow of an early
winter, found himself under the necessity of passing several months in a
châlet.
[Illustration]
This place of general refuge, designated, in the language of the
country, _las strablas_, or the stables, consisted in a vast shed,
five hundred feet square, open towards the south, but carefully closed
in all other directions, by strong pine logs, filled in with moss and
lichens, cemented into a mass by resinous gums. Here, in inclement
weather, men, women, children, flocks, and herds, united together,
as in a common habitation, under the control of the oldest member of
the tribe. A large hearth, constantly supplied with fuel, sparkled
in the centre of the dwelling; over which was suspended an enormous
boiler, in which, alternately or together, the food of the community
was prepared—consisting of dried vegetables, pork, mutton, quarters of
chamois, or cutlets of the flesh of the marmot; eaten afterwards at a
general meal, with bread made of chestnut-meal, and a fermented liquor
made from cranberries and whortleberries.
Occupations were not wanting in the châlet. The children and flocks were
to be attended to; the winter cheeses to be made; the spinning, which
was incessantly at work; and instruments of husbandry, in progress of
manufacture, to force into cultivation, during the short summer season,
the shallow soil of the adjacent rocks. Garments of sheep-skin were also
manufactured; baskets of the bark of trees; and a variety of elegant
trifles, carved in sycamore, or larchwood, for sale in the nearest
towns. The population of the châlet, cheerful and laborious, suffered
not an hour to pass unimproved; and songs and laughter intermingled with
the strokes of the axe, and busy murmur of the wheel. Labour scarcely
appeared a task; and study and prayer were accounted the duty and
recreation of the day. Harmonious and well-practised voices united in
chorus for the daily execution of pious canticles: the elder shepherds
instructed the young in reading and arithmetic—nay, even in music, and a
smattering of Latin; for the civilization of the Higher Alps, like its
vegetation, seems to be preserved under the snow; and it is no uncommon
thing to see, at the return of spring, school-masters and minstrels
descend from the châlets, to diffuse knowledge and hilarity among the
agricultural villages of the plain.
The worthy hosts of Giacomo proved to be Waldenses. The opportunity was
an auspicious one for the young apostle; but, scarcely had he let fall a
word of the purport of his mission, when the octogenarian chief of the
community, high in the renown, secured, among these humble peasants, by a
life of industry and virtue, cut short his expectations.
“Our fathers,” said he to the young man, “endured exile, persecutions,
death—rather than subscribe to the image-worship practised among your
people. Hope not, therefore, that your feeble powers will effect what
centuries of persecution failed to accomplish. Stranger! you have
found shelter under our roof, and therein, for your own safety, must
abide. Pray, therefore, to God, according to the dictation of your own
conscience, as we do according to ours; but be advised by the experience
of a gray-beard, and take part in the labours proceeding around you; or,
in this solitude, remote from the rumours and excitements of social life,
want of occupation will destroy you. Be our companion, our brother, so
long as the winter snows weigh upon your existence and our own; and,
at the return of spring, leave us, unquestioned, as you came; without
so much as bestowing your benediction on our hearth—nay, without even
turning back upon your path, to salute, by a farewell gesture, those by
whose fire you have been warmed, and at whose frugal board, nourished.
For, having shared their industry, you will owe them nothing. The fruit
of your own labour will have maintained you; and, should any debt be
still owing, the God of mercy will repay us a thousand-fold for our
hospitality to the son of the stranger.”
Forced to submit to a proposition so reasonable, Giacomo remained five
months an inmate of the châlet, and an eye-witness of the virtuous
career of its inhabitants. Night and morning, he heard their prayers and
thanksgivings offered up to the throne of grace—to the throne of the one
omnipresent GOD; and his mind, no longer excited by the objects which had
wrought its exaltation, became gradually composed to a reasonable frame.
When the prison of ice, constructed for him by nature, ceased to hold him
captive, and the sun, shining out with the return of spring, developed
before his eyes all the beauty and majesty of the mountain-scenery by
which he was surrounded, the idea of the Almighty Lord of the universe
seemed to manifest itself powerfully to his mind, and resume its fitting
influence on his heart.
The geniality of the weather, reviving all nature around him, with her
swarming myriads of birds and bees hovering over the new-born flowers,
starting anew to life from beneath their winter mantle of snow, awoke
in his bosom correspondent transports of love and joy. It were vain to
dilate on the expansion of human feeling which gradually enlarged his
perceptions. The good old chief had begun to entertain an affection for
him; and, though unlearned in pedantic lore, had stored up, in the course
of his long existence, an infinity of facts and observations, which,
joined to those inherited from the lessons of his fathers, inspired him
with knowledge of the Creator through the wisdom of his works. In a
word, the presumptuous youth, who had entered that humble asylum for
the purpose of converting its people to his opinions, eventually quitted
it, _himself_ converted to their own!—nay, the industrious habits he had
acquired, and the examples of domestic happiness he had witnessed, had
brought him to a due sense of his error in neglecting the happiness and
duties with which Providence had endowed his existence.
[Illustration]
Giacomo’s first visit after quitting Monte Rosa, was to the convent in
which his wife was immured. A whole romance might be developed in the
history of his wooing, and the difficulties with which his courtship was
beset. Suffice it, that after many months devoted to the obliteration of
the lessons he had himself inculcated, Girardi, aided by the influence of
his parents, succeeded in removing his wife from the cloistral seclusion
to which he had devoted her; and became, in the sequel, the happiest of
husbands and of fathers.
The errors of his youth were now redeemed by years of wisdom and of
virtue. Established in his native city of Turin, in the enjoyment of
a handsome fortune, the thriving speculations in which he was engaged
might have rendered it colossal, but for the systematic benevolence
which rendered the opulence of Girardi a second providence to the poor.
To do good was the _occupation_ of his life; his favourite recreation
was the study of animated nature. Girardi became a proficient in natural
history; and as GOD is greatest in the least of his works, entomology
chiefly engaged his attention. It was this interest in the organization
and habits of insects, which had obtained for him from Ludovico, in the
earlier stages of his imprisonment, the appellation of “The Fly-catcher.”
[Illustration]
CHAPTER V.
The two prisoners had no longer any secrets from each other. After
glancing rapidly over the history of their several lives, they returned
to the various incidents of each, and the emotions to which they had
given rise. They sometimes spoke of Teresa; but at the very mention of
her name, a vivid blush overspread the face of Charney, and the old man
himself grew grave and sad. Any allusion to the absent angel was sure to
be followed by an interval of mournful silence.
Their discourse usually turned upon the discussion of some point of
morality; or comments upon the eccentricities of human nature. Girardi’s
philosophy, mild and benevolent, invested the happiness of man in the
love of his fellow-creatures; nor could Charney, though half converted
to his opinions, understand by what means this spirit of tenderness and
indulgence could survive the injuries which the philosopher had endured
from mankind.
“Surely,” said he, “you must have bestowed your malediction on those
who, after basely calumniating you, tore you from the bosom of domestic
happiness—from the arms of—your daughter?”
“The offence of a few,” replied Girardi, “was not to subvert my
principles of action towards the whole. Even those few, blinded by
political fanaticism, fancied they were fulfilling a duty. Trust me,
my young friend, it is indispensable to survey even the injuries we
receive through a medium of pardon and pity. Which of us has not required
forgiveness for faults? Which of us has not, in his turn, mistaken error
for the truth? St. John bequeathed to us the blessed axiom that GOD
IS LOVE! True and beautiful proposition!—since by love alone the soul
re-elevates itself to its celestial source, and finds courage for the
endurance of misfortune! Had I entered into captivity with a particle
of hatred in my soul against my fellow-creatures, I should have expired
in my embittered loneliness. But Heaven be praised, I have never been
the prey of a single painful reflection. The recollection of my good and
faithful friends, whose hearts I knew were suffering with every suffering
of my own, served to stimulate my affection towards mankind; and the only
unlucky moment of my captivity was that in which I was debarred the sight
of a fellow-creature.”
“How!” cried Charney, “were you ever subjected to such a deprivation?”
“At my first arrest,” resumed Girardi, “I was transported to a dungeon
in the citadel of Turin, so framed as to render communication impossible
even with my jailer. My food was conveyed to me by a turning box inserted
in the wall; and during a whole month not the slightest sound interrupted
the stillness of my solitude. It needs to have undergone all I then
experienced, fully to comprehend the fallacy of that savage philosophy
which denied society to be the natural condition of the human species.
The wretch condemned to isolation from his kind is a wretch indeed! To
hear no human voice—to meet no human eye—to be denied the pressure of a
human hand—to find only cold and inanimate objects on which to rest one’s
brow—one’s breast—one’s heart, is a privation to which the strongest
might fall a victim! The month I thus endured weighed like years upon
my nature; and when, every second day, I discerned the footsteps of my
jailer in the corridor, coming to renew my provisions, the mere sound
caused my heart to leap within me. While the box was turning round, I
used to strain my eyes in hopes to catch, at the crevice, the slightest
glimpse of his face, his hand, his very dress; and my disappointment
drove me to despair. Could I have discerned a human face, even bearing
the characters of cruelty or wickedness, I should have thought it full of
beauty; and had the man extended his arms towards me in kindness, have
blessed him for the concession! But the sight of a human face was denied
me till the day of my translation to Fenestrella; and my only resource
consisted in feeding the reptiles which shared my captivity, and in
meditating upon my absent child!”
[Illustration]
Charney started at the allusion; but his venerable companion was himself
too much distressed to notice the emotion of his young friend.
