_Beatrice in the Inquisition at Lucca.--Freed
by Castruccio, at the Intercession of Euthanasia._
While Euthanasia yet remained at Lucca in this uncertain manner, a
circumstance occurred which caused her to suspend the preparations for
her journey. Late one night (it was nearly twelve o'clock), the visit of
a stranger was announced; a man, they said, so wrapt up in his capuchin,
that his physiognomy could not be distinguished. Why did Euthanasia's
heart beat fast, and the colour desert her warm lips? What could she
hope or fear? The man was admitted, and one glance sufficed to satisfy
her curiosity, and to quiet her trembling expectation. He was one of the
meaner class; and, when he threw back his cloak, Euthanasia perceived
that he was an entire stranger to her; but there was a kindness, a rough
sensibility in his face, that pleased her, and she gently enquired what
he had to say to her.
"Noble countess, I come on a work of charity, which would ruin me for
ever if my superiors were to discover it. I am the jailor of the
Lucchese prison; and this morning the Dominican inquisitors put under my
custody a Paterin woman[1], whom it would move any soul but theirs to
behold. She has touched me with the greatest pity by her tears and
heart-breaking intreaties: she denies her heresy, and says that you can
prove her faith; but she must see you first; and I, at peril of all that
I am worth, am come to conduct you to her dungeon, for I can admit you
only by night. Surely you will come; poor thing, she is very young and
fearful, and is now lying on the floor of her prison panting with terror
and expectation."
"Unfortunate creature! Did she tell you her name?"
"She says that you do not know it; but she intreats you to remember a
pilgrim girl, whom you once received at your castle, and whom you
pitied; a sun-burnt, way-worn creature who said that she was on the way
to Rome."
"I do not recollect; but if she is unhappy, and desires to see me, it is
enough, I follow you."
Euthanasia wrapt her capuchin around her, and followed the man through
the dark, wet streets of Lucca: the thaw had not yet completed its work;
the snow was deep and miry under their feet; while the melting
collections of several days dripped, or rather streamed from the
house-roofs on their heads: the Libeccio blew a warm, cloud-bringing
wind, that made the night so black, that they could not avoid the
standing pools that interspersed the streets. At length they arrived at
the prison; the jailor entered by a small, low door which he carefully
closed after them, and then struck a light. He led Euthanasia through
the bare and mildewed vaults, sometimes unlocking a massy gate, drawing
back the harsh bolts which grated with rust and damp; sometimes they
emerged into a passage open to the sky, but narrow, with tall black
walls about it, which dropt their melted snow with a continual and
sullen splash upon the pavement: small, glassless, grated windows looked
into these strait passages; these were the holes that admitted light
into the dungeons. At length they ascended a small, broken, staircase of
wood; and, opening a door at the head of it, and consigning his lamp to
the countess, the jailor said: "She is here; comfort her; in two hours I
shall come to conduct you back."
Euthanasia entered the prison-chamber, awe-stricken and trembling; for
the good ever feel humiliated at the sight of misfortune in others: the
poor prisoner was seated crouched in a corner; she looked wildly towards
the door; and, seeing Euthanasia, she leaped up, and, throwing herself
at her feet, clinging to her knees, and clasping them with convulsive
strength, she cried, "Save me! You alone on earth can save me."
Poor Euthanasia was moved to tears; she raised the sufferer, and, taking
her in her arms, tried to soothe her: the prisoner only sobbed, leaning
her head upon Euthanasia's hand: "Fear not, you shall be saved; poor
sufferer, calm yourself; speak, what would you with me? fear not, no
harm shall reach you; I will be your friend."
"Will you indeed--indeed--be my friend? and go to him, and bid him save
me? He alone can do it."
"Who? Speak calmly, dearest; pause awhile; reassure yourself, and then
speak. Look, you are safe in my arms; I clasp them round you, do not
fear!"
