A HAUNTED PALACE.
I need hardly say that I was very much excited over the strange
discovery I had made, as there now appeared to be a reasonable chance
of clearing up the mystery of the Palazzo Morone. I had discovered the
name of the unhappy young man, which gave me a most important clue to
the reading of the enigma; but I had yet to find out the name of the
lady who had behaved in such an extraordinary manner and committed so
daring a crime. After hearing Peppino's story I fancied that she might
perchance be the Contessa Morone, but had later on dismissed this idea
as idle, seeing that she had been absent from Verona for many months;
but now that Bianca had told me that Pallanza had come straight from
Rome, I began to suspect that I had been right in my surmise.
According to Peppino the Contessa had taken up her residence at the
Italian capital, so what was more likely than that she had fallen in
love with Guiseppe while he was singing at the Teatro Apollo, and,
following him to Verona, had killed him by means of poison, in revenge
for his determination to leave her?
So far everything was feasible enough, but two points of the affair
perplexed me very much, one being the choosing of the deserted palace
as a place of meeting, the other the visit to the burial ground by the
woman. We do not live in the times of the Borgias, when noble ladies
can thus rid themselves of their lovers with impunity, else I might
have believed that this phantom of Donna Lucrezia had gone to the old
Veronese cemetery to select a grave for the unfortunate young man she
intended to murder. To think thus, however, was foolish, and although
I guessed that she had used the old palace of her family as a safe
place for a lovers' meeting, seeing its gruesome reputation secured
it from public curiosity, yet I was quite unable to explain the
cemetery mystery. One thing, however, appeared to me to be certain,
that Guiseppe Pallanza had been carrying on an intrigue with the
Contessa--presuming the ghoul to be her--and that he had gone to the
Palazzo Morone on the night in question at her request. As to the sick
friend----
Now I greatly mistrusted that sick-friend story. So many fast young
Englishmen whom I knew had adopted the same lie to cover their little
peccadilloes that I was quite sure Pallanza had employed the same
fiction to prevent the scandal of his intrigue with this unknown woman
from reaching the ears of his _fiancée_. Bianca was a very proud girl,
and I felt certain, from what little I had seen of her character, that
if she discovered Guiseppe was playing her false, she would at
once break off the engagement at any cost. Like all Italian women,
when she loved she loved with her whole soul, and expected the same
single-hearted return to her passion; so that the discovery of her
lover's infidelity could only be punished sufficiently, according to
her ideas, by an everlasting parting between them. Pallanza knew this,
and therefore tried to hide his guilt by the plausible story of his
dying friend, which appeared to me to be such a remarkably weak
fabrication that, before going to the Palazzo Morone, I determined to
find out if this mythical invalid existed.
Curiously enough, although I was studying for the musical profession
and was devoted to operatic performances, I had not been to the Teatro
Ezzelino since my arrival at Verona, preferring to wander about the
streets of the romantic old city in the moonlight to sitting night
after night in a stifling atmosphere of heat, glare, and noise. I made
up my mind, however, to go on this special night, in the hope that I
might hear some talk about Pallanza's disappearance, and be guided
thereby in any future movements; but meantime I went to the theatre in
the afternoon, and, introducing myself to the impresario as a friend
of Guiseppe's, asked him if he had heard any news of the missing
tenor.
The impresario, a dingy old man of doubtful cleanliness, was in
despair, and raged against the absent Pallanza like a Garrick of the
gutter. He had heard nothing of this birbánte--this ladrone who had
thus disappeared, and left an honest impresario in the lurch. "Faust"
was the success of the season; without Pallanza there could be no
"Faust," and the season would be a failure. What was he to do?
Cospetto! it was the luck of the devil. Why had this scellerato run
away? A sick friend? Bah! there was no sick friend. It was a woman who
had enticed away this pazzo. A dying friend from Rome was not a very
likely story, but a lie--a large and magnificent lie. Here was the
basso of his company, who had been singing with Pallanza at the
Apollo; ask him, truth is on his lips, Behold this good man!
Signor Basso-profundo advanced, and though truth might have been on
his lips it certainly was not apparent on his face, for a more
deceitful countenance I never beheld. However, I have no doubt he
spoke truth on this occasion, as there was no money to be made by
telling a lie, and he confirmed the words of the wrathful impresario.