“At length,” said he, after a long pause, which served to restore him to
his usual serenity, “a favourable change befel me even in my dungeon. I
discovered, by means of a straggling ray of light, a crevice produced
by the insertion of an iron cross by way of support into the walls
of my dungeon: which, though it enabled me to obtain only an oblique
glimpse of the opposite wall, became a source of exquisite enjoyment.
My cell happened to be situated under the keep of the citadel; and one
blessed day, I noticed for the first time the shadow of a man distinctly
reflected upon the wall. A sentinel had doubtless been posted on the
platform over my head; for the shadow went and came, and I could
distinguish the form of the man’s uniform, the epaulet, the knapsack, the
point of his bayonet—the very vacillation of his feather!
“Till evening extinguished my resource, I remained at my post; and
how shall I describe the thrill of joy with which I acknowledged so
unexpected a consolation! I was no longer alone; I had once more a living
companion. Next day and the days succeeding, the shadow of another
soldier appeared; the sentinels were ever changing, but my enjoyment was
the same. It was always a man—always a fellow-creature I knew to be near
me—a living, breathing fellow-creature, whose movements I could watch,
and whose dispositions conjecture. When the moment came for relieving
guard, I welcomed the new-comer, and bade good-by to his predecessor.
I knew the corporal by sight; I could recognise the different profiles
of the men; nay (dare I avow such a weakness!), some among them were
objects of my predilection. The attitude of their persons, or comparative
vivacity of their movements, became so many indications of character,
from which their age and sentiments might be inferred. One paced gaily
along, turning lightly on his heel, balancing his musket in sport,
or waving his head in cadence to the air he was whistling; _he_ was
doubtless young and gay, cheered by visions of happiness and love.
Another paced along, with his brow inclining, pausing often, and leaning
with his arms crossed upon his musket, meditating mournfully, perhaps,
upon his distant village, his absent mother, his childhood’s friends.
He passed his hand rapidly over his eyes—perhaps to dash away the tears
gathered by these tender retrospections!
[Illustration]
“For many of these shadows I felt a lively interest, an inexplicable
compassion; and the balm thus called into existence within my bosom shed
its soothing influence over my fate. Trust me, my good young friend,
the truest happiness is that we derive from our sympathy with our
fellow-creatures.”
“Why did I not become earlier acquainted with you, excellent man?” cried
Charney, deeply affected. “How different, then, had been the tenor of
my life! But what right have I to complain? Have I not found in this
desolate spot all that was denied me amid the splendour of the world?—a
devoted heart—a noble soul—an anchor of strength—virtue and truth—Girardi
and Picciola?”
For among all these effusions of the heart, Picciola was not forgotten.
The two friends had constructed a more capacious seat beside her; where,
side by side, and facing the lovely plant, they passed hour after hour
together, all three in earnest conversation. Charney had given to this
new seat the name of “The Bench of Conference.”
There did the simple-minded Girardi aspire for once to eloquence: for
without eloquence in the expositor, no conviction. Nor were the eloquence
or conviction wanting.
The bench had become the rostrum of a professor; a professor, though less
learned than his scholar, infinitely wiser and more enlightened. The
professor is Giacomo Girardi, the pupil the Count de Charney, and the
book in process of exposition—Picciola!
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
CHAPTER VI.
As autumn approached, Charney could not forbear expressing to his friend,
as they sat together on the Bench of Conference, his regret at losing all
hopes of Picciola’s second flowering, and his lamentations over her last
blossom.
Girardi immediately attempted to supply the loss by a dissertation on
the fructification of plants, and the evidence thereby afforded of the
intervention of an all-wise Providence.
Girardi first alluded to the winged form of the seeds of certain plants,
whose foliage, large and complicated, would oppose their dispersion, but
for the feathery tuft attached to each, which causes them to float in the
atmosphere; and described the elastic pods in which others are enclosed,
which, opening by a sudden spring, at the moment of maturity, discharge
the seed to a distance. “These wings, these springs,” observed the old
man, “are hands and feet bestowed upon them by the Almighty, that they
may reach their destined place, and germinate in the sunshine. What human
eye, for instance,” said he, “is able to follow, in their aërial flight,
the membranous seeds of the elm, the maple, the pine, the ash—circling in
the atmosphere amid volumes of other seeds, rising by their own buoyancy,
and apparently flying in search of the birds, of which they are to form
the nourishment?”
The old man next proceeded to explain the phenomena of aquatic plants;
how the seeds of those destined for the adornment of brooks, or the banks
of lakes or ponds, are endowed with a form enabling them to float upon
the water, so as to deposit themselves in various parts of the beach, or
cross from one bank to another; while such as are intended to take root
in the bed of the river fall at once by their own weight to the bottom,
and give birth to reeds and rushes, or those beautiful water-lilies,
whose roots are in the mud beneath, while their large green shining
leaves, and snow-white blossoms, float in pride and glory upon the bosom
of the waters. The vallisneria was not forgotten; the male and female
plants of which being disunited, the latter uncoils her long spiral
peduncle, to raise her flower above the surface of the stream, while the
male, unpossessed of a similar faculty, breaks its fragile flower-stalk,
and rises spontaneously to the surface, to accomplish the act of
fecundation.
“How is it,” cried Charney, “that men remain insensible to the existence
of these wondrous prodigies of nature?”
And the old man rejoiced at the exclamation, as a proof that his lessons
were not shed upon a barren and ungrateful soil.
“Tell me,” demanded the Count, “has the insect creation, to which your
studies have been peculiarly addressed, furnished you with facts as
curious as those for which I am indebted to my Picciola?”
“_So_ curious,” replied Girardi, “that you will not fully appreciate even
the marvels of Picciola till you have become acquainted with the hosts
of animated beings which hover over her verdant branches. You will then
learn to admire the secret laws which connect the plant with the insect,
the insect with the plant; and perceive that ‘order is Heaven’s first
law,’ and that one vast intelligence influences the whole creation.”
[Illustration]
Girardi was proceeding to enlarge upon the harmony of the universe,
when, pausing suddenly, he pointed out to his companion a brilliant and
beautiful butterfly, poised on one of the twigs of his plant, with a
peculiar quivering of the wings. “See!” cried he, “Picciola hastens to
expound my theory! An engagement has just been contracted between her and
yonder insect, which is now consigning its posterity to her guardianship.”
And when the butterfly flew away, Charney verified the assertion by
examining a little group of eggs, attached by a viscous substance to the
bark.
“Do you imagine,” inquired Girardi, “that it is by chance the butterfly
has proceeded hither, to intrust to Picciola this precious deposit? On
the contrary, Nature has assigned to every plant analogies with certain
insects. Every plant has its insect to lodge, its insect to feed.
Admire the long chain of connexion between them! This butterfly, when
a caterpillar, was nourished on the substance of a plant of the same
species as Picciola; and after undergoing its appointed transformations,
and becoming a butterfly, it fluttered faithless from flower to flower,
sipping the sweets of a thousand different nectaries. But no sooner
did the moment of maturity arrive for a creature that never beheld its
mother, and will never behold its children (for its task fulfilled, it
is now about to die), than, by an instinct surer than the best lessons
of experience, it flew hither to deposit its progeny on a plant similar
to that by which, under a different form and in a different season, it
was fed and protected. Instinctively conscious that little caterpillars
will emerge from its eggs, it forgets, for their sake, the habits it has
acquired as a butterfly!
“Who taught her all this? Who endowed her with memory, powers of
reasoning, and recognising the peculiarities of a vegetable, whose
present foliage bears no resemblance to that which it bore during the
spring? The most experienced botanist is often mistaken—the insect,
never!”
Charney involuntarily testified his surprise.
“You have still more to learn,” interrupted Girardi. “Examine the branch
selected by the insect. It is one of the largest and strongest on the
tree; not one of the new shoots, likely to be decayed by frost during the
winter, or broken by the wind. All this has been foreseen by the insect.
Whence did it derive such prescience?”
“Do you not in some degree deceive yourself, my dear friend?” demanded
Charney, unwilling to avow how much he was confounded by these
discoveries.
“Peace, sceptic, peace!” replied the old man, with an accusing smile.
“You will admit, at least, that seeing is believing! Picciola has now
_her_ part to play. The foresight of the insect is not greater than that
with which Nature endows the plant towards the legacy bequeathed by the
butterfly; at the return of spring we will verify the prodigy together.
The moment the plant puts forth its leaves, the tiny eggs will break, and
emit the larvæ they contain: a law of harmony regulates the vegetation
of the plant in common with the vitality of the insect. Were the larvæ
to appear first, there would be no food for them; were the leaves to
precede them, they would have acquired too firm a consistency for their
feeble powers. But Nature, provident over all, causes both plant and
insect to develop themselves at the same moment, to grow together, and
together attain their maturity; so that the wings and flowers of each are
simultaneous in their display of beauty.”
“Another lesson derived from my gentle Picciola!” murmured the astonished
Charney; and conviction entered into his soul.
Thus passed the days of the captives, in mutual solace and instruction;
and when, every evening, the hour arrived for retreating singly into the
camera of each, to wait the hour of rest, the same object unconsciously
occupied their meditations; for Charney thought of Teresa, and Girardi
of his daughter, exhausting their minds in conjecture as to her present
destiny.
The young girl herself, meanwhile, was not inactive on their behalf. Her
first impulse had been to follow the Emperor to Milan; where Teresa soon
discovered that it is as difficult to penetrate through the antechamber
of royalty as through the ranks of an army. The friends of Girardi,
however, roused by her efforts, renewed their applications, and having
undertaken to procure, at no remote period, the liberation of the
captive, his daughter, somewhat reassured, returned to Turin, where an
asylum was offered her in the house of a near relation.
