Meanwhile the unrelenting Agostino was fixed in his purpose and
incessant in his machinations. He believed that the destructive mine
was now sufficiently prepared, and that he might proceed in all surety
to the ultimate explosion. He apprehended that he had advanced too far
to retract, that the death of Charon and the assault upon Hector were
calculated sufficiently to announce what was to follow, and that it
would be injudicious and idle to grant me much respite for reflection.
The passions of his associates were wrought up to a frenzy of horror,
and needed only a bold and artful director to urge them to any point
of fury and destruction.
Implicitly as I had confided in the decision of the marchese, I had
speedily reason to know that it was the dictate of too sanguine and
presumptuous a spirit. On my return from his palace, and, on several
subsequent occasions, I found the manners of the populace altered
respecting me. They no longer viewed me with a sort of reverential awe,
or fled my approach. They insulted me with their eyes, they muttered
curses upon me in a voice sufficiently audible to be understood, they
broke forth in gestures of abhorrence and derision. They regarded me
with looks of ferocious hatred; and when I had passed them, their
murmurs gradually swelled into shouts of triumphant contumely. These
symptoms however were progressive; each day became more odious and
intolerable than the last. They who have never been placed in a
situation like mine, will never be able to do justice to my grievance.
They will perhaps say, that the calamity I now endured was a trifling
one, and that a weak mind only can be elevated by the acclamations and
huzzas of the multitude, or depressed by their hisses and scorn. I did
not, and I could not, feel it so. There is no pleasure more congenial
to the human heart, than the approbation and affection of our fellows.
I call heaven to witness that I could mount the scaffold, surrounded
with an innumerable multitude to applaud my fortitude, and to feel
as it were on their own neck the blow that ended me, and count it a
festival. But I cannot bear to be surrounded with tokens of abhorrence
and scorn. I cannot bear to look round me through an extended circle,
and see the impatience of despite in every face. Man was not born to
live alone. He is linked to his brethren by a thousand ties; and, when
those ties are broken, he ceases from all genuine existence. Their
complacence is a food more invigorating than ambrosia; their aversion
is a torment worse than that of the damned. While I write, I seem
again to hear resounding in my ears the hootings and clamours of these
infatuated peasants. When heard indeed, they went to my heart, and
sat there colder than the aspic’s venom: they rose to my throat with
a sensation bitterer than wormwood. They unstrung all my muscles and
nerves. I could not stay; I could not fly. I wished myself buried deep
in the centre of the earth. I felt something worse, more revolting,
more opposite to all the prejudices and propensities of the soul,
than annihilation. I have known in various situations and conditions
of human life, what it was to be distressed, to be dejected, to be
miserable; but never in any other situation have I felt a misery so
concentrated, so gnawing and insufferable.
I began however, like the critics I am figuring to myself, to despise
the pusillanimity of my submission, and to believe that, if I would
only make a stand and turn round upon my enemy, I should subdue him.
This resolution I could with difficulty have taken in the moment of
attack; it was formed in an interval of retrospect and reflection.
Having formed it, the contempt I should have felt for myself would have
been too exquisite, if I had failed to put it in execution. I was not
long at a loss for an opportunity. In one of my walks I found myself
pursued by a numerous populace with a peculiar degree of inveteracy. I
yielded for some time, till I came to a place that appeared convenient
for the purpose of haranguing them. It was a bench, placed upon a
rising ground and sheltered behind by a thicket, which had been erected
for the purpose of commanding a neighbouring prospect. I stopped; I
stepped upon the bench; I waved my hand towards the multitude. They
perceived my purpose with some degree of confusion and surprise; they
drew nearer. “Do not listen to him! Do not hear a word he has to say!”
cried some of them. “Oh, hear him! hear him!” exclaimed others. I
obtained an audience.
“What is the cause,” said I, “of all this hatred and persecution?”
“Because you are a wizard, a necromancer, a dealer in the black art;
because you are in league with hell, and have sold yourself to the
devil!” answered twenty voices at once.
“Hear me,” replied I, “and I will convince you of my innocence: but
hear me in silence, and do not interrupt me.”
“For myself, I have no belief in the existence of such an art.”
This remark produced a general groan.