The sick friend was a myth, but in Rome Pallanza had been friendly
with a lady. Per Bacco! a great lady, but the name was unknown to him.
It appeared that Signor Basso-profundo dressed in the same room as
Pallanza, and it was just before the last act of "Faust" that Guiseppe
received the note. He told the basso-profundo that it was from a dying
friend, and had departed quickly when the opera was ended, in his
stage-dress, with a cloak wrapped round him. The basso-profundo was
sure the note was from a lady. The impresario was also sure, and
devoted the lady in question to the infernal gods with a richness of
expression I have never heard equalled in any language.
Having thus found out what I suspected from the first, that the dying
friend was a mere invention to cloak an intrigue, I left the
impresario to tear his hair and call Guiseppe names in company with
Signor Basso-profundo, and went back to my hotel, where I found
Peppino waiting with his fiacre to drive me to the Palazzo Morone.
He was still unwilling to take me to this place of evil reputation,
and made one last effort to shake my determination by gruesome stories
of people who had gone into the palazzo and never came out again; but
I laughed at all these hobgoblin romances, and getting into the
fiacre, told him to drive off at once, which he did, after crossing
himself twice, so as to secure his own safety should the ghosts of
Palazzo Morone take a fancy to carry me off as a heretic.
We speedily left the broad, modern streets, and rattled down gloomy,
mediæval passages, the humid atmosphere of which chilled me to the
bone, in spite of the heat of the day. The fiacre--with its jingling
bells--bumped on the uneven stones, turned abruptly round unexpected
corners, corkscrewed itself between narrow walls, crept under low
archways, and after innumerable dodgings, twistings, hairbreadth
escapes from upsettings, and perilous balancings on the edges of
drains, at length emerged into that queer little piazza at the end of
which I saw the great façade of the richly-decorated palace I had
beheld in the moonlight of two nights before.
I had been an ardent student of Baedeker since my arrival in Italy,
and from the fortified appearance of the palazzo, judged that it had
been built by Michelo Sammicheli, who, according to the guide-book,
was the greatest military architect of the middle ages. The building
was four stories high, with long lines of narrow windows closely
barred by curiously ornamented iron cages--which bulged outward,---as
a protection against thieves or enemies, and the whole front was
adorned with almost obliterated paintings after the style of the
Genoese palaces. In addition to the brush, the chisel had done its
work, and wreaths of flowers, grinning masks, nude figures of boys and
girls, elaborate crests and armorial devices with fishes, birds,
tritons, shells, and fruit were sculptured round the windows, along
the fortified castellated top, and over the great portal. All the
square in front of this splendid specimen of Renaissance art was
overgrown with grass. The houses on every side were also deserted, and
what with the broken windows, the empty piazza, and the closed doors,
everything had a melancholy, desolate appearance, as if a curse rested
upon the whole neighbourhood.
Peppino evidently was of this opinion, for although it was broad
daylight, and the hot sunlight poured down on the grass-grown square,
yet he kept muttering prayers in a low voice; and if by chance he
looked towards the Palazza, he always crossed himself with great
devoutness. I was not, however, going to be baulked of my intention by
any superstitious feeling on the part of an Italian cab-driver, so I
ordered Peppino to tie up his horse and come with me into the palace.
This modest request, however, so horrified Peppino that he absolutely
squeaked with horror, like a rabbit caught in a snare.
"I, Signore!" he whimpered, touching the relic on his breast. "Dio!
not to be King of Italy would I go into that house! If you are wise,
Signore, look and come away lest evil befall you. Cospetto! Signore,
remember the Frate. Think of Madonna Matilda!"
"What about Madonna Matilda, Peppino?"
"Eh, Illustrious, do you not know? She was a friend of his Holiness at
Canossa, and, though a woman, wanted to celebrate mass, but Il Cristo
burnt her to ashes with fire from above!--and she died. Ecco!
Cospetto! Signore, it is foolish to meddle with holy things."
"Well, you can't call this palace holy, Peppino?"