The husband of this relative happened to be the librarian of the city;
and to him did Menon address himself, to select the botanical works
destined for the use of the prisoner of Fenestrella. It was no difficult
matter for Teresa to infer from the nature of the study to whom these
books were destined; and she accordingly managed to slip into one of
the volumes the mysterious despatch, which, even if discovered by the
commandant, was not of a nature to compromise either her relation or the
_protégé_ in whose behalf she had already ventured so largely. She was
still ignorant that her father and Charney no longer resided in each
other’s neighbourhood; and when the news of their separation was brought
back by the messenger employed to convey the books to Fenestrella, it
became her first object to accomplish the reunion of the two captives.
After addressing letter after letter on the subject to the governor of
Piedmont, she continued to interest in her behalf some of the chief
inhabitants of Turin, and, through them, the wife of Menon, till the
general, having strong motives for desiring to conciliate his influential
petitioners, ended by granting the prayer of Teresa Girardi. And when,
under the auspices of Madame Menon, she came to offer her grateful thanks
to the general, the veteran, touched by the devotedness of her filial
tenderness, laying aside for a moment the harshness of his nature, took
the young girl kindly by the arm, as he addressed her.
[Illustration]
“You must come and visit my wife from time to time,” said he. “In about a
month’s time she may have good news to tell you.”
And Teresa, nothing doubting that the good news would consist in an
order for her readmission into the fortress of Fenestrella, to pass a
portion of every day with her father, threw herself at the feet of the
general with a countenance bright with joy, loading him with grateful
acknowledgments.
While all this was proceeding undreamed of by the two captives, Charney
and Girardi sat enjoying on their bench a glorious October sunshine,
restoring, or rather forestalling around them, the warmth and promise of
spring. Both were pensive and silent, leaning severally on the opposite
arms which closed in the rustic seat. They might have passed for being
estranged or indifferent to each other, but for the wistful looks cast
from time to time by Charney upon his companion, who was absorbed in a
profound reverie. It was not often that the countenance of Girardi was
overshadowed by sadness—no wonder, therefore, that the Count should
mistake the motives of his depression.
“Yes!” cried he, replying, as he fancied, to the looks of his friend;
“captivity is, indeed, a purgatory! To be imprisoned for an imaginary
offence—to live apart from all we love.”
But ere he could proceed, Girardi, raising his head, gazed with surprise
upon the Count. “True, my dear friend!” he replied; “separation is one
of the severest trials of human fortitude!”
“_I_ your friend!” interrupted Charney, with bitterness. “Have you the
charity to bestow such a name upon _me_—upon me, who am the cause of your
being parted from her? for it is of your daughter you are thinking! Deny
it not! Teresa is the object of these mournful meditations; and, at such
a moment, how odious must I be in your sight!”
“Believe me, you are mistaken in your conjectures,” mildly interrupted
the venerable man. “Never was the image of my daughter invested with such
consolatory associations as to-day. For Teresa has written to me. I have
received a letter from my child.”
“Written to you—you have a letter from her—they have suffered it to reach
your hands!” cried Charney, insensibly drawing nearer to his companion.
Then checking his exultation, he added, “But you have, doubtless, learned
some afflicting tidings?”
“Far from it, I assure you.”
“Wherefore, then, this depression?”
“Alas! my dear friend, such is the frailty of human nature; such is
the mingled yarn of human destiny! A regret is sure to embitter our
sweetest hopes. The happiness of this life casts its shadow before, and
it is by the shadow that our attention is first attracted. You spoke of
separation from those we love. Here is my letter! read it, and learn what
considerations depress my spirits while seated by your side.”
Charney took the letter, and for some moments held it unopened in his
hand; his eyes fixed on the countenance of Girardi, he seemed desirous of
reading _there_ the intelligence it contained. On examining the address
he recognised with emotion the handwriting of his precious billet; and at
length unfolding the paper, attempted to read aloud the contents. But his
voice faltered—the words expired upon his lips; and stopping short, he
concluded the letter almost inaudibly to himself.
“Dearest father,” wrote Teresa, “bestow a thousand kisses upon the paper
you hold in your hands; for a thousand and a thousand have I impressed
upon it, as harvest for your venerated lips!”
“What joy for us both, this renewal of correspondence! It is to General
Menon we are indebted for the concession; he it is who has put an end
to a silence which, even more than distance, seemed to keep us asunder.
Blessings be upon him! _Now_, dear father, our thoughts, at least, may
fly towards each other. _I_ shall communicate my hopes to sustain your
courage; _you_, your griefs, in weeping over which I shall fancy I am
weeping in your presence! But if a greater happiness, dearest father,
were in reserve for us! For a moment, I beseech you, lay aside my letter,
and summon your strength to hear the sudden joy I am about to excite
in your bosom. Father! if I were once more permitted to be with you!
to approach you—to listen to your instruction—to surround you with my
attentions! Throughout the two years in which we enjoyed this alleviation
of our affliction, captivity seemed to sit lightly on your spirits; and I
entertain the hope—yes, the earnest, earnest hope, that the favour will
be again vouchsafed me—that I shall be once more permitted to enter your
prison!”
“Teresa about to visit you! here in the fortress!” cried Charney, wild
with joy.
“Read on!” replied the old man, in a melancholy tone—“read on!”
“I shall be once more permitted to enter your prison,” resumed Charney,
repeating the last sentence. “Are you not happy in such a prospect?
Are you not overjoyed?” continued Teresa. “Pause a moment, to consider
the good tidings I have thus announced! Do not hurry on towards the
conclusion of my letter. Violent emotions are sometimes dangerous. Have
I not already said enough? Were an angel to descend from heaven, charged
with the accomplishment of our wishes, you would not presume to require
more; but I, your child, might venture, ere he reascended to his native
skies, _I_ might be tempted to implore your liberation from captivity.
At _your_ age, father, it is a cruel thing to be denied the sight of your
native country. The banks of our beloved Doria are so beautiful; and
in our gardens on the Collina, the trees planted by my poor mother and
brother have acquired surprising growth during your absence. There, more
than on any other spot, survives the precious memory of those we have
lost.
“Then, father, there are your friends—the friends who have supported,
by their generous efforts, my applications to government. I am sure you
regret your absence from them; I am sure you would delight in seeing them
again. Oh! father, father! the pen seems to burn in my hand! My secret
is about to escape me! It has, probably, already escaped me! You have,
doubtless, summoned all your courage to learn definitively that, in a
few days, I am about to rejoin you, _not_ to lend my aid in softening
your captivity, but to announce its termination; _not_ to be with you at
stated hours, and within the walls of a prison; but to carry you away
with me in triumph from Fenestrella—free, proud—ay, proud—for you have
now a right to resume your pride. Your faithful friends, Cotenna and
Delarue, did not rest till they obtained, _not_ your pardon, but your
justification. Yes, your innocence is fully recognised by the imperial
government.
“Farewell, dearest and best of fathers. How I love you! how happy do I
feel at this moment! and how much happier shall I be when again folded in
your arms! Your own
“TERESA.”
The letter did not contain a single word in reference to Charney.
That word—that hoped-for word—how eagerly did he seek for it in every
page and line—how eagerly, and how vainly! Yet, notwithstanding his
disappointment, it was a cry of joy that burst from the lips of the
Count, when he concluded the letter.
“You will soon be free!” cried he; “soon able to rest under the shadow of
green trees, and behold the rising of the sun!”
“Yes!” replied the old man. “But I am also about to _leave you_! Such is
the shadow which precedes my happiness to-day, to prevent my joy from
falling into excess.”
“Think not of _me_, I beseech you!” cried Charney; proving, by his
generous transports, and forgetfulness of self, how truly he deserved the
friendship of which he was the object. “At last, you will be restored to
her arms! At last, she will cease to suffer from the consequence of my
rashness! _You_ will be happy, and I no longer oppressed by the heaviness
of remorse. During the last few hours that remain for us to be together,
we may at least talk of her unreservedly.”
And, as he uttered these last incoherent words, the Count de Charney
threw himself into the arms of his venerable friend.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
CHAPTER VII.
The knowledge of their approaching separation seemed only to augment the
tender affection existing between the two friends. Seldom an hour apart,
both seemed eager to continue till the last moment their conferences on
the bench of the little court.
There was a solemn subject, to which Girardi often endeavoured to lead
the way, but Charney invariably evaded the discussion. The old man was,
however, too deeply interested in sounding the opinions of the Count to
be easily discouraged, and one day an occasion unexpectedly presented
itself for the accomplishment of his wishes.
“How unaccountable the chance,” cried Charney, after a short silence,
“which united us in this place; naturally divided as we are by difference
of birth-place, of languages, of faith, of prejudices! Yet, in spite of
all these obstacles, we have met at Fenestrella, to unite in the same
religious principles, the same adoration of the one supreme Being.”
“On that point, give me leave to differ with you,” said Girardi, with a
smile. “To lose sight of, is not to deny. Our views have never been the
same.”
“Certainly not. But which of the two, the bigot or the sceptic, was most
mistaken—which the most deserving pity?”
