Among the various confidences reposed in me by my son, one was his
love. The object of his attachment was a young lady of quality, named
Pandora, niece to Nadasti, great palatine of Hungary. In consequence of
the earnest recommendation of Castaldo in 1553, Nadasti had taken my
son under his particular protection, and Charles’s principal home at
the periods when the army was dispersed in winter-quarters was at the
palatine’s house in the city of Presburg. Here his manners had become
more polished, and his taste more refined. Till then, bred in tents,
and living amidst the clangour of arms, he had been a mere soldier,
rough, generous, manly, and brave. But Nadasti was an elegant scholar,
smitten with that ardent love of classical and ancient lore which
has so eminently distinguished the sixteenth century. He assembled
round him men of letters from various parts of Europe; and, under
his auspices, the days of Matthias Corvinus, king of Hungary, seemed
to be revived, whose love of literature was such, that he kept three
hundred transcribers in his house, constantly employed in multiplying
copies of the precious relics of Roman and Athenian learning. The
consort of Nadasti was one of the most accomplished matrons of the age
in which she lived, and her three daughters were patterns of every
polite and amiable accomplishment. Such was the school into which the
chevalier de Damville entered at the age of twenty-five, immediately
after the retreat of Castaldo. This may seem an age somewhat late
for new-modelling the character, but Charles had an enterprising and
aspiring temper; and he soon became a distinguished ornament of courts
and the society of ladies. Castaldo had taught him all he knew, the
temper, the manners, and the science of a military chieftain: the
palace of Nadasti finished and completed the education of my son.
Pandora was only fourteen years of age when Charles de Damville first
became a sort of inmate of the house of her uncle. She at that time
lived with her father; but he being afterwards killed in the battle
which Nadasti fought for the relief of Ziget, Pandora occupied an
apartment in the palatine palace. From the first hour he saw her, a
mere child as it were, accompanied by her governess, Charles confessed
to me that he had beheld her with eyes of distinction. He had said
to himself, This little girl will hereafter be a jewel worthy of the
crown of an emperor. He had found something inexpressibly attractive
in the starry brightness of her complexion; her air he regarded as
both lighter and more graceful than any thing he had ever before
seen; and her speaking and humid eye seemed to him the very emblem of
sensibility and sweetness. If, at the girlish and immature season of
fourteen, he had ascribed to her all these perfections, it will easily
be supposed that, as she increased in stature as the beauties of form
unfolded themselves in her, and she advanced in sentiment and a lovely
consciousness of her worth, the partiality of Charles became more deep
and unalterable. But the orphan niece of Nadasti was altogether without
a portion; and the great palatine would have seen with more complacency
the chevalier de Damville addressing his pretensions to one of his
daughters.
Charles confessed to me that the passion he nourished had been fruitful
of pleasures and griefs, of hope and perplexity. It was now almost a
year since Pandora and himself had confessed a mutual affection. The
confession had not been the result of design on either side: both had
wished to suppress it; Pandora from virgin dignity and reserve; and
Charles, because he saw not how their affection could be crowned with
success, and he dreaded, more than any misery to himself, to be the
author of degradation and misery to her he loved. But what is ever
uppermost in the heart will at some time or other betray itself. Their
sympathetic and accordant feelings upon a point so deeply interesting
to both, rendered them eagle-eyed to discern the smallest indications.
They had had a thousand opportunities, and a thousand opportunities
had been resisted. They became more than usually silent and reserved
towards each other; they shunned to meet, and, when they met, avoided
each other’s eyes. One day a casual encounter in a solitary retreat,
which each had sought principally with intention to escape the presence
of the other, had taken them off their guard. They were mutually
hesitating and perplexed; each discerned more unequivocal indications
than had ever occurred before of the state of the other’s sentiments;
the entire accord snapped as it were at once the chains of reserve; and
each, after a short interval of hesitation, spoke with an eloquence,
hitherto untried, the language of love. The difference of years between
them gave a zest to the communication. Pandora seemed to be throwing
herself upon the protection of an elder brother, of a guardian, one
in whose prudence she confided as the antidote of her inexperience;
Charles felt his maturer years as imposing on him more severely that
sacred integrity, the obligation of which, at least as society is at
present constituted, seems in the majority of cases to grow out of the
relative situation of the sexes, of the protectorship of the one, and
the dependence of the other.
