_Castruccio visits Florence.--Characters of Euthanasia
dei Adimari and her father.--The
father of Castruccio dies._
A traveller had arrived at Ancona from Florence, and had diffused the
intelligence that a strange and tremendous spectacle would be exhibited
there on the first of May of that year. It had been proclaimed in the
streets of the city, by a herald sent by the inhabitants of the quarter
of San Frediano, that all who wished to have news from the other world,
should repair on the first of May to the bridge of Carraia or to the
quay of the Arno. And he added, that he believed that preparations were
made to exhibit Hell, such as it had been described in a poem now
writing by Dante Alighieri, a part of which had been read, and had given
rise to the undertaking.
This account raised the curiosity, and fired the imagination of
Castruccio. The idea darted into his head that he would see this
wonderful exhibition; and no sooner had he conceived the possibility of
doing so, than his determination was fixed. He dared not ask his
father's permission, for he knew that he should be refused; and, like
many others, he imagined that it was better to go, not having mentioned
his design, than to break a positive command. He felt remorse at leaving
his father; but curiosity was the stronger passion, and he was overcome:
he left a billet for Ruggieri; and, during the silence of a moonlight
night, he mounted his steed, and left Ancona. While proceeding through
the streets of the town, he several times repented, and thought that he
would return; but no sooner had he passed the walls, than he seemed to
feel the joy of liberty descending on him; and he rode on with wild
delight, while the mountains and their forests slept under the yellow
moon, and the murmur of the placid ocean was the only sound that he
heard, except the trampling of his own horse's hoofs.
Riding hard, and changing his horse on the road, he arrived in five days
at Florence. He experienced a peculiar sensation of pleasure, as he
descended from the mountains into Tuscany. Alone on the bare Apennines,
over which the fierce wind swept, he felt free; there was no one near
him to control his motions, to order him to stay or go; but his own will
guided his progress, swift or slow, as the various thoughts that arose
in his mind impelled him. He felt as if the air that quickly glided over
him, was a part of his own nature, and bore his soul along with it;
impulses of affection mingled with these inexplicable sensations; his
thoughts wandered to his native town; he suffered his imagination to
dwell upon the period when he might be recalled from exile, and to
luxuriate in dreams of power and distinction.
At length he arrived at the fair city of Florence. It was the first of
May, and he hastened from his inn to the scene of action. As he
approached, he observed the streets almost blocked up by the multitudes
that poured to the same spot; and, not being acquainted with the town,
he found that he had better follow the multitude, than seek a way of his
own. Driven along by the crowd, he at length came in sight of the Arno.
It was covered by boats, on which scaffoldings were erected, hung with
black cloth, whose accumulated drapery lent life to the flames, which
the glare of day would otherwise have eclipsed. In the midst of these
flames moved legions of ghastly and distorted shapes, some with horns of
fire, and hoofs, and horrible wings; others the naked representatives of
the souls in torment; mimic shrieks burst on the air, screams and
demoniac laughter. The infernal drama was acted to the life; and the
terrible effect of such a scene was enhanced, by the circumstance of its
being no more than an actual representation of what then existed in the
imagination of the spectators, endued with the vivid colours of a faith
inconceivable in these lethargic days.
Castruccio felt a chill of horror run through his frame; the scene
before him appeared for a moment as a reality, rather than a
representation; the Arno seemed a yawning gulph, where the earth had
opened to display the mysteries of the infernal world; when suddenly a
tremendous crash stamped with tenfold horror the terrific mockery. The
bridge of Carraia, on which a countless multitude stood, one above the
other, looking on the river, fell. Castruccio saw its props loosening,
and the curved arch shake, and with a sudden shriek he stretched out his
arms, as if he could save those who stood on it. It fell in with a
report that was reverberated from the houses that lined the Arno; and
even, to the hills which close the valley, it rebellowed along the sky,
accompanied by fearful screams, and voices that called on the names of
those whom they were never more to behold. The confusion was beyond
description terrible; some flying, others pressing towards the banks of
the river to help the sufferers; all, as himself, seized with a
superstitious dread, which rebuked them for having mimicked the dreadful
mysteries of their religion, and which burst forth in clamorous
exclamations and wild horror. The heroism of Castruccio failed; he
seized with eagerness the opportunity of an opening in the crowd; and,
getting into a by street, ran with what speed he could, while his knees
still shook beneath him, from the spot he in the morning as eagerly
sought. The sound of the shrieks began to die away on his ear before he
slackened his speed.