“Yourself,” replied the old man, without hesitation—“yes, my dear young
friend, yourself! All extremes are dangerous; but in superstition there
is faith, passion, vitality; and in scepticism, universal night—universal
death. Superstition is the pure stream diverted from its natural channel,
which inundates, submerges, and displaces the vegetable soil, but conveys
it elsewhere, and repairs, farther on its course, the injuries it has
produced; while scepticism is drought, dearth, sterility; burning and
scorching up, transmuting earth to sand, and rendering the mighty Palmyra
a ruin of the desert. Not content with placing an eternal bar betwixt us
and the Creator, incredulity relaxes the bonds of society and destroys
the ties of kindred and affection. In depriving man of his importance
as a being eternally responsible, it creates around him isolation and
contempt. He is alone in the world—alone with his pride; or, as I said
before, alone as a ruin in the desert.”
“Alone with his _pride_!” murmured Charney, reclining his elbow on
the arm of the bench, and his face upon his hand. “Pride! of what?—of
knowledge? of science? Oh, why should man labour to destroy the elements
of his happiness by seeking to analyze them or to sound their depths?
Even if indebted for his joys to a deception, why seek to raise the mask
and accelerate the disenchantment of his future life? Is truth so dear to
him? Does knowledge suffice the desires of his ambition? Madman! such was
my own delusion. ‘I am but a worm,’ said I to myself, ‘a worm destined
to annihilation’: then, raising myself in the dust where I was crawling,
I felt proud of the discovery—vain of my helpless nakedness. I believed
neither in virtue nor happiness; but at the thought of annihilation I
stopped proudly short and accorded my unlimited faith. My degradation
appeared a triumph to me, for it was assured by a discovery of my own.
Was I not justified in my estimation of a theory for which I had given
in exchange no less than my regal mantle—the countless treasure of my
immortality?”
The old man extended his hand encouragingly towards his companion.
[Illustration]
“Be judged by your own image of the worm,” said Girardi. “The worm, after
crawling its season on the earth, fed with bitter leaves, condemned
to the slime of the marsh or the dust of the road, constructs his
own chrysalis—a temporary coffin—from which to emerge, transformed,
purified—to flutter from flower to flower and feed upon their precious
perfumes. On two radiant wings the new creature takes its flight towards
the skies, even as man, the image of his Creator, rises to the bosom of
his God.”
Charney replied by a negative movement of the head.
“Your disease was more deeply rooted than my own,” observed Girardi, with
a mournful smile, “for your convalescence, I see, will be more tedious.
Have you already forgot the lessons of Picciola?”
“Not one of them!” replied Charney, in a tone of deep emotion. “I believe
in GOD. I believe in a first cause. I believe in an omniscient Power,
the eternal Controller of the universe. But your comparison of the worm
supposes the immortality of the soul; and by what is it demonstrated to
my reason?”
“By the instincts of the human soul, which irresistibly impel us to
look forward with hope and joy. Our life is a life of expectation.
From infancy to old age hope is the dominating pole of our destinies.
In what savage nation of the earth has not the doctrine of a future
state been found existent? And why should not the hope thus conceded
be accomplished? Is the power of God more infinite than the mind of
his creatures? I do not invoke the authority of revelation and the
Holy Scriptures. All convincing to myself: for _you_ they possess no
authority. The breeze which impels the ship is powerless to move the
rock: for the rock has no expanding sails to receive its impulse, and its
feet are buried in the ponderous immobility of earth. Shall we believe in
the eternity of matter, and not in that of the intelligence which serves
to regulate our opinions concerning matter? Or are we to suppose that
love, virtue, genius, result from the affinity of certain terrestrial
molecules? Can that which is devoid of thought enable us to think? Can
brute matter be the basis of human intelligence, when human intelligence
is able to direct and govern matter? Why, then, do not stocks and stones
think and feel as we do?”
“Locke, the great English metaphysician, was inclined to suppose that
matter might be endowed with ideas,” observed Charney. “There was
contradiction, indeed, in his theory, since he rejected the doctrine
of innate ideas, and seemed to admit the possibility of intuitive
knowledge.” Then, interrupting himself with a laugh, the Count exclaimed,
“Have a care, my kind instructor! I see you would fain involve me once
more in the quicksand of doubt, or plunge me into the bottomless pit of
metaphysics!”
“I have no knowledge of metaphysics,” said Girardi, gravely.
“And I but little,” observed Charney; “not, however, for want of devoting
my time to the study. But let us drop a subject unprofitable, and,
perhaps, injurious. You believe—rejoice in your belief! Your faith is
dear to me; and if, perchance, I should shake its foundations——”
“I defy you to the contest!” cried Girardi.
“What have you to gain by the result?”
“Your conversion; nothing less, my dear young friend, than your
conversion. Just now you quoted Locke. Of that eminent philosopher I
know but a single trait—that through life, and even on his death-bed, he
asserted the true happiness of mankind to consist in purity of conscience
and hope in eternal life.”
“I perfectly comprehend the _consolation_ to be derived from such a
creed, but my better reason forbids me to accept it. I entreat you, let
us drop the subject,” said the Count de Charney.
And a constrained silence ensued.
Soon afterwards, something which had been circling overhead suddenly
alighted on the foliage of the plant; a greenish insect, of which the
narrow corslet was undulated with whitish stripes.
“Sir!” cried Charney, “behold in good time a new text enabling you to
enlarge upon the mysteries of creation.”
Girardi took the insect with due precaution: examined it carefully;
paused for reflection; and suddenly an expression of triumph developed
itself in his countenance. An irresistible argument seemed to have fallen
from heaven in his hands. Commencing in his usual professional tone, he
gradually assumed a more sublime expression, as the secret object of his
lesson penetrated through his language.
[Illustration]
“Mere fly-catcher as I am,” he began with an arch smile, “I must restrict
myself to my humble attributions, and not presume to affect the pedantry
of the scholar.”
“The most enlightened mind,” said Charney, “the mind which has profited
most largely by the acquirement of knowledge, is that which soonest
discovers the limitation of its own powers, after vainly attempting to
penetrate into the hidden mysteries of things. Genius itself breaks its
wings against such obstacles, without having extracted from the wall of
flints, by which it is obstructed, one spark of the light of truth.”
“We ignoramuses,” observed Girardi, “arrive sooner at our object by
taking the most direct road. If we do but open our eyes, GOD deigns to
reveal himself in the august sublimity of his works.”
“On that point we are agreed,” interrupted Charney.
“Proceed we then in our course. An herb of the field sufficed to prove
to you the existence of a Providence; a butterfly, the law of universal
harmony; the insect before us, of which the organization is of a still
higher order, may lead us still farther towards conviction.”
Charney, at the instance of his friend, proceeded to examine the little
stranger with curious attention.
[Illustration]
“Behold this insignificant creature,” resumed Girardi. “All that human
genius could effect would not add one tittle to an organization perfectly
adapted to its wants and necessities. It has wings to transport it from
one place to another; elytra to incase and secure them from the contact
of any hard substance. Its breast is defended by a cuirass, its eyes
by a curious network that defies the prick of a thorn or the sting
of an enemy. It possesses antennæ to interrogate the obstacles that
present themselves, feet to attain its prey, iron mandibles to assist
in devouring it, in digging the earth for a refuge or a depository for
its food or eggs. If a dangerous adversary should approach, it has in
reserve an acrid and corrosive fluid, by discharging which it defies
its enemies. Instinct teaches it to find its food, to provide its
lodging, and exercise its powers of offence and defence. Nor is this a
solitary instance. Other insects are endowed with similar delicacy of
organization; the imagination recoils with wonder from the multiplicity
and variety of provisions invented by nature for the security of the
apparently feeble insect tribe. We have still to consider this fragile
creature as demonstrating the line of demarcation between mankind and the
brute creation.
“Man is sent naked into the world—feeble, helpless—unendowed with the
wings of a bird, the swiftness of the stag, the tortuous speed of
the serpent; without means of defence against the claws or darts of
an enemy, nay, against even the inclemency of the weather. He has no
shell, no fleece, no covering of fur, nor even a den or burrow for his
hiding-place. Yet by force of his natural powers, he has driven the lion
from his cave—despoiled the bear of his shaggy coat for a vestment, and
the bull of his horn to form a drinking-cup. He has dug into the entrails
of the earth, to bring forth elements of future strength; the very eagle,
in traversing the skies, finds itself struck down in the midst of its
career to adorn his cap with a trophy of distinction.
“Which of all the animal creation could have supported itself in the
midst of such difficulties and such privations? Let us for a moment
suppose the disunion of power and action—of GOD and nature. Nature has
done wonders for the insect before us; for man, apparently nothing.
Because man, an emanation from GOD himself, and formed after his image,
was created feeble and helpless as regards the organization of matter, in
order to demonstrate the divine influence of that ethereal spark, which
endows him with all the elements of future greatness.”
“Explain to me, at least,” interrupted Charney, “the peculiar value
of this precious gift, bestowed, you say, exclusively upon the human
species; superior in many points to the animal creation, surely we are
inferior in the majority. This very insect, whose wondrous powers you
have expounded, inspires me with a sense of inferiority and profound
humiliation.”
“From time immemorial,” replied Girardi, “animals have displayed no
progress in their powers of operation. What they are to-day, such
have they ever been; what to-day they know, they have known from the
beginning of the world. If born so lavishly endowed, it is because they
are incapable of improvement. They live not by their own will, but by
the impulse imparted to them by nature. From the creation until now,
the beaver has constructed his lodge upon the same plan; the caterpillar
and spider woven their cocoons and tissues of the same form; the bee
projected his cell of the same hexagon; the lion-ant traced, without a
compass, its circles and arches. The character of _their_ labours is that
of exactitude and uniformity; that of man, diversity—for human labour
arises from a free and creative faculty of mind. Judge therefore between
them! Of all created beings, man alone possesses the idea of duty, of
responsibility, of contemplation, of piety. Alone of all the earth he is
endowed with insight into futurity, and the knowledge of life and death.”