The prisoner sunk in Euthanasia's embrace: she was chilled,
icy-cold;--and she lay panting, as a bleeding fawn who gazes on its
death's wound. The warmth of Euthanasia's arms somewhat restored her;
and she said, dividing the entangled strings of her hair with her thin
fingers; "You do not remember me, nor would he; I am as unlike what I
was when he saw me, as is the yellow, fallen leaf to the bright-green
foliage of May. You do not remember me?"
"Yes, now it flashes on my memory; are you then indeed----" Euthanasia
paused; the name of Beatrice hovered on her lips, but a feeling of
delicacy prevented her from speaking it: she continued; "Yes, I
recollect the pilgrim, your refusal to remain at Valperga, and the deep
interest I took in your sorrows."
"You were very, very kind; are you not so now? Will you not go to him,
and ask him to order my release?"
"To whom am I to go? and from whom do I come?" asked Euthanasia,
half-smiling; for, notwithstanding the prisoner recalled to her memory a
scene, which made it appear that she was certainly Beatrice; yet so long
had all trace of her been lost, that she wished for some confirmation
from her own lips.
"Alas!" replied the unhappy girl, "I would not have him know, if I could
help it. Do you think that, if you were to tell him that a poor girl,
who five years ago had just attained her seventeenth year, who was then
happy, loving and adored,--who is now pursued for heresy--falsely--or if
you will--truly; one very unfortunate, who earnestly implores him as he
loves his own soul, to save her; do you not think he would compassionate
me?"
"Who? you speak in riddles."
"In riddles! Are you not Euthanasia? You must know whom I mean; why,
Antelminelli,--Castruccio."
The prisoner hid her face with her hands. She blushed deeply, and her
fast-falling tears trickled through her fingers; Euthanasia blushed
also, a tremulous hectic, that quickly vanished, while her companion's
cheeks still burned.
"Yes, I will go to him, or to any one on earth to save you.--Yet
methinks I had better go to the father-inquisitors; I am known to them,
and I think I could as easily move them as the prince; he is
careless----"
"Oh! no--no; you must go to him: he knew me once, and surely would
compassionate me. Try him first with the echo of my complaints, and a
relation of my tears; surely his eyes, which can look into the soul,
would then be dimmed: would they not?"
Euthanasia thought of Leodino; and she was about to reply, that
warriors, politicians, and ambitious princes, such as Castruccio, were
accustomed to regard with contempt woes like hers. But she hesitated;
she would not rob him, whom she had once loved, of the smallest mite of
another's praise, however undeserved; besides, she felt that the name of
Beatrice alone would move him to compassion, perhaps to remorse. She was
therefore silent; and the prisoner continued, with a voice of trembling
earnestness, "Try every argument first; but, if he is obdurate, then
tell him that he once knew me,--that now my fortunes are changed,--he
will guess the cause: yet perhaps he will think wrong, for _that_ is not
the cause. Tell him I am one Beatrice;--he saw me some years ago at the
house of the good bishop of Ferrara."
The poor fallen prophetess now burst into a passion of weeping; she
wrung her hands, and tore her hair, while her companion looked on her,
unable to restrain her tears. Castruccio had described his Beatrice, so
bright, so ethereal in her loveliness, that it moved Euthanasia's inmost
soul to see what a change a very few years had made. Perceiving the
blushes and shame of the lost girl, she concealed her knowledge of her
tale, and answered only by endeavouring to soothe her, and to assure her
of her safety.
"Am I safe? I tell you that I fear, oh! how much I fear! I am very
young; I was once happy; but, since that, I have suffered beyond human
utterance; yet I dread death; and, more than all, do I fear pain. They
call me a heretic; aye," (and her dark eyes beamed fiercely) "I am one;
I do not belong to their maudlin creed; I feel my wrongs, and I dare
curse----But, hush, not so loud.--You pardon me, do you not? Alas! if
you turn against me, they seize on me, tear me, burn me!"