The first idea that struck him, as he recovered his breath, was--"I am
escaped from Hell!"--And seeing a church open, he with an instinctive
impulse entered its doors. He felt as if he fled from the powers of
evil; and, if he needed protection, where should he seek it with more
confidence, than in the temple where the good God of the universe was
worshipped? It was indeed as a change from Hell to Heaven, to have
escaped from the jostling of the crowd, the dreadful spectacle of
mimicked torments, the unearthly crash that bellowed like thunder along
the sky, and the shrieks of the dying--to the silence of the empty
church, the faint smell of incense, and the few quiet lights that burned
on the high altar. Castruccio was seized with a feeling of awe as he
walked up the aisle; and conscience, alive at that moment, reproached
him bitterly for having quitted his father. When the idea struck
him--"If I had been on that bridge,"--he could no longer resist his
emotions; tears ran fast down his cheeks, and he sobbed aloud.
A man, whom he had not perceived before kneeling in a niche beside the
altar, arose on hearing the voice of grief, and drew near the boy. "Why
do you weep?"--he said. Castruccio, who had not heard his approach,
looked up with surprise; for it was the voice of Marco, the servant of
his father's friend, Messer Antonio dei Adimari. Marco instantly
recognised him; for who that had once seen, could ever forget his dark
eyes, shaded by long, pointed lashes, his sun-bright hair, and his
countenance that beamed with sweet frankness and persuasion? The boy
threw himself into the arms of his humble, but affectionate friend, and
wept there for some time. When he had become more calm, his story was
told in a few words. Marco was not inclined to find fault with an
adventurous spirit, and soon consoled him.--"You are safe,"--he said;
"so there is no harm done. Come, this is rather a fortunate event than
otherwise; my lord and lady are in Florence; you shall stay a night with
them; and to-morrow morning we will send you home to your anxious
father."
The eyes of Castruccio sparkled with hope.--"Euthanasia is here?"
"She is."
"Quick then, dear Marco, let us go.--How fortunate it was that I came to
Florence!"
The life of Messer Antonio dei Adimari had been spent in the military
and civil service of his country; he had often been _Priore_; and now,
that age and blindness had caused him to withdraw from the offices of
the state, his counsels were sought and acted upon by his successors. He
had married the only daughter of the Count of Valperga, a feudal chief
who possessed large estates in the territory of Lucca. His castle was
situated among the Apennines north of Lucca, and his estates consisted
of a few scattered villages, raised on the peaks of mountains, and
rendered almost inaccessible by nature as well as art.
By the death of her father the wife of Adimari became Countess and
Castellana of the district; and the duties which this government imposed
upon her, often caused the removal of her whole family from Florence to
the castle of Valperga. It was during these visits that Adimari renewed
a friendship that had before subsisted between him and Ruggieri dei
Antelminelli. Messer Antonio was a Guelph, and had fought against
Manfred under the banners of the Pope: it happened during one campaign
that Ruggieri fell wounded and a prisoner into his hands; he attended
him with humanity; and, when he perceived that no care could restore him
if separated from his prince, and that he languished to attend at the
side of Manfred, he set him free; and this was the commencement of a
friendship, which improved by mutual good offices, and more than all by
the esteem that they bore one to the other, had long allied the two
houses, though of different parties, in the strictest amity.
Adimari continued in the service of his country, until his infirmities
permitted him to withdraw from these active and harassing duties, and,
giving up the idea of parties and wars, to apply himself exclusively to
literature. The spirit of learning, after a long sleep, that seemed to
be annihilation, awoke, and shook her wings over her favoured Italy.
