How our hero made his way to, and through France, he never afterwards
could clearly call to mind.
Every perception was turned inward; while some mysterious spell seemed
endued with the power of compelling his thoughts to go again and again
the torturing round of remembrances, every one equally fraught with
wretchedness. The miserable end of poor Willoughby--never could that
heart-rending scene be erased from his memory--the devotion of his fond
parent--such a thought might have soothed; but had he not been, and was
he not still doomed to be, to her a source of unparalleled suffering.
Then there was another being, whose idea he dreaded to approach--and she
had once, for one short period, been all his dream of bliss.
There was certainly but little to draw him from his absorbing
reflections in the dull and monotonous plains of Burgundy and French
Compte. In due time, however, he left these behind him, and began to
ascend the heights above Poligni; but he felt not the invigorating
influence of the mountain air. He travelled on through the magnificent
scenery of the great military road; yet scarcely saw its precipices, its
waterfalls, its forests of beech and pine. At length the magnificent
lake itself opened to his view; stretching from Geneva to Chillon, and
reflecting, as in an immense mirror, the surrounding Alps with their
fleecy region of eternal snows, their glacier cliffs, glittering in the
sun-beams, their dark blue zone of wood, rock, precipice, and torrent;
and their smiling fertile base. He completed the winding descent of the
Jura, commanding the whole way to the very verge of the lake, a full
view of the fairy scenery, the fertile slopes, the glowing vine-yards,
the cornfields, orchards, gardens, towns, villages and villas; the
wooded brows, tranquil vales, and sparkling streams, of the enchanting
Pays de Vaud; yet he felt no pleasurable sensations arise: if the
splendour of effect in some measure aroused him, it was rather to a
state of more active suffering than before; as though the wilderness
within were rendered more desolate by comparison with the paradise
without.
He now proceeded by a beautiful drive along the water's edge to the
gates of Geneva; and here found the usually vexatious delays, respecting
passports, &c., peculiarly annoying, from the degrading consciousness of
disguise.
When he succeeded in effecting his entrance, and had retired to rest,
excessive fatigue, both of mind and body, brought sleep; but no sooner
had his weary eyelids closed, than horrors assailed him.
The Rhone flowed with a rapid pace beneath the very street and house in
which he had taken up his abode for the night. The pleasing murmur of
its waters became to his dreaming fancy the tumult of the congregated
multitude, around the foot of the scaffold, on which, with that
extraordinary certitude which sometimes accompanies the visions of
disordered slumber, he thought he was about to suffer an ignominious
death.
The agony of the moment awoke him, and he slept no more. But he felt a
stronger and more grateful sense than he had hitherto done, of the
blessing of having been preserved from such a fate; and even hope, under
the healing influence of a thankful spirit, in some sort revived. The
foul blot might be yet removed; he might yet be restored to the love and
respect of all good men; he might yet, though he could never more know
happiness himself, cease to be a source of misery to the best of
parents.
Fearful, that among the many English at Geneva, there might be some to
whom he was personally known, he remained in the house the whole of the
following day. In the evening, however, tempted by the balmy air, the
weather being unusually fine for the season, he determined to go on the
lake; a situation, in which he should of course be less liable than on
shore to meeting other persons near enough for recognition.
He did so accordingly. The sun had, a short time since, sunk behind the
Jura, while a lingering beam still crowned, as with a regal circlet, the
stately brows of that monarch of the scene, Mont Blanc. The hour was
calm and beautiful; the shores were fairy land; the lake a sea of gold;
while its shining surface was dotted with numerous vessels of every
description, gliding along so smoothly, that but for the changes which
gradually became apparent in their relative positions, they might have
seemed to have stood still.
One of these in particular, with a spell-like power, drew the attention
of our hero, possibly from unconscious sympathy with human misery, as it
seemed to be in some sort the scene of sorrow or of suffering, for
beneath an awning, a portion of the curtains of which were drawn aside,
was partly visible a couch, or bed, on which was laid a recumbent form,
to all appearance motionless; while the other figures in the boat were
evidently only the attendants on this principal one.
The boatman, observing the direction of our hero's eyes, began to tell
him in French, a tale possessing much of the sentimental, of which that
language, when it does not degenerate into affectation, is so good a
vehicle. He expatiated on the youth, the beauty, and the apparent
wealth, forlorn state, of this mysterious lady of the lake who was
dying, he said, in a foreign land, surrounded by strangers and servants
and without one friend or relative near to receive her last sigh.
It was by order of the physician, he added, of whose practice he, by the
way, by no means seemed to approve, that she was brought out thus on the
lake at all hours, and almost all weathers, more, 'tis to be feared, to
give notoriety to the doctor than health to the patient.
While he was speaking, the boat which contained the invalid began to
come towards them, on its way to the place of landing. At the same
moment a slight breeze arose, and lifting the curtains of the awning on
both sides simultaneously, kept them straight out, with a gently fanning
movement, like the extended wings of some gigantic bird. Its appearance
thus remarkable, its progress barely perceptible, it continued drawing
nearer and nearer while the narrator went on, winding up his story by
saying, the report was, that this beautiful lady had two suitors in her
own country, who were brothers; and that the one had murdered the other
for jealousy, but his crime being discovered, he had been brought to
trial, and executed: so that the poor young lady might well be
disconsolate, having thus lost both her lovers. By this time the
approaching boat had come so close, that in passing, it slightly grazed
that in which our hero sat.
Alfred's gaze had for some time been intense; his cheek now blanched;
unconsciously he grasped the arm of the boatman.
Pale, beautiful, to all appearance lifeless, the form which lay beneath
the uplifted awning in the passing boat was that of Caroline. The eyes
were closed, but the faultless features, in their angel-like expression,
were still unchanged, presenting a model of perfect loveliness reposing
in the sleep of death: while the silent attendants, with their
common-place, though solemn visages, looked like the rough stone figures
of mourning mutes coarsely carved around some Parian marble monument.