“And now,” exclaimed Charles, “what am I to do? what am I to desire?
It would be affectation in me to conceal from myself on an occasion
like this, that the reputation I have acquired both in the arts of
peace and war is such, as to have caused Nadasti to set his heart
upon my becoming his son-in-law. The great palatine, though in many
respects generous and liberal, has that inflexibleness of opinion,
which is perhaps more apt to grow up in the hearts of scholars, than
in other departments of society. He is grave and solemn; all his
habits are of a majestic and lordly nature; and I have small reason
to hope that I shall find him accessible to my representations. He is
little subject to sallies of passion; his own propensities are wholly
under the control of his judgment; and it is not likely that he will
make allowance for the ardent affections of other minds. Pandora is
entirely dependent on him; in any case the portion she would receive
from him would be very inadequate to her worth; but, discarded and
discountenanced by him who has the absolute rule of Christian Hungary,
what can she expect? I am myself destitute of fortune; my provision
as a soldier will be very inadequate to the wants of the first and
softest of her sex. But even of that provision Nadasti will deprive
me, if I marry in opposition to his pleasure. Shall I make Pandora
the inhabitant of tents and encampments; shall I expose her to all
the changes and hazards of a military life; shall I drag her as the
attendant of a soldier of fortune through every climate of Europe? No,
by heavens! I should regard myself as the most selfish and the basest
of mankind, if I could deliberate on such a question. Never shall the
charmer of my soul owe a single privation to her Charles. I love her
with so pure and entire a passion, that I prefer her prosperity to
every earthly good. Nor is it merely necessary to my attachment that
she should live in plenty and ease; I require that my Pandora should
be seen in her native lustre, that she should be surrounded with every
appendage due to her merit, that she should command applause from the
mercenary, and homage from the superficial. Her praise is the only
music I enjoy. I could not bear to hear her name coupled with levity
and scorn. I could not bear that, where she appeared, every eye should
not be turned to her with reverence and honour. My passion, I confess
it, is that of a disciple of liberal arts and a nobleman, not that of
an Arcadian.”
The period of the campaign now drew to an end, and Charles, having
requested me to accompany him, set out for his usual winter retreat in
the city of Presburg. I saw Pandora. Never in my life had I beheld any
thing so sweetly simple. I had always been an admirer of the sex; but
the perfections of Pandora were of a nature that I had not observed in
any other woman. Her symmetry was so perfect, the pearly lustre of her
skin so admirable, and her form and carriage so light and ethereal,
that at first view it was difficult to persuade one’s self that she
was framed of the same gross materials as the rest of the species.
She seemed not constructed to endure the shocks of the world, and the
rude assaults of ill humour or neglect, of censure or adversity. Her
voice was of the sweetest, the clearest and softest tone I ever heard.
There was a peculiar _naïveté_ in her accents, that riveted your soul
in irresistible fetters. Her conversation, for in the sequel I enjoyed
much of her conversation, had a very uncommon zest. She seemed to
have no art, and what she uttered appeared as if wholly unchecked by
consideration or reserve. You were persuaded that she always delivered
without restraint the first thing that occurred to her mind; yet in
what she said there was so much good sense, so much true feeling, and,
as the occasion allowed, so much whim and imagination, that you could
not discover how any of her words could be changed but for a worse.
This circumstance strikingly contrasted with the childish simplicity,
or rather the feminine softness and sylph-like delicacy, of her manner
and her tone. The opposition of appearance between her and my son
made a strong impression upon me. He was a perfect soldier, with an
ample chest, broad shoulders, and a figure, though graceful and well
proportioned, yet so strong, that it seemed framed to contend with and
to conquer the wrestlers in the Grecian games. His complexion, shaded
with luxuriant curls of manly hair, was itself made brown with the
rigours of climate. Pandora was so heavenly fair, so sweetly delicate
and slender, that you would have thought she would be withered and
destroyed in his embrace, like the frailest ornament of the garden
before the northern breeze. But courage to choose what is rugged and
manlike is often characteristic of the softest of her sex.