Inestimable treasures of learning then existed in various monasteries,
of the value of which their inhabitants were at length aware; and even
laymen began to partake of that curiosity, which made Petrarch but a few
years after travel round Europe to collect manuscripts, and to preserve
those wonderful writings, now mutilated, but which would otherwise have
been entirely lost.
Antonio dei Adimari enjoyed repose in the bosom of his family, his
solitude cheered by the converse which he held with the sages of Rome in
ages long past. His family consisted of his wife, two boys, and a girl
only two years younger than Castruccio. He and Euthanasia had been
educated together almost from their cradle. They had wandered hand in
hand among the wild mountains and chesnut woods that surrounded her
mother's castle. Their studies, their amusements, were in common; and it
was a terrible blow to each when they were separated by the exile of the
Antelminelli. Euthanasia, whose soul was a deep well of love, felt most,
and her glistening eyes and infantine complaints told for many months,
even years after, that she still remembered, and would never forget, the
playmate of her childhood.
At the period of this separation Adimari was threatened by a misfortune,
the worst that could befall a man of study and learning--blindness. The
disease gained ground, and in a year he saw nothing of this fair world
but an universal and impenetrable blank. In this dreadful state
Euthanasia was his only consolation. Unable to attend to the education
of his boys, he sent them to the court of Naples, to which he had before
adhered, and in which he possessed many valued friends; and his girl
alone remained to cheer him with her prattle; for the countess, his
wife, a woman of high birth and party, did not sympathize in his
sedentary occupations.--"I will not leave you," said Euthanasia to him
one day, when he bade her go and amuse herself,--"I am most pleased
while talking with you. You cannot read now, or occupy yourself with
those old parchments in which you used to delight. But tell me, dear
father, could you not teach me to read them to you? You know I can read
very well, and I am never so well pleased as when I can get some of the
troubadour songs, or some old chronicle, to puzzle over. These to be
sure are written in another language; but I am not totally unacquainted
with it; and, if you would have a little patience with me, I think I
should be able to understand these difficult authors."
The disabled student did not disdain so affectionate an offer. Every one
in those days was acquainted with a rude and barbarous Latin, the
knowledge of which Euthanasia now exchanged for the polished language of
Cicero and Virgil. A priest of a neighbouring chapel was her tutor; and
the desire of pleasing her father made her indefatigable in her
exertions. The first difficulties being conquered, she passed whole days
over these dusky manuscripts, reading to the old man, who found double
pleasure in the antient poets, as he heard their verses pronounced by
his beloved Euthanasia. The effect of this education on her mind was
advantageous and memorable; she did not acquire that narrow idea of the
present times, as if they and the world were the same, which
characterizes the unlearned; she saw and marked the revolutions that had
been, and the present seemed to her only a point of rest, from which
time was to renew his flight, scattering change as he went; and, if her
voice or act could mingle aught of good in these changes, this it was to
which her imagination most ardently aspired. She was deeply penetrated
by the acts and thoughts of those men, who despised the spirit of party,
and grasped the universe in their hopes of virtue and independence.
Liberty had never been more devotedly worshipped than in the republic of
Florence: the Guelphs boasted that their attachment to the cause of
freedom might rival what history records of the glorious days of
antiquity. Adimari had allied himself to this party, because he thought
he saw in the designs and principles of its leaders the germ of future
independence for Italy. He had ever been a fervent advocate for the
freedom of his fellow citizens: but he caught the spirit with double
fervour from the Roman writers; and often, not seeing the little fairy
form that sat at his feet, he forgot the age of his companion, and
talked in high strains of that ennobling spirit which he felt in his
inmost heart. Euthanasia heard and understood; her soul, adapted for the
reception of all good, drained the cup of eloquent feeling that her
father poured out before her, and her eyes shone with the deep emotion.
Her young thoughts darted into futurity, to the hope of freedom for
Italy, of revived learning and the reign of peace for all the world:
wild dreams, that still awake the minds of men to high song and glorious
action.