The two hours had swiftly passed, while Beatrice thus wept with
alternate passion. The jailor came to reconduct Euthanasia; but Beatrice
clung to her, clasping her neck, and intwining her fingers in her long
thick hair. "No! no! You must not go!" she cried; "I shall die, if I am
again left alone. Oh! before you came, I sometimes felt as if I did not
know where I was, and madness seemed about to fall on me: you are good,
consolatory, kind; you must not leave me."
"Then I cannot see the prince; I cannot intercede for your liberation."
"But that is many hours hence, and the comfortable day-light will be
come; now it is quite dark; hark to the splashing water, and the howling
of the Libeccio; I had forgotten all that; and now they come upon me
with ten-fold horror; do not leave me!"
Euthanasia could hardly distinguish the suppliant's features by the
light of the jailor's small lamp; but she saw her eyes bright with
tears, and felt her bosom throb against her own; again she strove to
console her; reason was thrown away;--when the jailor urged his, her
own, every one's safety--she shook her head.
"I thought you were kind; but you are not: my cheeks are pale with fear;
put up your lamp to them that you may see. She can go early, the moment
day dawns,--indeed she shall go then, but now she must not."
Euthanasia tore herself away; though her heart was pierced by the wild
shriek of Beatrice, as she threw herself on the floor. The jailor led
her through the melancholy passages of the prison, and then along the
wet streets, until she reached her home: and she retired to meditate
during the remaining hours of night on the words she should employ in
her representations to Castruccio the following morning.
The expectation of this meeting flushed her cheeks, and made her deep
eyes beam, while every limb trembled. She had not seen him so long that
his assumed power, his tyrannies, and mean politics, were lost in her
recollection; she felt as if she should again see him honest,
passion-breathing, and beautiful, as when they took sweet counsel
together at Valperga. Valperga! that was now a black and hideous ruin,
and he the author of its destruction. But she thought, "This is a
dream;--I shall see him, and it will vanish; there is a coil wound round
me of sorrow and distrust, which will snap beneath his smile, and free
me,--I shall see him!
"Why do I think of myself? I go to free this poor girl, whom he has
wronged, and to whom he belongs far more than to me; this unhappy
Beatrice, who sheds tears of agony in her dungeon. I am nothing; I go as
nothing; would that he should not recognize me! I go a suppliant for
another, and I must tame my looks: they are not proud; but I must teach
them humility; I must school my heart not to speak, not to think of
itself--I go for her; and, having obtained my request, I will come away,
forgetful that I am any thing."
Day dawned; day, cold, wet, and cloudy, but ever cheerful to one weighed
down by the sense of darkness and inaction: day did not dawn this dreary
winter morning, until seven o'clock, and the period had arrived when it
was fitting that Euthanasia should seek Castruccio. She threw a veil
over her shining hair, while she hid her form in a rich cloak of sables;
then she stole out alone; for she could not endure that any one should
know of this strange visit. When, she arrived at the _Palazzo del
Governo_, her rich attire and distinguished mien won her easy entrance,
and she penetrated to the cabinet of the prince.
Her heart beat audibly; she had entered with rapid, though light steps;
now she paused; and, as it were gathering up the straggling feelings of
her mind, she endeavoured to bind them in a firm knot; she resolved to
calm herself, to still the convulsive motion of her lips, to remember
nothing but Beatrice. She entered; Antelminelli was alone; he was at a
table reading a paper, and a smile of light derision played upon his
features; he raised on her his dark, piercing eyes, and seeing a lady
before him, he rose; in a moment Euthanasia was self-possessed and
resolved; and casting back her cloak, and throwing aside her veil, her
eyes lifted up, yet not fixed on him, she began in her silver voice to
say, "My lord, I come----"
But he was too much thunderstruck to listen; his cheeks glowed with
pleasure; all the anger and indifference he had nourished vanished in
her presence, and he broke forth in a torrent of wonder and thanks.
She waved her hand,--"Do not thank me, but listen; for I come on a
message, an errand of charity; and if you can, hear me, and forget who
it is that speaks."