"No, Illustrious. It is accursed!" replied the Italian, crossing
himself, "but there is fire below as well as above, and you are a
heretic."
"Which means that I had better beware of the devil! eh, Peppino. Well,
well; I'm not afraid, so I will enter the palace, and if you see me
carried off by the ghosts, you can tell the carabinieri."
"Dio! Illustrious, do not jest; but if you will go you must go. I will
wait here and pray for your soul."
Peppino was as obstinate as a mule in his fear of ghosts, so leaving
him to smoke his long Italian cigar and watch the brown lizards
scuttling over the hot stones in the sunshine, I advanced towards the
palace with the determination to find out the secret chamber. As I
knew it would be dark therein, owing to its want of windows, I had
taken the precaution to provide myself with a candle and a box of
matches. Feeling that these were safe in my pocket, I went to the iron
gate and entered the courtyard in the same way as I had done on that
night. This time, however, I examined the ironwork, and found to my
surprise that the missing bar had been half filed through and then
wrenched away. The marks left were quite fresh, and it had been done
so recently that the bar had not had time to grow rusty. This
discovery astonished me not a little, as I did not see the reason of
such an entrance being made. If it were the Contessa who used the
palace, she would have the key of the side door, and could thus admit
herself and her lover at her pleasure, while this breach could only
have been made by some one who could not enter in any other way.
I thought of the person into whose arms I had fallen, the person who
had placed a handkerchief wet with some liquid over my face, and
although, according to Peppino's story, this watcher at the door was
the phantom of Count Mastino Morone, yet dismissing such an
explanation as due to superstition, I began to think that another
person had followed the lady of the sepulchre besides myself. Yes,
there could be no doubt about it, some third person had tracked her to
the palazzo, and, unable to enter in the ordinary way, had filed
through and broken the iron bar in the gate. Gaining access to the
interior of the palazzo in this way, the unknown had penetrated to the
secret chamber, and doubtless had witnessed the same strange scene as
I had done. My presence had been discovered, and to preserve for some
unknown reason, the secret of this terrible chamber, I had been
seized, rendered insensible by chloroform, and taken to the Piazza
Vittorio Emanuele, so that I would be unable to re-discover the
Palazzo Morone.
All these thoughts flashed through my brain with the rapidity of
lightning, and I wondered whom this unknown could be--a friend of
Pallanza? an accomplice of the Contessa! I did not know what to think,
so leaving all such conjectures to a more seasonable time, I crossed
over the dreary courtyard and entered the great hall.
It was a magnificent entrance, and when thronged with courtiers,
men-at-arms, pages, and ladies, must have presented a noble
appearance. Of enormous size, the high walls and lofty roof were
painted with glowing frescoes representing the ancient glories of the
Republic, and the floor was brilliant with gorgeous mosaics of
coats-of-arms and fantastic figures. The painted windows on either
side of the huge portal blazed with variegated tints, and the bright
sun streaming in through the glass--as many-coloured as Joseph's
coat--dyed the floor with vivid lights and gaudy hues. Ancient
tapestries hung here and there between the two lines of black marble
columns running down the sides of the hall, and the wind, stealing in
through the open door, shook the grey dust from these mouldering
splendours of the loom. At the end of this immense vestibule arose a
broad staircase of white marble with balustrades of elaborate bronze
fretwork, and from the first landing two other flights sloped off to
right and left of the main branch. All the air was filled with
floating shadows, the soft wind moved the hangings without sound, and
I was alone in the deserted hall, over which brooded an intense
silence, which made me shiver in the chill atmosphere pervading this
abode of desolation.
However, the afternoon was passing quickly, and as I had plenty to do
before nightfall, I rapidly ascended the shallow stairs. Turning to
the right, which was the way the unknown lady had taken the other
night, I soon found myself in the long corridor with the windows
looking out on to the courtyard. Many of these were broken, but others
were quite whole, their colours as bright and glowing as when they had
first been placed there.