“But is this knowledge an advantage? is it a source of happiness?”
demanded the Count. “Why has _God_ bestowed upon us reason by which we
are led astray, and learning which serves but to perplex us? With all our
superiority, how often are we forced to despise ourselves! Why is the
exclusively privileged being the only one liable to error? Is not the
instinct of animals preferable to _our_ glimmering reason?”
“Both species were not created for the same end. GOD requires not
virtue of the brute creation. Were _they_ endowed with reason, with
liberty of choice as regards their food and lodgment, the equilibrium
of the world would be destroyed. The will of the Creator decided that
the surface of the globe, and even its depths, should be filled with
animated beings—that life should pervade the universe; in pursuance of
which, plains, valleys, forests, from the mountain top to the lowest
chasms—trees, rocks, rivers, lakes, oceans, from the sandy desert to the
marshy swamp—in all climates and latitudes—from one pole to the other—all
is peopled—all instinct with life, all blended in one vast sphere
of existence. Whether sheltered in the depths of the wilderness, or
behind a blade of grass, the lion and the pismire are alike at the post
assigned them by nature. Each has his part to play, his place to guard,
his predestined line of action; each is enchained within his proper
bound; for every square of the infinite chess-board was from the first
appropriately filled. Man alone is free to range over all, to traverse
oceans and deserts; pitch his tent on the sand, or construct a floating
palace on the waters; to defy the Alpine snows or the fervours of the
torrid zone—
“‘The world is all before him, where to choose
His place of rest, and Providence his guide!’”
“But if Providence indeed exert such influence, from whence the crimes
arising in all human communities, and the disasters which overwhelm
mankind?” cried Charney. “I sympathize in your admiration of all created
things; my reason is overwhelmed when I examine the mighty whole, but on
descending to the history of the human species——”
“My friend,” interrupted Girardi, “arraign not the wisdom of the Almighty
because of the errors of mankind, the devastations of a hurricane, or the
eruptions of a volcano! Immutable laws are imprinted upon matter; and
the work of ages is accomplished, whether a vessel founder in a storm,
or a city disappear beneath the surface of the earth. Of what account in
the sight of the Almighty a few human existences more or less? Does the
Supreme Being believe in the reality of death, the darkness of the grave?
“No! But HE has conferred on our souls the power of self-government, and
this is proved by the independence of our passions. I have portrayed
animals submitted to the irresistible influence of instinct—possessing
only blind tendencies, and the qualities inherent in their several
species. Man alone is the parent of his virtues and his vices; man alone
is endowed with free agency; because for him this earth is a place of
probation. The tree of good and evil which we cultivate here, is to bear
its fruits in a higher or a lower region. Do you imagine the omniscient
GOD so unjust as to leave the afflictions of the virtuous unrewarded?
Were this world the limit of our reward and punishment, the man who
dies by a stroke of lightning ought to be accounted a malefactor, and
the fortune of the prosperous should suffice as a certification of
excellence!”
Charney listened in silence: impressed by the simple eloquence of his
instructor, his eyes were fixed upon the noble countenance on which the
excitement of a mind innately pious was imprinting an almost august
character of inspiration.
“But why,” at length murmured the Count, “why has not GOD vouchsafed us
the positive certainty of our immortality?”
“Doubt was perhaps indispensable,” replied the venerable man, rising
and placing his hand affectionately on the shoulder of his youthful
companion, “to repress the vanity of human reason. What is the merit of
virtue, if its rewards be assured beforehand? What would become of free
will? The soul of man is expansive, but not infinite—vast in its power
of apprehending its own distinctions, and of appreciating the Creator by
the mightiness of his works; yet so limited as to render it profoundly
sensible of its dependence upon Providence. Man is permitted a glimpse of
his destinies—FAITH must effect the rest.
“Oh! mighty and all-seeing GOD!” cried Girardi, suddenly interrupting
himself, and clasping his hands in all the fervour of supplication, “lend
me the strength of thine arm to upraise from the dust this man who is
struggling with his human weakness and the desire to reach thy fountains
of light! Lend me thy wisdom to direct the aspirations of this longing
and bewildered soul! Lend eloquence to the words of my lips, that they
may be endued with the strength and power of the faith that is in me!
The humblest of thy creations—a flower, and an insect—have startled the
sceptic in his self-security; give grace to these, O Lord! if not to me,
to perfect the work thine infinite mercy has begun; and if not by me, by
the humble plant before us, be the miracle of thy holiness accomplished!”
The old man was silent. An ecstacy of prayer had taken possession of
his soul; and when, at the close of his unuttered devotions, he turned
towards his companion, Charney was bending his head upon his hands,
clasped together upon the back of the bench where they were sitting.
On raising his head, his countenance bore traces of the most devout
meditation.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
CHAPTER VIII.
In the purified heart of Charney, the blood now flowed more calmly: in
his expanded mind, mild and consolatory ideas succeeded each other in
gentle gradation. Like the wise Piedmontese, his friend, he was fully
alive to the conviction that happiness connects itself indissolubly with
love of our fellow-creatures; and in striving to people his imagination
with those to whom he was bound by ties of gratitude; the Empress,
Girardi, and Ludovico, presented themselves first to his mind. But at
length two female shadows became perceptible at either extremity of
this rainbow of love, expanding after the storm, just as we see in
altar-pieces, two seraphim, with brows inclined, and half-closed wings,
supporting the arch of the picture.
One of these shadows was the fairy of his dreams—the maiden Picciola,
emanating, fresh, fair, and blooming, from the perfumes of his flower;
the other, the guardian angel of his prison—his second providence—Teresa
Girardi.
By a singular inconsistency, the former, whose existence was purely
ideal, haunted his memory in a fixed, distinct, and positive form; he
could discern the varying expression of her brow, the glittering of her
eye, the smile of her lips—such as she had once appeared to him in his
dreams, such was she ever manifested. Whereas Teresa, on whom he had
never fixed his eyes, or only while still under the influence of a waking
dream, under what traits could he summon her to his remembrance? In _her_
instance, the countenance of the seraph was veiled; and when Charney, in
despair, attempted to raise the veil, it was still the face of Picciola
that smiled upon him: of Picciola, multiplying herself as if for the
purpose of interrupting the homage he would fain have offered to her
rival.
One morning, the prisoner of Fenestrella, though wide awake, fancied
himself alarmingly dominated by this strange hallucination. The day
was dawning. Having risen from his cheerless bed, he was musing upon
Girardi, who, prepared for his speedy release from prison, had infused
such tenderness into his adieu of the preceding night, that the Count
had been kept all night sleepless by the impression of their approaching
separation. After pacing his room for some time in silence, he looked
out from his grated window upon the bench of conference, where, only
the evening before, he had been engaged with Girardi in conversation
relative to his daughter; and lo! through the gray-hued mists of autumn,
he fancied he could discern a woman—the figure of a young and graceful
woman—seated on the spot. She was alone, and in an inclining attitude; as
if engaged in contemplation of the flower before her.
Recalling to mind the probability of Teresa’s arrival, Charney naturally
exclaimed, “It is herself! Teresa is arrived! I am about to see her for a
moment, and then behold her face no more; and in losing her I shall also
be deprived of my venerated companion.”
As he spoke, the figure turned toward his window; and the countenance
revealed to him by the movement was no other than the face of his
dream-love—of Picciola—still and always, PICCIOLA!
Stupefied by the discovery, he passed his hand over his brow, his eyes,
his garments, the cold iron bars of his window—in order to be satisfied
that he was awake, and that _this_ time, at least, it was not a dream.
The young woman rose, moved a few paces towards him, and smiling and
blushing, addressed him a confused gesture of salutation; but Charney
made no acknowledgment, either of the smile or the gesture by which it
was accompanied. He kept his eye fixed upon the graceful form which
traversed the misty court; a form in every point resembling that with
which his ideal Picciola was invested in the dreams of his solitude.
Fancying himself under the influence of delirium, he threw himself on
the bed, in hopes of recovering his composure and presence of mind. Some
minutes afterwards the door opened, and Ludovico made his appearance.
“_Oimé! oimé!_—Sad news and great news, _eccellenza_!” cried he. “One of
my birds is about to take flight—not over the walls, indeed, but over the
drawbridge. So much the better for him, and the worse for you.”
“Is it to be to-day, then?” demanded Charney, in a tone of emotion.
“I hardly know, _Signor Conte_; but it can’t be far off; for the act of
release has been already signed in Paris, and is known to be on its way
to Turin; at least, so the young lady just now told her father in my
hearing.”
“How!” cried Charney, starting from his reclining attitude. “She is
arrived, then—she is _here_!”
“At Fenestrella, _eccellenza_, since yesterday evening, and provided
with a formal order for her admission into the fortress. But there is a
special injunction against letting down the drawbridge after hours, for a
female; so she was obliged to put off her visit till this morning, _Capo
di Dio_! I knew she was there, but kept the secret as close as wax. Not
a syllable did I let fall before the poor old gentleman, or he would not
have had a wink of sleep. The night would have seemed as long as ten,
had he known that his child was so near. This morning she was up before
the sun; and waited for admittance at the gates of the citadel, in the
morning fogs—like a good soul and good daughter, as she is.”
“And did she not wait some time in the courtyard—seated yonder on the
bench?” cried Charney, confounded by all he was hearing. And, rushing
to the window, he cast an inquiring glance anew upon the little court,
adding, in an altered voice, “But she is gone, I see! she is there no
longer!”