Such was the education of the friend of Castruccio, while he learned all
chivalrous accomplishments under the tuition of his noble father at
Ancona; and now, after three years absence, they met at Florence,
neither having by forgetfulness wronged the friendship they had vowed in
infancy.
When Marco led his young friend to the palace of Adimari, he found his
master and the countess receiving the visits of some of the Guelph
party; and he knew that this was no time or place to introduce the young
Ghibeline. But, as they passed along the great hall, a sylph-like form
came from a room opposite, appearing as a star from behind a cloud.--"I
bring your exiled friend," said Marco; "Castruccio dei Antelminelli is
come to visit you."
"Castruccio in Florence!" cried Euthanasia; and she embraced him with
sisterly affection, "But how, dear friend, do you venture within these
walls?--is your father here?--but this is no place to ask all the
questions that I must hear resolved before you go. Come into this room;
none but my father will enter here; and now you shall tell me all that
has passed since you quitted Lucca."
Castruccio gazed on Euthanasia: he could, he thought, feed for life on
her sweet looks, in which deep sensibility and lively thought were
pictured, and a judgement and reason beyond her years. Her eyes seemed
to read his soul, while they glistened with pleasure; he wished to hear
her speak, but she insisted that his tale should be first told, of how
he had lived at Ancona, and how he had ventured to Florence. She gently
reproached him for having left his father; and then said,--"But I must
not play the hypocrite; I am glad you are come; for it gives me more
pleasure than I can express, to see you again. But I hear my father's
step; I must go and lead him, and tell him of the stranger-visitor he
has got."
Castruccio enjoyed the most heartfelt pleasure, as he sat between
Euthanasia and her father. Their manners towards him were affectionate,
and their conversation best calculated to fill an exile's bosom with
hope and joy. He was told by them, that if they now parted, he must look
forward to the moment when he and his father should be recalled with
honour to their country. Adimari could not see the bright eyes and
ardent mien of the boy; but he heard with pleasure the detail of his
occupations at Ancona, and easily perceived that his young mind slept
not on the present, dreamless of the future. He encouraged his
aspirations to honour, and exhorted him to be faithful to the lessons of
his father.
The charmed hours flew past, and the following morning they were to
separate. This consideration, as evening came on, threw more solemnity
into their looks and talk. Castruccio became pensive, and gazed on his
friend, as a treasure that he was about to lose, perhaps for ever.
Euthanasia was silent; her eyes were bent to earth; and the varying
colour of her cheeks shewed that she was revolving some thought in her
mind, to which she knew not how to give utterance. At length she raised
her eyes, and said:--"We part to-morrow, Castruccio, as we have before
parted,--for many years I fear. But there are two kinds of separation.
One, during which we suffer time to obliterate the past, as we should if
death, that parting to which no meeting succeeds, or a meeting in which
all private ties are superseded, had been the cause of the separation.
But there is another; when we cherish the memory of the absent, and act
for them as if they were with us; when to remember is a paramount duty.
This is alone practicable between friends, when each in his meditations
is sure that the other thinks also of him: then, methinks to reflect on
the words and looks of a friend, is as if one absolutely saw him. Let
this be our separation. We are both familiar with the ideas of virtue
and self-sacrifice; let friendship be joined to these, to make all
sacrifice light, and virtue more delightful. We are very young; we know
not what misfortunes are in store for us; what losses, perhaps what
calumnies, or even dishonour, may in after times taint our names. In
calumny it is to the friends of our youth that we must turn; for they
alone can know how pure the heart is, with which they were acquainted at
the time when disguise could have no existence. They, if they are true,
dare not leave us without consolation. Castruccio, I know that you will
never dishonour yourself: and, remember, if in any hard struggle you
want a friend who will console you by sympathy and confidence, and help
you as far as her power will permit, I will always be that friend to
you."