“Why should I have sold myself to the foe of mankind? What could he
give me, that should compensate me for consigning myself over to him
for ever hereafter? The power of exhibiting strange and extraordinary
tricks. What a pitiful recompence? But, if I had bought this power at
so dear a price, should I hide it? Should I not take every opportunity
of exciting your reverence and astonishment? Who has seen me perform
any wonderful feat? I live quietly among you, and give no cause of
offence to any. I live retired in the midst of my family. I form no
party or connections. I do not intrude into any of your affairs,
political or private. I do not even enter into conferences with any of
you, unless induced by the apparent occasion of doing some good and
benevolent action.
“Quit then this ungenerous persecution! Do not turn the fury of your
resentment upon a harmless stranger! You are Italians, the most
polished and ingenious people on the face of the earth: the most
glorious monuments of art, in building, in statuary, and in painting,
are to be found in the midst of you: ancient Italy governed the world
by her arms; modern Italy governs the world through the medium of that
pure and sublime religion of which Providence has graciously made
her the repository. Do not stain the glory of this character! Show
yourselves worthy of the honour with which your name is heard in every
corner of the habitable world!”
While I was yet speaking, a large clot of mud reached me, and struck me
on the face and the upper part of my breast. I calmly endeavoured to
free myself from its effects with my handkerchief; and, looking round
me, demanded, in the sacred spirit of conscious innocence, “How have I
deserved this treatment?”
Thus far I had been heard with a doubtful sentiment of murmur and
approbation, and I began to feel that I was rather gaining ground upon
my audience. But this new insult seemed to turn the tide of popular
impression in an instant.
“Villain, renegado, accursed of God!” I heard from every side; “did not
you bewitch my cow? did not you enchant my child? have not you killed
my daughter? Down with him! exterminate him! do not suffer him to live!”
I continued my efforts to be heard. It was a critical moment, a last
experiment upon the power of firmness and innocence to control the
madness of infuriated superstition. It was in vain. I was deafened
with the noise that assailed me. It was no longer shouts and clamours
of disapprobation. It was the roaring of tigers, and the shriek of
cannibals. Sticks, stones, and every kind of missile weapon that
offered itself, fell in showers around me. It seemed a sort of miracle
that I escaped instant destruction. I eluded their pursuit: after
some time I ventured to return to my own house. I had in the interval
terrified myself with the idea that, having missed my person, they
might have hurried thither, and executed some terrible vengeance on my
helpless family. I found them however in safety: the mob had for this
time contented itself to disperse without further mischief.
As soon as it was dark, I hastened to Pisa, and related what had just
occurred to my friend the marchese. He was surprised; but he still
adhered to his opinion. He had never supposed, he told me, that a noisy
and clamorous mob was a proper subject upon which to make experiment of
the energy of truth; and he laughed at my attempt to reason them out
of their superstition. But they meant nothing by all that had passed.
It was the mere foam and fury of a moment, poured out with vehemence,
and then dissipated in air. A certain set of politicians had for
their particular ends represented a mob as a terrific and formidable
engine: alas! they were rather to be pitied than condemned. There
was no malice in their hearts. They were in reality a mere material
machine, led on without reflection, and, when they had committed a
momentary ravage, astonished themselves the most at the injury they had
perpetrated. They were as light and variable as a feather, driven with
every breath; and nothing could argue greater obliquity of intellect
than to suppose, because they were in a certain temper and sentiment
to-day, that they would be found in a similar temper and sentiment
to-morrow. The marchese however wished, he said, to relieve me from
the apprehension of this imaginary danger, and therefore offered me
the whole suite of his servants for the defence of my house. He added
that, among his friends and retainers in the city of Pisa, he did not
doubt in an hour’s time to be able to raise a troop of four hundred
men; and, whatever power of that sort he possessed, he assured me was
wholly at my service. I was not convinced by the marchese’s arguments,
but I declined his offer. I could not bear to think that blood should
be spilled, and the lives of these poor ignorant wretches sacrificed,
for the preservation of a thing so worthless in my eyes as the local
property I possessed. I therefore told the marchese, that I might
perhaps wait yet a day or two longer before I formed my resolution;
but that, the instant I saw one fresh symptom of the hostility of the
villagers, I was determined to take my family with me, and remove far
beyond the reach both of their terrors and their hatred.
I staid two hours with the marchese, and then set out to my own house.