He smiled, and replied: "Certainly it were easy not to see the sun when
it shines: but, whatever your errand may be, speak it not yet;--if you
come to make a request, I shall grant it instantly, and then you will
go; but pause awhile first, that I may look on you; it is a whole year
since I saw you last; you are changed, you are paler,--your eyes--but
you turn away from me, as if you were angry."
"I am not angry--but I am nothing.--There is a heretic, at least a girl
accused of heresy, confined in your prisons, whom I wish you to free,
and, for the love of Heaven, not by the shortest delay to add another
moment of sorrow to her heap: she has suffered much."
"A heretic! that is beyond my jurisdiction; I do not meddle with
religion."
"Yes, you do;--you see priests every day: but I intreat you not to
oblige me to argue with you; listen to me a few moments, and I shall say
no more. She is very unfortunate, and fears death and pain with a horror
that almost deprives her of reason; she is young; and it is piteous to
see one scarcely more than twenty years of age, under the fangs of these
bloodhounds; she was once happy; alas! pity her, since she feels to the
very centre of her heart the change from joy to grief."
"Yet no harm will happen to her, at most a few months' imprisonment: if
she dread death and pain, she will of course recant and be freed; what
will she suffer for so short a time?"
"Fear; the worst of evils, far worse than death. I would fain persuade
you to throw aside this hard-heartedness, which is not natural to you;
moments are years, if they are lengthened out by pain; every minute that
she lives in her dungeon is to her a living death of agony; but I will
tell you her name,--at her request I wished to conceal it: but that will
win you, if you are not already won by the sweet hope of saving one who
suffers torments you can never know."
"Euthanasia, do not look so gloomily; I am not thinking of your heretic;
I hesitate, that I may keep you here: you have your will; I will never
refuse a request of yours."
A smile of fleeting disdain passed over her countenance. "Nay, when you
know who she is, you may grant my prayer for her own sake. I come from
Beatrice, the daughter of Wilhelmina of Bohemia."
If the ghost of the poor prophetess had suddenly arisen, it could not
have astounded Castruccio more, than to hear her name thus spoken by
Euthanasia, coupled with the appellations of heretic and prisoner. The
tide of his life ebbed; and, when it flowed again, he thought of the
celestial Beatrice, her light step, her almost glorious presence; and
the memory of her pale cheek and white lips when he last saw her,
thrilled his heart. Years had passed since then; what had she suffered?
What was she? A heretic? Alas! she was the daughter of Wilhelmina, the
nursling of Magfreda, the ward of a leper, the adopted child of the good
bishop of Ferrara.
Euthanasia saw the great confluence of passions, which agitated
Castruccio, and made him alternately pale and red; she was silent, her
quiet eyes beaming upon him in compassion; for a long time his heart
could not find a voice, but at length he spoke,--"Hasten! hasten! free
her, take her to you! Euthanasia, you are the angel itself of charity;
you know all her sad story--all that relates to me; calm her, console
her, make her herself again,--poor, poor Beatrice!"
"Farewell then; I go,--send one of your officers with the order; I will
hasten to her, as quickly as you can wish."
"Yet pause, stay one moment; shall I never see you again? You have cast
me off utterly; yet, I pray you, be happy. Why should you be pale and
sorrowful? you have other friends; must all that love me, mourn? Surely
I am not a devil, that all I touch must wither. Beware! tear the veil
from your heart; read, read its inmost secrets, the eternal words
imprinted in its core; you do not despise me, you love me,--be mine."
The pale cheek of Euthanasia was flushed, her eyes flashed
fire,--"Never! tie myself to tyranny, to slavery, to war, to deceit, to
hate? I tell thee I am as free as air. But I am hurried far beyond the
bounds I prescribed for myself, and now not a word more."
"Yes, one word more; not of yourself, wild enthusiast, but of Beatrice.
I destroyed her; not that I knew what I did; but heedlessly, foolishly,
destroyed her; do you then repair my work; I would give half my soul
that she should be as when I first saw her. You have heard a part of her
story, and you will now perhaps learn those sufferings which she has
endured since we parted; it is doubtless a strange and miserable tale;
but do you be the ministering angel of mercy and love to her."