I speedily contracted an intimate commerce with the beautiful Pandora.
I was naturally desirous to be as consummate a judge as possible of
those perfections, which I believed fated to determine the future
happiness of my son. When sufficiently satisfied in that respect,
I still continued the indulgence, and found a pure and exquisite
pleasure in the daily contemplation of accomplishments that were
to prove the materials of his gratification and delight, whose
gratification I preferred to my own. I had a still further view in this
commerce. I was anxious to be perfectly informed of the connections
and family of Pandora, that upon them I might build a project I had
deeply at heart, of bestowing on her, in the least questionable and
exceptionable manner, a dowry, that should place her upon an equality
with her cousins, the daughters of Nadasti, and deliver my son from
all apprehension of the unpleasing consequences to result from the
resentment of the great palatine. Nadasti was opulent, and the portions
of his daughters very considerable; and, however inclined, I could
not exceed this limit without risking the entire miscarriage of my
project. Charles thought nothing too rich either in situation or income
to do honour to the mistress of his soul; but, separately from this
enthusiastic sentiment, both he and Pandora had too just a taste, not
to prefer the simple majesty of ancient nobility, to the expensive
ostentations of modern refinement.
Having digested my plan I was obliged to travel as far as Venice for
the execution of it. The mother of Pandora had been a Venetian, and
the uncle of her mother was one of the adventurers who had sailed with
Pizarro for the conquest of Peru. He had died before the completion
of that business, and had left behind him no relative so near to him
in blood as the lovely Pandora. By a singular piece of good fortune,
I encountered at Venice an individual who had sailed in the same ship
with the young lady’s uncle. The uncle having died prematurely, the
share he might otherwise have obtained of the spoils of Peru was sunk
in the shares of the rest, and nothing was allowed to remain that
might have descended to his heirs. His friend and countryman I found,
though once rich with the booty he made, had by a series of calamities,
before he reached his native home, been reduced to a state of poverty.
The vicissitudes he experienced, had produced in him the effect of
a very uncommon eagerness for acquisition. This man I fixed on for
my instrument; I opened to him my plan, and offered him a very ample
gratification, provided he acted successfully the part I assigned him.
In concert with each other we digested and forged the various documents
that were best calculated to give credibility to the tale. Having
completed our arrangement, I set out for Presburg without a moment’s
delay, and directed my Venetian not to follow till after a stipulated
interval. He was not to enter into full possession of his reward till
he had completed the task he had undertaken. It was fixed that no
person in Hungary should be acquainted with my visit to Venice, but
only be allowed to understand generally, that I had been engaged for a
certain time in an excursion of amusement. So hard is the fate of the
possessor of the philosopher’s stone, and so limited his power, as to
have rendered all these precautions on my part indispensably necessary.
Had not the various circumstances concurred, the detail of which is
here stated, the birth of Pandora’s mother in a maritime state, the
expedition of Pizarro to Peru, her uncle’s engaging in this expedition
and dying before it was completed, and my own casual rencounter with
his _compagnon du voyage_, my project would too probably have been
baffled. A direct gift of the fortune I designed would never have been
admitted of; and, had not the coincidence been eminently favourable,
even though I should have succeeded in misleading every other party, I
could not hope to have eluded the perspicacity and jealous honour of my
son.
When I returned to Presburg, I again renewed my intercourse with
Pandora. The passion entertained by Damville for the beautiful orphan
was a secret to every person at court; they had managed so discreetly
as to have avoided every hint of suspicion; and, as it was universally
known that the great palatine had an eye on this gallant soldier for
one of his daughters, few persons entertained a doubt that my son would
speedily declare his election among the co-heiresses of Nadasti. On
the other hand, in the friendly intercourse between me and Pandora,
neither she nor myself felt that there was any thing to conceal, and
it was therefore a matter of complete notoriety. My blooming youth of
appearance was remarked; by the majority of bystanders we were judged
formed for each other; and, before I was aware, the beautiful Hungarian
was awarded to me by the general voice as my destined bride. When
however I became acquainted with the rumour, I was contented to smile
at it; the consciousness in my own breast how far the public sagacity
had wandered in its guess, gave to that guess, in my apprehension, a
certain air of whimsical and amusing.