The way I took was by a private road, open only to the neighbouring
gentry, but of which my servant carried the key. It led along the
higher ground, and commanded a view of the common highway. Considerably
before I reached my own habitation, I was struck with the appearance
of persons passing, in considerable numbers, and in a tumultuous
manner, along the public road. Some of them were armed with clubs, and
others with torches. Their march however led, not towards my house,
but in an opposite direction. I mended my pace, terrified with a sort
of vague apprehension of what might have happened, though I did not
disguise to myself that what I saw was not precisely that which I might
have expected to see, if they had been returned from demolishing my
property, and burning my house.
When I arrived, I found indeed that no mischief had been actually
committed, but that I was indebted for the preservation of my house,
and perhaps for the lives of my wife and children, to the sagacity
and presence of mind of Bernardin, the servant of my early years. My
residence had been the object against which the march of the populace
had been directed. Bernardin, perceiving their intentions, had with
great difficulty prevailed upon Hector to keep out of sight. Nothing
could be more adverse to the feelings and inclination of my faithful
negro; but, Bernardin having convinced him that his appearance would
only exasperate the rage of the assailants, and that perhaps every
thing of importance to his master’s service and happiness depended at
present upon his concealment, Hector yielded to his representations.
This accomplished, Bernardin next assembled the gardener and one or two
labourers in my employment, who happened to be at hand; and, having
furnished them with fire-arms, stationed them at different windows, in
the front of the house. With these preparations, when the mob arrived
he resolutely told them that he would fire on the first person that
attempted to break in. They were staggered: furious as they appeared
the moment before, this threat held them in awe. They paraded two or
three times round the house, clattering their arms, and pouring out
vehement execrations; and then withdrew, solemnly promising that they
would return the following night, and level the house with the ground.
I no longer yielded the smallest degree of credit to the unsuspicious
and confiding philosophy of the marchese Filosanto. I sent off my wife
and children before daybreak for Lucca, determined to take shipping
at the first convenient port, and pass over into Spain. I was little
solicitous, for reasons with which the reader is already acquainted,
about my property and moveables: I had no motive to induce me to fetter
and clog my retreat, at this hour of peril and terror, with a single
article of rarity and price. My furniture indeed was not splendid,
but it was handsome and valuable; and the indifference with which
I resigned the whole to the mercy of chance, was a matter of some
surprise to the persons around me. My servants offered to defend my
possessions, at the peril of their lives; but I peremptorily forbade
it. I would not even consent to their taking away certain articles, by
way of appropriating them to their personal use. I believed that if I
admitted a single act of that sort, I should find it no easy matter
to set limits to their avidity; and, as I had determined to take none
of my present servants with me, the negro and Bernardin excepted, I
feared that the apparent possession of a single article that had been
mine might hereafter mark its proprietor a victim to the senseless
rage of blindfold superstition. I could easily make up to these honest
and faithful dependants the injury they might sustain from the seeming
severity of this order. I determined to shut up my house, with all
its present contents, as Joshua, the captain of the Jews, drew a line
of separation round the profane possessions of Achan; and to leave
the villagers, if so it seemed good to them, to make of the whole a
burnt-offering, to propitiate the wrath of their avenging divinity.
The directions I issued being unhesitating and peremptory, met with a
ready submission from all my other domestics: Hector only, the mild and
complying Hector, of whom obedience had hitherto appeared to constitute
the very soul, met my commands with a resolute refusal. The present
distressed appearance of my fortunes seemed to have worked the poor
fellow’s mind to a paroxysm of insanity. He considered himself as the
sole author of my calamity. He reviled himself in the bitterest terms
of compunction and abhorrence. The language which the agony of his
soul forced from his lips, was such as could not fail to impress upon
my other servants a conviction of the justice of the imputations that
were now brought against us. This however was of little importance.