At the end of the corridor I turned to the left, and found the short
flight of shallow steps, which, however, led up into darkness, so that
before ascending them I had to light my candle. Luckily there were no
draughts, for the air was absolutely still, and the flame of my candle
burned clear and steadily. Up these steps I went, entered the short
corridor, and paused before the heavy door which gave admission into
the ante-chamber of the fatal room. Realizing what had taken place
inside on that fatal night, I dreaded to enter, lest I should find the
corpse of the unfortunate Pallanza on the floor; but overcoming my
emotions, with a strong effort I thrust open the door and entered.
The tapestried chamber presented exactly the same appearance, with the
small table in the centre, the burnt-out torch lying on the floor, and
at the end the rich folds of the gold-worked curtains veiling the
entrance to the inner apartment. I stood on the threshold, half
expecting to hear the shrill notes of the mandolin, and the passionate
song ring through the silence, but all was still and mute, as if it
were indeed the tomb of the dead I expected to find.
At last, with a thrill of dread, I parted the heavy curtains and found
myself in the circular chamber. The faint light of the candle just
hollowed out a gulf in the Cimmerian darkness, and I saw the dim
glitter of the gold and silver on the table, the ghastly glimmer of
the white cloth, and the sparks of weak fire flashing from the
tarnished gold embroidery of the curtains. All was as I had seen
it--the eight white pillars, the dull-red hangings with their
Arabesque patterns of golden thread, the gilt table, the massive metal
goblets and silver candelabra, even the half-eaten fruit, with
everything on the table in disorder; but, somewhat to my relief, I
found nothing else. The dead body, which I had seen lying at the feet
of that terrible woman, had vanished, and although I searched over
every inch of the chamber, I could find no trace of the fearful crime
which had been committed. The demon who had enticed the unhappy young
man to his ruin had completed her evil work by secreting his body, and
I began to think that all trace of Guiseppe Pallanza had disappeared
from the earth for evermore.
Who was this woman who, in this room, had so wickedly slain her lover?
Who was the man--I felt sure it was a man--who had seized me at the
door, and borne me insensible from the palace? I could answer neither
of these questions, and had it not been for the story of Bianca, for
the disappearance of Pallanza, I would have fancied the whole some
hideous dream, some nightmare of medieval devilry, which had filled my
brain with the phantasmagoria of delirium. Everything, however, was
too real, too terrible, to admit of such an explanation; so as I could
discover nothing more from examining the chamber I prepared to leave.
The atmosphere yet had a faint aroma of the sandalwood perfume which
emanated from the unknown woman; at my feet still lay the broken
mandolin; and the rich wine-cups still glittered in the dim light. I
no longer wondered at such wealth being left here undefended, for
superstition, more of a safeguard than bolts and bars, protected this
cave of Aladdin from thievish Italian fingers; and even if a thief had
known of these riches, I doubt whether he would have had the courage
to dare the unseen horrors of the palazzo.
For myself, standing there in the perfumed atmosphere, with the light
just showing the intense gloom, the dim glitter of gold and silver,
the absolute stillness and the horrible memories of the chamber--I
felt as though I were in the presence of the dead. At the table sat
the phantoms of Donna Renata and her lover, smiling at one another
with hatred in their ghostly hearts; at the door watched the evil face
of the outraged husband awaiting the consummation of the tragedy; and
in imagination I could see the wicked smile of the woman, the scowl of
the husband, the loathing look on the face of the lover. My breath,
coming quick and fast, made the flame of the candle flicker and flare
until, overcome by the horror of the room, and by the workings of my
imagination, I turned and fled--fled from the evil gloom, from that
blood-stained splendour, out into the blessed sunshine and pure air of
heaven.
"Dio!" cried Peppino, as I walked quickly out into the square, "how
pale you are, Illustrious! Eh, Signore, have the ghosts----"
"I have seen no ghosts, Peppino, but I have felt their presence."
"Cospetto! did I not warn the Signore against the accursed place?
Come, Illustrious, jump in and we will leave this abode of devils."
"Very well, Peppino," I replied, entering the fiacre, "but drive
slowly, as I want to know the way to this palazzo."
"Dio! the Signore will not come again?"
"Yes! I am coming some night this month."
"Saints! the Signore is mad and lost!" muttered Peppino with a pale
face. Then, hastily gathering up the reins, he drove rapidly away from
the lonely square, leaving this gruesome palace to the night and to
the feast of ghosts.