“Of course not—_now_; but she _was_ there half an hour ago,” replied the
jailer. “She stayed in the court while I went up stairs to prepare her
father for the visit; for the poor young lady had heard that people may
die of joy. Joy, you see, _eccellenza_, is like spirituous liquors—a
thimblefull, now and then, does a man a power of good; but, let him
toss off a whole gourd, and there’s an end of him at once. Now, bless
their poor hearts, they are together; and, seeing them so happy, _per
Bacco_, I found myself suddenly all of a no-how; which made me think of
your excellency, and how you were about to be deprived of your friend;
and so I made off to remind you that Ludovico will still be left you—to
say nothing of Picciola. To be sure, poor thing, she is losing her
beauty—scarce a leaf left. But _that_ is the natural effect of the
season. You must not despise her for _that_.”
And the jailer quitted the room, without waiting the reply of Charney;
who, deeply affected, vainly tried to explain to himself the mysteries of
his vision. He was now almost persuaded that the sweet figure by which
his dreams were haunted, to which he had assigned the name of Picciola,
was the creature of reminiscence—that, absorbed by interest in his plant,
he had cast his eyes on Teresa Girardi, as she stood at the grated
window, and unwittingly received an impression eventually reproduced by
his dreams.
While he was thus reasoning, the murmur of two voices reached him from
the stairs; and, in addition to the well-known steps of the old man,
gliding over the stones, he could distinguish the light, airy foot of
one who scarcely seemed to touch the steps as she descended. At length,
the measured sound ceased at his door. He started. But Girardi made his
appearance alone.
“My daughter is here,” said the old man. “She is waiting for us beside
your plant.”
Charney followed in silence. He had not courage to articulate a syllable.
A consciousness of pain and constraint chased every feeling of pleasure
from his heart.
[Illustration]
Was this the consequence of being about to present himself before a woman
to whom he was so largely indebted, and towards whom it was impossible
for him to discharge the obligation; or of shame for his ungraciousness
of the morning, in neglecting to return her smile and salutation? As
the time of separation from Girardi approached, were his fortitude and
resignation forsaking him? No matter what the motive of his embarrassment
in presenting himself before Teresa Girardi, no one could have discerned,
in his language or demeanour, traces of the brilliant and popular Count
de Charney—the ease of the man of the world, the self-possession of the
philosopher, had given place to an awkwardness, a hesitation, which
called forth, in the answers of Teresa, a correspondent tone of coldness
and circumspection.
In spite of all Girardi’s exertions to place his daughter and his friend
on an agreeable footing, their conversation turned only upon indifferent
subjects, or trite remarks upon the dawning hopes of all parties.
Having in some degree recovered from his emotion, Charney read, in the
features of the lovely Piedmontese, only the most complete indifference;
and persuaded himself that the services she had rendered him had been
instigated by the impulses of a generous disposition; or, perhaps, by the
commands of her father.
Charney began almost to regret that the interview had taken place; for
he felt that he could never more invest her, in his reveries, with her
former fascinations. While all three were seated on the bench, Girardi,
wrapt in contemplation of his daughter, and Charney giving utterance to a
few cold, incoherent remarks, there escaped, from the folds of Teresa’s
dress, as she was drawn suddenly forward, by the tender embrace of her
father, a medallion of gold and crystal. On stooping to pick it up,
Charney could readily discern that one side was occupied by a lock of her
father’s gray hair, and the other by a withered flower. He looked again;
he gazed anxiously; he could not mistake it. The hidden treasure was the
identical flower of Picciola which he had sent her by Ludovico.
Teresa had kept his flower, then—had preserved it—treasured it with
the gray hairs of her father—the father whom she adored! The flower
of Picciola no longer adorned the raven tresses of the young girl,
but rested upon her heart! This discovery produced an instantaneous
revolution in the sentiments of Charney. He began to consider the
charms of Teresa, as if a new personage had offered herself to his
observation—as if he had seen her metamorphosed by enchantment before his
eyes.
The Count now perceived that, as she turned her expressive looks towards
her father, the two-fold character of tenderness and placidity impressed
upon her beauty, was analogous with that of Raphael’s Madonnas—that
she was lovely with the loveliness of a pure and perfect soul. Charney
retraced, with deliberate admiration, her animated profile—her
countenance, expressive of the union of strength and softness, energy
and timidity. It was long since he had looked upon a new human face—how
much longer since he had contemplated, in combination, youth, beauty,
and virtue! The spectacle seemed to intoxicate his senses; and, after a
glance at the graceful form and perfect symmetry of Teresa Girardi, his
wandering eyes fixed themselves once more on the medallion.
“You did not disdain my humble offering, then!” faltered the Count; and
faint as was the whisper in which the words were conveyed, they roused
the pride of Teresa; who, advancing her hand to receive the trinket,
replaced it hurriedly in her dress. But at that moment she was struck by
the change of expression visible in the features of the Count; and both
their faces became suffused with blushes.
“What is the matter, my dear child?” demanded Girardi, noticing her
confusion.
“Nothing!” she replied, with emotion. Then, as if ashamed of playing
the hypocrite with her parent, suddenly added, “This medallion, father,
contains a lock of your hair.” Then, as she turned towards Charney—“And
this flower, sir, is the one you sent me by Ludovico. I have preserved
it, and shall keep it forever.”
In her words—in the sound of her voice—in the intuitive modesty which
induced her to unite her father and the stranger in her explanations,
there was at once so much ingenuousness and purity of feminine instinct,
that Charney began for the first time to appreciate the true merits of
Teresa Girardi.
The remainder of that happy day elapsed amid effusions of mutual
friendship, which every moment seemed to enhance. Independent of
the secret power which attracts us towards another, the progress of
friendship is always rapid in proportion to the time we know to be
allowed us for the cultivation of dawning partiality. This was the
first day that Charney and Teresa had conversed together; but they had
had occasion to think so much of each other, and so few hours were
assigned them to be together, that a mutual acquaintance was speedily
accomplished; so that, when Charney, impelled by good breeding and good
feeling, would fain have retired, in order to afford an opportunity to
the father and daughter, so long separated, to converse together alone,
Girardi and Teresa alike opposed the movement of retreat.
“Are you about to leave us?” said the latter. “Do you, then, consider
yourself a stranger to my father, _or to me_?” added the young girl in
a tone of gentle reproach. And, in order to make him fully apprehend
how little restraint was imposed upon her by his presence, Teresa began
to detail to her father all that had befallen her from the moment of
her departure from Fenestrella, and the means she had employed to
bring together the two captives; addressing, at the conclusion of her
narrative, a request to Charney, to relate all the little events of the
citadel, and the progress of his studies connected with Picciola. After
this appeal, the Count did not hesitate to confess the history of his
early miseries—the tedium of his captivity—and the blessing vouchsafed
him in the arrival of his plant: while Teresa, gay and naïve, stimulated
his confession, by the liveliness of her inquiries and repartees.
Seated between the two, and holding a hand of each—of the daughter thus
restored to him, and the friend he was about to leave—the venerable
Girardi listened to their discourse with an air of mingled joy and
sadness. At one moment, when, by a spontaneous movement, he was about to
clasp his hands, those of Charney and Teresa were brought almost into
contact, the two young people appeared startled, touched, embarrassed,
and, though silent, communicated their emotion to each other by a rapid
glance. But, without affectation or prudery, Teresa soon disengaged her
hand from that of her father; and, placing it affectionately on his
shoulder, looked smilingly towards the Count, as if inviting him to
resume his narrative.
Enchanted and emboldened by so much grace and candour, Charney described
the reveries produced by the emanations of his plant. How could he
forbear allusion to that which constituted the great event of his
captivity? He spoke of the fair being whom he had been induced to
worship as the personification of Picciola; and, while tracing her
portrait with warmth—or rather transport—the smiles of Teresa gradually
disappeared, and her bosom swelled with agitation.
The narrator was careful to assign no name to the soft image he tried
to call up before their eyes; but when, in completing the history of
the disasters of his plant he reached the moment when, by order of the
commandant, the dying Picciola was on the eve of being torn up before his
eyes, Teresa could not refrain from a cry of sympathy.
“My poor Picciola!” cried she.
“_Thine!_” reiterated her father, with a smile.
“Yes, _mine_! Did I not contribute to her preservation?” persisted Teresa.
And Charney, in confirming her title to the adoption, felt as if, from
that moment, a sacred bond of community were established between them for
evermore.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
CHAPTER IX.
Gladly would the Count de Charney have renounced his liberty for the
remainder of his days, could he have secured the sentence of passing
them at Fenestrella, between Teresa Girardi and her father. He no longer
deceived himself. He felt that he loved Teresa as he had never loved
before. A sentiment to which his breast had hitherto been a stranger, now
penetrated into its depths, impetuous and gentle, sweet and stimulating,
like some acid fruit of the tropics, at once sweet and refreshing. His
new passion revealed itself not only by transports hitherto unknown, but
by the serene glow of a holy tenderness, embracing universal nature; nay,
the great Lord and Creator of nature and nature’s works. His brain, his
heart, his whole existence, seemed to dilate, as if to embrace the new
hopes, projects, and emotions, crowding on his regenerate existence.
Next day, the three friends met again beside Picciola; Girardi and the
Count occupying their bench, and Teresa a chair of state, placed opposite
them by the gallantry of Ludovico. She had brought with her some task of
woman’s work, some strip of delicate embroidery, over which her soft
countenance inclined, her graceful head following the movements of her
needle; and every now and then raising her eyes and suspending her work,
to interpose some playful remark in their grave dissertations. At length,
suddenly rising, she crossed over towards her father, threw her arms
round his neck, and pressed her lips repeatedly to his reverend locks.