Sorrow and even humiliation were marked on Castruccio's countenance;
Euthanasia looked at it, almost for the first time since she had
entered; she sighed softly, and said nearly in a whisper, "Alas! that
you should no longer be what you once were!"
Pride now returned and swelled every feature of Castruccio; "Enough,
enough: whatever wine of life I drain, I mingled it myself. Euthanasia,
if we never meet again, remember, I am content; can you be more?"
Euthanasia said not a word; she vanished, her bright presence was gone;
and Castruccio, to whom, as to the fallen arch-angel, that line might be
applied,
Vaunting aloud, though rack'd with deep despair,
tearless, his lips pressed together, sat recalling to mind her words and
looks, until, remembering his boast, he looked up with angry defiance;
and, shaking from his heart the dew of tenderness, he plunged amidst the
crowd where he commanded, where his very eye was obeyed.
Euthanasia hastened to the prison, where the kind-hearted jailor led her
with a face of joyful triumph to the dungeon of Beatrice; the poor thing
was sleeping, the traces of tears were on her cheeks (for like a child
she had cried herself to sleep), and several times she started uneasily.
Euthanasia made a sign to the jailor to be silent, and knelt down beside
her, looking at her countenance, once so gloriously beautiful; the
exquisite carving of her well shaped eyelids, her oval face, and pointed
chin still shewed signs of what she had been; the rest was lost. Her
complexion was sun-burnt, her hands very thin and yellow, and care had
already marked her sunken cheeks and brow with many lines; her jet black
hair was mingled with grey; her long tresses had been cut, and now
reached only to her neck; while, strait and thin, they were the shadow
merely of what they had been; her face, her whole person was emaciated,
worn and faded. She awoke and beheld the eyes of Euthanasia, like heaven
itself, clear and deep, gazing on her.--"Arise, poor sufferer, you are
free!"
Beatrice looked wildly; then, starting up, she clapped her hands in a
transport of joy, she threw herself at the feet of her deliverer, she
embraced the jailor, she was frantic. "Free! free!" for some time she
could repeat no other word. At length she said, "Pardon me; yesterday I
was rude and selfish; I tormented and reproached you, who are all
kindness. And you, excellent man, you will forgive me, will you not?
What was it that I feared? Now that I am going to leave my dungeon,
methinks it is a good cell enough, and I could stay here always well
content; it is somewhat dark and cold, but one can wrap oneself up, and
shut one's eyes, and fancy one's self under the sun of heaven."
She continued prattling, and would have said much more, but that
Euthanasia with gentle force drew her from the dungeon, out of the
gloomy prison; and they hastened to her palace, where Beatrice was
quickly refreshed by a bath and food. But, when the first joy of
liberation was passed, she sunk to melancholy: she would not speak, but
sat listlessly, and her tears fell in silence. Euthanasia tried to
comfort her; but many days passed, during which she continued sullen and
untractable.
In the mean time Euthanasia received several billets from Castruccio,
with earnest enquiries concerning the welfare of this poor girl. "God
knows," he wrote, "what has happened to this unfortunate being since we
parted. My heart is agonized, not only for what she suffers, but for
what she may have suffered. She is now, they say, a heretic, a Paterin,
one who believes in the ascendancy of the evil spirit in the world; poor
insane girl! Euthanasia, for her soul's sake, and for mine which must
answer for hers, reason with her, and convert her; be to her as an
affectionate sister, an angel of peace and pardon. I leave the guidance
of her future destiny to your judgement: but do not lose sight of her.
What do I ask of you? And what right have I to bring upon you the
burthen of my faults? But you are good, and will forgive me."
[Footnote 1: These heretics were long a principal subject of hostility
to the Inquisition; and in 1290 a particular community was erected at
Florence by San Pietro di Verona, for the express purpose of their
extermination.]