I must at all events have been contented to leave behind me, in my
present neighbourhood, a name loaded with the execrations of religious
fanaticism. Hector imprecated upon himself a thousand curses, if, so
long as he continued to live, the populace should lay hands upon a
straw of my property. He would not move so much as an inch from the
defence of my house. He would either, by preserving it, expiate in some
degree the mischief in which he had involved me, or fall and be crushed
to death in the midst of its ruins. Arguments and expostulations
were useless here: his mind was worked up to too high a tone, to be
susceptible of the patience necessary for hearing or understanding
any reasoning that was addressed to him. Authority itself was of no
avail: for the first and the last time he threw off the character of a
servant, and appeared obstinate, self-willed, and ungovernable. It was
only by direct violence that he could be forced from the spot. I gave
him in charge, with the most strict orders not to suffer him to escape
from their custody, to two of his fellows.
This business being despatched, I went, at the invitation of the
marchese, to a small cottage he possessed at no great distance from my
own house. Its situation was so private and retired, that few persons
knew or could perceive that there was any building on the spot. Here
therefore I could remain in the most perfect safety. I felt myself
unaccountably impelled to stay and witness the catastrophe of the
tragedy. I should not have been satisfied to continue in uncertainty as
to what it would prove. After all that had passed, like the marchese, I
should have been apt to accuse myself of cowardice, and a mind soured
and degenerate, if the mob had not put their threats in execution.
The marchese himself was well pleased with my determination in this
respect. He was not yet convinced that I had not painted to myself a
danger, which had no adequate counterpart in the world of realities.
I had not long to wait. The night had no sooner spread an even-coloured
and almost impervious veil over the world, than the marchese, as if
moved by a secret impulse to witness what he yet refused to believe,
came to me at the cottage. He had scarcely arrived, when he heard the
confused murmurs and turbulence of the populace; for we were near
enough to distinguish almost every thing. As they did not meet with
the defence of the preceding evening, the work they had undertaken
was presently despatched. We saw the flames ascend. We recognised the
shouts of infernal joy with which they witnessed the catastrophe.
When the marchese beheld what, till seen, he would never admit to be
possible, he burst out into a sort of transport of misanthropy. He
exclaimed that no innocence, and no merit, could defend a man from the
unrelenting antipathy of his fellows. He saw that there was a principle
in the human mind destined to be eternally at war with improvement
and science. No sooner did a man devote himself to the pursuit of
discoveries which, if ascertained, would prove the highest benefit
to his species, than his whole species became armed against him. The
midnight oil was held to be the signal of infernal machinations. The
paleness of study and the furrows of thought were adjudged to be the
tokens of diabolical alliance. He saw, in the transactions of that
night, a pledge of the eternal triumph of ignorance over wisdom. Above
all, he regretted that his countrymen, his dear Italians, should for
ever blot their honour and their character by such savage outrages.
Though myself the principal sufferer, I was obliged to perform the part
of the comforter and consoler, and endeavour to calm the transport of
agony that seized upon the susceptible Filosanto. He was astonished,
shocked, and beside himself: I viewed the whole with the gloomy
firmness of a desperate resolution.
The worst event of this detested evening remains yet unrecorded. Even
now I tremble, while I attempt to commit the story to my harmless
paper. So far as related to the mere destruction of my property, I
looked on with a philosophical indifference. I had no reason, and I
disdained to regret the loss of that which I had it in my power to
repair in a moment. I thought I had taken care that no human life
should be risqued upon this critical occasion. But I was mistaken.
I learned the next morning with anguish inexpressible that Hector,
the negro of the prison of Constance, was no more. He had eluded
the vigilance of his keepers. No sooner was he at liberty, then he
hastened, unknown to every one, to die, as he had declared he would, in
the defence of my house. The mob had burst into the house; they seized
him alive. They dragged him out in the midst of them; they insulted
over him, as the special favourite of the infernal king. They inflicted
on him every species of mockery and of torture; they killed him joint
by joint, and limb by limb.----The pen drops from my lifeless hand.
What right had I to make this man the victim of my idle and unhallowed
pursuits? What has the art and multiplication of gold in it, that
should compensate the destruction of so ingenuous, so simple-hearted,
so noble a creature? If I had myself fallen into the hands of the
populace, it had been well: I was a criminal, worthy of every
retribution they could inflict upon me! Some men perhaps will ask,
why I lamented so bitterly over so uncultivated and uninformed an
individual as this negro. There was however something so truly tragical
in the fate to which this creature in his generosity and remorse
devoted himself, that I believe for the moment I felt a sharper pang
in it, than in the strange and extraordinary loss of my only son, or
perhaps in the premature death of my beloved Marguerite.