Euthanasia was yet a child, when she made this promise. But she saw
Castruccio, the friend of her infancy, a youth of high birth and nobly
bred, an outcast and an exile; she had heard and read how few friends
the unfortunate find, and generosity prompted those sentiments, to which
the frankness of her nature caused her to give utterance. She felt that
Castruccio had a deep affection for her, and she hoped, that a promise
thus voluntary and solemn; would be a consolation to him during
adversity. He felt the kindness of her motive, and replied
earnestly:--"I am an exile, and can do no good to you who are
prosperous; mine must be barren thanks. Yet not the less will I fulfil
my promise, if our fortunes change, of being your friend, your knight,
your rock, on whom you may build your hope and trust in every
misfortune."
The next morning, accompanied by Marco, Castruccio quitted Florence. In
his mind there was a mixture of grief at having left, and joy at having
once more seen, Euthanasia. Every word that she had said, and every look
of her lovely eyes, were treasured in his soul--to be a consolation and
support in trouble, and an incentive to noble endeavour. Adimari had
taken an affectionate leave of him, telling him, that, as far as a poor
blind man could, he would promote his interests, and seize the first
opportunity, if such should offer, of procuring a repeal for his exile.
There was a kindness and distinction in the manner of his aged friend,
that touched the heart of the boy; and in after times he thought he
perceived a hidden meaning in his last words, which he interpreted in a
manner that gave a sober steadiness to what he would otherwise have
considered as another airy bubble of the enchantress Hope. "Remember,"
said the venerable Florentine, "that I approve of, and love you; and if
you become that which your talents and dawning virtues promise, you may
in future be my elect favourite. Now, farewell; and do not forget me or
mine!"
Thus cheered, thus buoyed up by hopes of future good fortune and
advancement, which had before been too deeply mingled with fear,
Castruccio returned with a light heart to his father, his soul more than
ever bent upon improvement and the accomplishment of noble deeds. And
now, forgiven by his anxious parent for the grief he had occasioned him,
his days wore away, as they were wont, in delightful tasks.
Time passed on, while our young esquire was preparing himself for his
future career; strengthening his mind by study, and his body by toil.
His step assumed the firmness of one who does not fear, and who, with
his eye fixed on one point, will not be daunted by the shadows that flit
between him and his desired sun. His eyes, before beaming with frankness
and engaging sweetness, now sparkled with a profounder meaning. He
entered his seventeenth year, and he was pondering upon the fit
beginning to his life, and hoping that his father would not oppose his
fervent desire to quit what he thought a lifeless solitude; when, as a
young bather, peeping from a rock, is pushed into the sea, and forced to
exert the powers of which he was before only dreaming, so chance threw
Castruccio from his quiet nook into the wide sea of care, to sink or
swim, as fate or his own good strength might aid him.
His father died. A malignant fever, brought by some trading vessels from
the Levant, raged in the town of Ancona, and Ruggieri was one of its
earliest victims. As soon as he was attacked, he knew he must die, and
he gazed upon his boy with deep tenderness and care. To be cast so young
on life, with a mind burning with ardour, and adorned with every
grace--the fair graces of youth, so easily and so irretrievably
tarnished! He had commanded him not to come near him during his illness,
which was exceedingly contagious: but finding that Castruccio waited on
him by stealth, he felt that it was in vain to oppose; and, only
intreating him to use every imaginable precaution, they spent the last
hours of Ruggieri's life together. The fever was too violent to permit
any regular conversation; but the dying father exhorted him to remember
his former lessons, and lay them to his heart. "I have written a
letter," said he, "which you will deliver to Francesco de Guinigi. He
was one of my dearest friends, and of high birth and fortune, in Lucca;
but now, like me, he is an exile, and has taken refuge at the town of
Este in Lombardy. If he still preserves in adversity that generosity
which before so highly distinguished him, you will less feel the loss of
your father. Go to him, my Castruccio, and be guided by his advice: he
will direct you how you can most usefully employ your time while an
outcast from your country. Listen to him with the same deference that
you have always shown to me, for he is one of the few wise men who exist
in this world, whose vanity and nothingness open upon me the more, now
that I am about to quit it."
