"After this horrible tragedy," continued the physician, "the court
remained sunk in the profoundest melancholy, which was shared by all the
inhabitants of the town; and it was only Francesco, (whose attachment
continued unabated to the unmarried Princess,) who still seemed
cheerful, and, by sympathy, spread a gleam of satisfaction through the
otherwise melancholy circles.
"I have stated only such facts as I can vouch for on my own knowledge.
As to the conjectures and rumours that were now abroad, they were, of
course, many and various, and, especially, a strange story was told of
some individual, who, on the marriage night, had played, in the dark,
the part of the bridegroom.
"Be that as it may, the Italian Countess afterwards retired to a distant
castle belonging to our Prince; and as to her mode of life there, it
was kept entirely secret, all that was made known being that her
extreme grief had disgusted her with the world.
"Notwithstanding the influence of this horrible misfortune, Francesco's
intercourse with the sister of our reigning Princess became always more
and more intimate, and the friendship of this Sovereign towards him more
publicly confirmed. The mystery, whatever it was, that hung over this
man's birth and fortunes, had now been fully explained to him; and at
last, after many consultations and entreaties, he agreed to a private
marriage between Francesco and his sister-in-law. The former was to be
raised to a high rank in the army, under another government, where our
Prince had influence; and not till that event took place, was his
marriage to be made public.
"The day of the solemnization arrived. The Prince and Princess, with two
other confidential witnesses, of whom my predecessor was one, were the
only persons present at this occasion. One page, who was also in the
secret, kept watch at the chapel-door.
"The couple were kneeling before the altar. The Prince's confessor, a
venerable old man, after an appropriate prayer and lecture, began the
ceremony, when, to the astonishment of every one, Francesco grew
suddenly pale as marble, staring at some object which as yet none but
himself beheld. 'What would'st thou have?' cried he, in a deep hollow
voice, and letting go his bride's hand.
"Following the direction of his looks, they now observed, leaning
against a pillar of the church, in his Italian dress, with a dark
violet-coloured mantle drawn closely round him--the painter! He
continued to fix his dark glaring eyes on Francesco, who seemed
transfixed with some inexplicable apprehension.
"The Princess nearly fainted, and every one but the priest was too much
astonished to speak--'Why should the figure of this man affright you?'
said he, to Francesco. 'It is true that his presence here was
unexpected; but if your own conscience is at rest, wherefore should you
tremble before him?'
"Then Francesco, who had till now kept this kneeling posture at the
altar, started up, and, with a small stiletto in his hand, rushed
towards the painter. But before he reached him, he himself fell, with a
frightful cry, to the ground, and in the same moment the painter
vanished behind the pillar.
"The marriage ceremony, of course, was thought of no more. All started
up as from a dream, and ran to the help of Francesco, who had fainted,
and lay on the ground as if dead. To avoid risk of publicity, the two
witnesses, with the page's help, carried him into the Prince's
apartments. When he recovered from his faint, he demanded vehemently
that he should be conveyed to his own lodgings, and left there alone. To
the Prince's questions as to his strange conduct in the church, he would
make no answer whatever.
"On the following morning, Francesco had fled from the _residenz_,
taking with him all the valuables which the favour of the late Duke, and
of our Sovereign, had bestowed upon him. The latter used every possible
means to unravel these mysteries, and, above all, to explain the ghostly
apparition of the painter. The chapel had only two entrances, of which
one led from the rooms of the palace to the seats near the high altar;
the other, from the great corridor into the aisle of the chapel. This
last entrance had been watched by the page, in order that no prying
observer should gain admittance. The other had been carefully closed, so
that it remained inexplicable both how the painter appeared in, and
vanished from, the chapel.
"Another circumstance very remarkable was noticed by the page. This
person had been the confidential attendant of the late Duke, and he
declared himself convinced, that the stiletto which Francesco had
continued to grasp convulsively during his faint, was the same which he
had seen lying by the body of his master on that fatal evening, and
which had soon afterwards been unaccountably lost.
"Not long after Francesco's flight, news came of the Italian Duchess. On
the very day when the former should have been married, she had been
delivered of a son, and soon after her accouchement had died. The Prince
deplored her untimely fate, though the circumstances of the bridal-night
had weighed so heavily on her, that her future life must, of necessity,
have been unhappy. Nor were there wanting individuals malicious enough
to raise against her evil rumours and suspicions. Her son never appeared
here, but was educated in distant countries, under the Italian title of
Count Victorin.
"The Princess--I mean the sister-in-law of our Sovereign--being reduced
to utter despair by these horrid events following like links of a chain
so closely on one another, determined on devoting the rest of her life
to the cloister. She is, as you already know, Abbess of the Cistertian
Convent at Kreuzberg.
"But, between these adventures which happened in our court, there has
lately been traced a wonderful, and almost supernatural coincidence,
with others which occurred very lately at the castle of the Baron von
F----, in the Thuringian mountains, and by which his house was thrown
precisely into the same state of distraction and misery under which ours
had suffered. You must know that the Abbess, who had been moved with the
distress of a poor woman with a child in her arms, who came to her from
a pilgrimage to the Convent of the Lime-Tree"--
Here the entrance of a visitor put an end to the physician's narrative;
and hastily taking my leave, I succeeded tolerably well in concealing
the tempest of emotions which now raged within me.
Scarcely a doubt remained on my mind that Francesco had been my father.
He had murdered the Duke with the identical stiletto with which, in
self-defence, I had afterwards killed Hermogen! Here, then, was the
origin of that hereditary guilt, of which the darkening clouds hung like
a curse upon my existence, and which it should have been my earnest
endeavour to expiate, by a life of voluntary suffering, of penance, and
exemplary piety.
Hence, therefore, I resolved instantly to follow the Prior's
injunctions, and betake myself to Italy; thus breaking out at once from
that dangerous circle into which I had been seduced by the malicious
powers of darkness.
On that very evening, however, I had been engaged to a party at court,
and went accordingly. The assembly was as numerous and varied as that
which I have described on a former occasion; but, through them all,
there prevailed _one only_ subject of conversation, viz. the
extraordinary beauty of a young lady who had arrived only the day
preceding at our court, and had been appointed one of the maids of
honour to the Princess.
At last the folding-doors were thrown open, the Princess, as usual,
stepped in, but not with her usual attendant. The stranger was with her,
and in that stranger I recognized at once--AURELIA!!
END OF VOLUME FIRST.