The conversation between the two disputants was not renewed: for Charney
was already absorbed in profound meditation. He could not forbear
inquiring of himself whether he were beloved in return by Teresa—a
question which produced two conflicting sentiments in his bosom. He
feared to believe—he trembled to doubt. The flower—his gift—so carefully
preserved—the emotion evinced when their hands were accidentally united
on the knees of the old man—the tremor with which she had listened to the
recital of his impassioned dreams—all this was in his favour. But the
words breathed with so tender an inflexion of voice had been pronounced
in the presence of her father; what sense, therefore, dared he assign to
her tokens of compassion, her deeds of kindness and devotion? Had she not
afforded proofs of the same good-will before they had even met—before
even an interchange of looks and words had taken place between them? What
right has he to interpret in his favour the indications of feeling he has
since detected in her deportment?
No matter: of his own attachment, at least, he is certain. _He_ not
only loves Teresa, but has sworn within his heart of hearts to love her
through life and death; substituting for an ideal image, henceforward
superfluous, one of the most charming realities of human nature.
But the attachment of which he is thus conscious is a secret to be
preserved in the inmost archives of his soul: it would be a sin, a crime,
to invoke the participation of Teresa in his passion. What right has he
to imbitter the happy prospects of _her_ life? Are they not destined to
live apart from each other? _she_, free, happy, in the midst of a world
which she embellishes, and where she will doubtless soon confer happiness
on another in the bosom of domestic life; while _he_, in his solitary
prison, must consecrate himself to eternal solitude and eternal regrets
for his momentary happiness.
No! his passion shall be sedulously concealed. He will assume towards
Teresa Girardi the demeanour of a person wholly indifferent, or satisfy
himself with the calm demonstrations of a prudent and equable friendship.
It would be too deep a misfortune for _him_—for _both_—were he to succeed
in engaging her affections.
Full of these fine projects for the future, the first sounds that meet
his ear on the cessation of his reverie were the following sentences
interchanged between Teresa and her father, the former of whom was
exerting all her eloquence to persuade the old man that the moment of
his liberation was at hand; while Girardi persisted in expressing a
conviction that the remainder of the year would expire without producing
any material change in his destinies. “I know the dilatoriness of public
functionaries,” said he; “I know the vacillations of government. So
little suffices as a pretext for the suspension of justice, and the
cooling of a great man’s mercy!”
“If such is your opinion,” cried Teresa, “I will return to-morrow to
Turin, to hasten the fulfilment of their promises.”
“What need of so much haste?” demanded the father.
“How, dear father!” she replied, “is it possible that you prefer your
mean and narrow chamber, and this wretched court, to your beautiful villa
and gardens on the Collina?”
This seeming anxiety on the part of Teresa to leave Fenestrella ought
to have convinced Charney that he was beloved, and that the danger
that he dreaded for the object of his romantic attachment was already
consummated. But the part he had intended to play was now wholly
frustrated. Instead of affecting indifference, tranquillity, or even the
reserve of a prudent friendship, he manifested only the petulance of a
lover. Teresa, however, remained apparently unconscious of his fit of
perversity; and was not deterred by his resentment from repeating, that
if the decree of her father’s liberation should be again delayed, it was
her duty to set off for Turin, and renew her solicitations to General
Menon; nay, even for Paris, for a personal application to the Emperor.
Usually so reserved and mild, the fair Piedmontese seemed excited on the
present occasion to unusual vivacity.
“I scarcely understand you this morning,” said her father, amazed to
observe the gaiety of her deportment in presence of the poor prisoner
whom they were about to abandon to his misfortunes; and if her father
found something to regret in her demeanour, how much rather the grieved
and disappointed Charney!
The same reflections which had perplexed his mind the preceding night
had, in fact, been passing also through the mind of Teresa. She had
discovered, _not_ the arrival of Love in her bosom, but that it had long
resided there an unsuspected inmate: and though, like Charney, she would
willingly have accepted, as regarded her own happiness, the perils and
privations with which it was accompanied, like Charney she was reluctant
that all these should be inflicted upon another. The delight of loving,
the dread of being loved, threw her into a state of mental contradiction,
and produced the garrulity in which she sought refuge from herself.
Soon, however, all this constraint, all these efforts to disguise their
real sentiments, were suddenly dropped on both sides. After listening
attentively to the information imparted by Girardi, who mentioned
frequent instances where the pardon of prisoners, though publicly
announced, had not been suffered to take effect for many succeeding
months, the young people allowed themselves to be convinced; and with
mutual and unconcealed delight, began performing projects for the morrow
and succeeding days, as if, henceforward, the fortress of Fenestrella
were to be the home of their happiness and choice. Restored to the
society of Teresa, their guardian angel, the two captives appeared to
have but a single earthly misfortune to apprehend, the liberation of one
of them to disunite the little party.
Already, the philosophers were resuming their arguments, and Teresa her
embroidery. The pale rays of the sun, partially illuminating the little
court, fell lightly on the countenance of Girardi’s daughter, while a
refreshing breeze played amid the folds of her drapery and the floating
ribands by which it was confined. At length, excited by the freshness
of the atmosphere, she threw aside her work, rose from her seat, shook
out the ringlets of her raven hair, rejoicing in the return of hope and
sunshine, when suddenly the postern-door was thrown open, and Captain
Morand, accompanied by Ludovico and a municipal officer, made his
appearance.
They came to signify to Giacomo Girardi the act of his liberation. He
was to quit Fenestrella without delay; a carriage was in waiting at the
extremity of the glacis to convey him and his daughter to Turin.
At the moment of the commandant’s arrival, Teresa was standing beside
her father, but she instantly sank backward in her chair, resumed her
needlework, and, had Charney ventured a look towards her, he would have
been startled, on perceiving how instantaneously the hues of life and
health had faded from her cheek. But Charney neither stirred nor raised
his eyes from the ground, while Girardi was receiving from the hands
of the officers those papers and documents which were to restore him,
with an unblemished reputation, to his station in society. All was now
complete; and there was no longer an excuse for prolonging the liberated
prisoner’s preparations for departure.
Ludovico had already brought down from Girardi’s chamber the solitary
trunk containing his effects; the officers waited to escort him back
to Turin; the hour of parting had irrevocably struck. Rising once from
her seat, Teresa began deliberately to put up her working materials,
and arrange the scarf upon her shoulders; she even tried to put on her
gloves, but her hands trembled too much to effect her purpose.
[Illustration: _The farewell._]
Charney stood for a moment paralysed by the blow. Then, arming himself
with courage, he exclaimed, as he threw himself into the arms of Girardi—
“Farewell, my dearest father!”
“Farewell, _my son_! farewell, my beloved son,” faltered the good old
man. “Be of good cheer. Rely upon our exertions in your behalf; rely on
the steadiness of our affection. Adieu, adieu!”
[Illustration]
For some moments longer Girardi held him pressed to his heart; then, by a
sudden effort, relinquishing his warm embrace, turned towards Ludovico,
and, by way of concealing his own emotion, affected to busy himself by
giving in charge to the jailer the friend he was about to leave; to which
the poor fellow, perfectly comprehending the old man’s motives, replied
only by offering the support of his arm to conduct his faltering steps to
the carriage.
Charney, meanwhile, drew near to Teresa for the purpose of a last
farewell. Leaning with one hand on the back of her chair, her eyes fixed
on the ground, she stood motionless, speechless, as if there were no
question of quitting the place. Even when the Count advanced towards
her, she remained for some moments without speaking, till, irresistibly
moved by his paleness and agitation, she exclaimed, “I call our Picciola
to witness that——” But Teresa was not able to complete the sentence; her
heart was too full to utter another syllable. One of her gloves at that
moment escaped her trembling hands, which Charney picked up; and, ere he
restored it, raised it silently to his lips.
“Keep it!” said she, while tears streamed down her cheeks, “keep it till
we meet again.”
Another moment, and she was following her father. They were gone! All was
dark in the destinies of the Count de Charney. After watching the closing
of the postern-door, he stood like one petrified, with his eyes fixed on
the spot where they had disappeared; his hand still grasping convulsively
the parting pledge bestowed upon him by Teresa.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
CONCLUSION.
A philosopher has remarked that greatness must be renounced before it
can be appreciated; the same thing might have been said of fortune,
happiness, or any mode of enjoyment liable to become habitual.
Never had the poor captive of Fenestrella so venerated the wisdom of
Girardi, the charms and virtues of his daughter, as after the departure
of his two companions! Profound sadness succeeded to this momentary
elation. The efforts of Ludovico, the attentions required by Picciola,
were insufficient to divert his attention from his sorrows. But at
length, the sources of consolation he had derived from the study of
nature brought forth their fruit; and the depressed Charney gradually
resumed his strength of mind.
His last stroke of affliction had perfected the happy frame of his
feelings. His first impulse had been to bless the loneliness which
afforded his whole leisure to muse upon his absent friends; but
eventually he learned to behold with satisfaction a new guest seated in
the vacant place of the old man.
[Illustration]
His first and most assiduous visitor was the chaplain of the prison, even
the worthy priest whom during his illness he had so harshly repulsed.