From time to time Ruggieri renewed his affectionate exhortations. His
parental tenderness did not desert him in his last moments; and he died
making a sign that in Heaven they should again meet. Castruccio was
overwhelmed by grief at his loss. But grief was soon silenced by pain:
he had inhaled the pestilential air from the dying breath of his father,
and was speedily like him stretched on the bed of sickness. Yet not like
him had he any tender nurse, to watch his fever, and administer to his
wants: every one fled from the chance of death; and it was only the
excellent constitution of the boy that enabled him to recover.
In a month after his father's death, himself in appearance more dead
than alive, he crawled out from his apartment to breathe the enlivening
air of the sea. A wind swept over it, and chilled his frame, while the
dusky sky filled him with despondency. But this was a transient feeling:
day by day he gained strength, and with strength and health returned the
buoyant spirits of youth. The first lively feeling that he experienced,
was an ardent desire to remove from Ancona. During his illness he had
bitterly felt the absence of many whom he considered dear and firm
friends. When he was able to enquire for those whom he had inwardly
reproached as false, he found that they were dead. The pestilence had
visited them, and felled them to the ground, while he, bruised and half
broken, raised his head when the deadly visitation was over. These
disappointments and losses pressed on his soul; and he experienced that
feeling which deceives us at every age, that by change of place, he
could exchange his unhappy sensations for those of a more genial nature.
The rainy season had begun; but he would not delay his departure; so,
taking an agonizing farewell of the graves of his friends, and of those
of his beloved parents whom he could never see more, he left Ancona.
The beauty of the mountains and the picturesque views for a while
beguiled his thoughts. He passed through the country where Asdrubal, the
brother of Hannibal, was defeated and slain on the mountain which still
bears his name. A river runs at the base; and it was clothed by trees
now yellow and red, tinged thus by the winds of autumn, except where a
cluster of ilexes gave life to the scenery. As he advanced, the rains
poured down, and the hills, now more distant, were hid in mist; while
towards the east the gloomy Adriatic filled the air with its restless
murmurs. Castruccio had passed swiftly through this country before, when
he went to the _Festa d'Inferno_ at Florence. It was then adorned by the
fresh spring; the sunbeams illuminated the various folds of the
mountains, and the light waves coursed one another, dancing under the
dazzling light. Castruccio remembered this; and he gazed sullenly on the
sky obscured by a thick woof of black clouds, and reproached that with
changing, as his fortune changed. Yet, reflecting on the chances that
had occurred during his last journey, his imagination wandered to
Euthanasia, and paused there, resting with delight on her beloved image.
He passed through many towns, among which he had no friends, and sought
for none. Yet, if he had desired protection, several of these were ruled
by Ghibeline lords, who would have welcomed him with hospitality. Rimini
was then governed by the husband of Francesca, whose hapless fate is
immortalized by Dante. She was dead; but the country people, with a
mixture of pity and religious horror, still spoke of her as the
loveliest creature that had ever dwelt on earth, yet for whose lost
soul, condemned to eternal pains, they dared not even pray.
Castruccio journeyed slowly on. He was weak and unable to endure
continued exercise. Yet his mind recovered by degrees its wonted
strength; and imagination, ever at work, pictured his future life,
brilliant with glowing love, transcendant with glory and success. Thus,
in solitude, while no censuring eye could check the exuberant vanity, he
would throw his arms to the north, the south, the east, and the west,
crying,--"There--there--there, and there, shall my fame reach!"--and
then, in gay defiance, casting his eager glance towards heaven:--"and
even there, if man may climb the slippery sides of the arched palace of
eternal fame, there also will I be recorded."
He was yet a boy in his seventeenth year when he said this. His desires
were afterwards to a considerable extent fulfilled: would he not have
been happier, if they had failed, and he, in blameless obscurity, had
sunk with the millions that compose the nations of the earth, into the
vast ocean of oblivion? The sequel of his history must solve the riddle.