Apprised by Ludovico of the state of despair to which the prisoner was
reduced, he made his appearance, forgetful of the past, to offer his good
offices, which were received with courtesy and gratitude. More amicably
disposed than formerly towards mankind, the Count soon became favourably,
nay, even affectionately disposed towards the man of God; and the rustic
seat became once more the bench of conference. The philosopher loved
to enlarge upon the wonders of his plant, the wonders of nature, and
repeat the lessons of the excellent Girardi; while the priest, without
bringing forward a single dogma of religion, contented himself, in the
first instance, with reciting the sublime moral lessons of Christianity:
grounding their strength upon the principles already imbibed by the
votary of natural religion.
The second visitor was the commandant; and Charney now discovered that
Morand was essentially a good sort of man, whose heart was militarily
disciplined; that is, disposed to torment the unfortunate beings
under his charge no farther than he was necessitated by the letter
of government instructions. So just, too, did he show himself in his
appreciation of the merits of the two prisoners recently released, as
almost to put Charney into good humour with petty tyranny.
But all this was soon to end; and it became Charney’s turn to bid adieu
to the priest and the captain. One fine day, when least prepared for the
concession, the gates of his prison opened, and he was set at liberty!
On Napoleon’s return from Austerlitz, incessantly importuned by Josephine
(who had probably some person besetting her in turn with supplications
in favour of the prisoner of Fenestrella), the Emperor caused an inquiry
to be made into the nature of the papers seized among the effects of the
Count de Charney. The cambric manuscripts were accordingly forwarded
to the Tuileries, from the archives of the police, where they had been
deposited; and, attracted by the singularity of their appearance,
Napoleon himself deigned to investigate the indications of treason
contained in their mysterious records.
[Illustration]
“The Count de Charney is a madman,” exclaimed the Emperor, after most
deliberate examination; “a visionary and a madman; but not the dangerous
person represented to me. He who could submit his powers of mind to the
influence of a sorry weed, may have in him the making of an excellent
botanist, but not of a conspirator. He is pardoned! Let his estates be
restored to him, that he may cultivate there, unmolested, his own fields,
and his taste for natural history.”
Need it be added that the Count did not loiter at Fenestrella after
receiving this welcome intelligence; or that he did not quit the fortress
alone? but, transplanted into a solid case, filled with good earth,
Picciola made her triumphal exit from her gloomy birth-place—Picciola,
to whom he owed his life—nay, more than life—his insight into the
wondrous works of God, and the joys resulting from peace and good-will
towards mankind—Picciola, by whom he has been betrayed into the toils
of love—Picciola, through whose influence, finally, he is released from
bondage!
As Charney was about to cross the drawbridge of the citadel, a rude
hand was suddenly extended towards him. “_Eccellenza!_” said Ludovico,
repressing his rising emotion, “give us your hand! we may be friends now
that you are going away—now that you are about to leave us—now that we
shall see your face no more! Thank Heaven, we may be friends!”
[Illustration]
Charney heartily embraced him. “We _shall_ meet again, my good Ludovico,”
cried he; “I promise you that you do not see me for the last time.” And,
having shaken both the hands of the jailer again and again with the
utmost cordiality, the Count quitted the fortress.
After his carriage had traversed the esplanade, and left far behind the
mountain on which the citadel is situated, crossed the bridge over the
Clusone, and attained the Suza road, a voice still continued crying aloud
from the ramparts, “_Addio, Signor Conte! Addio, addio, Picciola!_”
Six months afterwards, a rich equipage stopped at the gate of the state
prison of Fenestrella; from which alighted a traveller inquiring for
Ludovico Ritti: the former prisoner was come to pay a visit to his
jailer! A young lady, richly attired, was leaning tenderly upon his
arm—Teresa Girardi, now Countess de Charney. Together, the young couple
visited the little court and the miserable camera, so long the abode
of weariness, scepticism, and despair. Of all the sentences which had
formerly disfigured the wall, one only had been suffered to remain—
[Illustration]
“Learning, wit, beauty, youth, fortune, are insufficient to confer
happiness upon man.”
To which the gentle hand of Teresa now added, “if unshared by
affection”—and a kiss, deposited by Charney upon her lovely cheek, seemed
to confirm her emendation.
[Illustration]
The Count was come to request Ludovico would stand godfather to his
first-born child, which was to make its appearance before the close of
the year; and, the object of their mission accomplished, the young couple
proceeded to Turin, where, in his beautiful villa, Girardi was awaiting
their return.
There, in a garden closely adjoining his own apartment, in the centre
of a rich parterre, warmed and brightened by the beams of the setting
sun, Charney had deposited his beloved plant, out of reach of all danger
or obstruction. By his especial order, no hand but his own was to
minister to her culture. He alone was to watch over Picciola. It was an
occupation, a duty, a tax eternally adopted by his gratitude.
[Illustration]
How quickly—how enchantingly did his days now glide along! In the midst
of exquisite gardens, on the banks of a beautiful stream, under an
auspicious sky, Charney was the happiest of the human kind! Time imparted
only additional strength to the ties in which he had enchained himself;
as the ivy cements and consolidates the wall it embraces. The friendship
of Girardi, the tenderness of Teresa, the attachment of all who resided
under his roof, conspired to form his happiness, perfected at the happy
moment when he heard himself saluted as a father.
Charney’s affection for his son soon seemed to rival that he bore his
young and lovely wife. He was never weary of contemplating and adoring
them, and could scarcely make up his mind to lose sight of them for a
moment. And lo! when Ludovico Ritti arrived from Fenestrella to fulfil
his promise to the Count, and proceeded to visit, in the first instance,
his original god-daughter—the god-daughter of the prison—he found
that amid all this domestic happiness—all these transports of joy and
affection—all the rapture and prosperity brightening the home of the
Count and Countess de Charney, PICCIOLA had been forgotten—_La povera
Picciola_ had died of neglect, unnoticed and unlamented. The appointed
task was over. The herb of grace had nothing farther to unfold to the
happy husband, father, and believer!
[Illustration]
THE END.
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on rugs full of Orientalism and enthusiasm; on the literary
den and the caller, welcome or otherwise; on the cabinets
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indicated details of the spoils of the chase in their proper
place; on the greenhouse, with its curious climate and
wonderful botany and odors, about which the author writes
with unusual charm and precision; on the dining-room and the
dinner.... The book aims only to be agreeable; its literary
flavor is pervasive, its sentiment kept well in hand.”—_New
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book speak for itself. In its own way, it would be hardly
possible for this daintily printed volume to do better.”—_Art
Amateur._
_IN GOLD AND SILVER._ With many Illustrations. 16mo. Cloth, $2.00. Also,
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In this volume the author carries the reader from the Orient to the
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“In Gold and Silver” has been magnificently illustrated by two of the
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a specially designed title-page and cover by H. B. Sherwin. Altogether,
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_THE LAST WORDS OF THOMAS CARLYLE._ Including _Wotton Reinfred_,
Carlyle’s only essay in fiction; the _Excursion (Futile Enough) to
Paris_; and letters from Thomas Carlyle, also letters from Mrs. Carlyle
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are reminiscences of Irving and of the Thackeray circle, and
there is a curious portrait of Coleridge, not very thinly
veiled. There is enough autobiography, too, of interest in its
way.”—LESLIE STEPHEN.
“No complete edition of the Sage of Chelsea will be able to
ignore these manuscripts.”—_Pall Mall Gazette._
_MEN, MINES, AND ANIMALS IN SOUTH AFRICA._ By Lord RANDOLPH S. CHURCHILL.
With Portrait, Sixty-five Illustrations, and a Map. 8vo. 337 pages.
Cloth, $5.00.
“Lord Randolph Churchill’s pages are full of diversified
adventures and experience, from any part of which interesting
extracts could be collected.... A thoroughly attractive
book.”—_London Telegraph._
_AN ENGLISH MAN IN PARIS. Notes and Recollections._ Two volumes in one.
12mo. Cloth, $2.00.
This work gives an intimate and most entertaining series of pictures of
life in Paris during the reigns of Louis Philippe and Louis Napoleon. It
contains personal reminiscences of the old Latin Quarter, the Revolution
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Empire, the siege of Paris, and the reign of the Commune. The author
enjoyed the acquaintance of most of the celebrities of this time; and
he describes Balzac, Alfred de Musset, Sue, the elder Dumas, Taglioni,
Flaubert, Auber, Félicien David Delacroix, Horace Vernet, Decamps,
Guizot, Thiers, and many others, whose appearance in these pages is the
occasion for fresh and interesting anecdotes. This work may well be
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“... The reader of these volumes will not marvel more at the
unfailing interest of each page than at the extraordinary
collection of eminent persons whom the author all his life
knew intimately and met frequently. A list would range from
Dumas the elder to David the sculptor, from Rachel to Balzac,
from Louis Napoleon to Eugène Delacroix, from Louis Philippe
to the Princess Demidoff, and from Lola Montez to that other
celebrated woman, Alphonsine Plessis, who was the original of
the younger Dumas’s ‘Dame aux Caméllias.’ He knew these persons
as no other Englishman could have known them, and he writes
about them with a charm that has all the attraction of the most
pleasing conversation.”—_New York Times._
“We have rarely happened upon more fascinating volumes than
these Recollections.... One good story leads on to another;
one personality brings up reminiscences of another, and we
are hurried along in a rattle of gayety.... We have heard
many suggestions hazarded as to the anonymous author of these
memoirs. There are not above three or four Englishmen with whom
it would be possible to identify him. We doubted still until
after the middle of the second volume we came upon two or three
passages which strike us as being conclusive circumstantial
evidence.... We shall not seek to strip the mask from the
anonymous.”—_London Times._
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