HOW I LEFT PALAESTRO
I could not bring myself to go to the great dining room and face my
guests. I felt my head on fire; my senses were no longer obedient.
I sent Andrea down to announce that I was suddenly unwell and must
ask my friends to amuse themselves for the evening without me; then
for full two hours I sat in my darkening chamber, refusing to let
the valets bring in lights, leaning upon the marble table with my
face in my hands. The letter from Wittenberg had shaken me to the
depths of my being. I knew perfectly well that I was being forced
to decide that which should determine my whole future, both in this
mortal life and in the hereafter--if hereafter there was. There was
no evading it; no postponement to seek prudent counsel. There was not
a soul in Palaestro in whose wisdom and impartiality I had the least
confidence; in fact, I did not know a single stable counsellor for
such matters in the wide world. Across the miles and leagues, plains,
Alps, and Apennines, had come a trumpet call. “No man while living
has sinned beyond the forgiveness of heaven. Return to Germany.”
The call of a peasant-born, Saxon friar, and he had dared to send
it to me,--the high-born, wealthy, sophisticated, elegant lord of
Palaestro, to whom princes extended cheerful courtesy.--And what was
I to do?
For the friar had spoken the truth. “Truth, and only truth--curses
on him!” so I groaned, while my teeth gritted. I could no more deny
the justice of his appeal than I could deny my own existence--and my
philosophic scepticism stopped at least there.
“Come, come, Walter,” I once declaimed to myself, “do not be swept
from your feet by a meddlesome friar’s chidings. What arch-fiend
has commissioned Martin Luther to be guide and conscience for you?
Not the Church--the Church is like to burn him. Not philosophy--a
thousand arguments refute him. Not your self-interest--even if you
quit Palaestro, your business is to seek preferment at some royal
court. Dissolve the spell! Cast his malign power from you!”
“Eccellenza, you are ill?” sounded Andrea’s anxious voice in my ear.
“Will you have nothing? Can I not serve you?”
“Yes, dog! Get from the room!”
Out he went in alarm. I was not accustomed to answer thus. I sank
back to my old posture, and strove with a kind of desperation to
think calmly. Then into the dark room I heard coming the rustling
of gauzy silks. A tall candle sent its haunting red light over the
cartooned tapestries, the high ceiling, the tall black furniture.
Marianna was setting the taper on the table beside me, was leaning
over my shoulder; her long white hand touched my face.
“Gualtiero.”
The touch, the word, came as with a supernatural influence. By a kind
of unaccountable shock my head cleared: my wonted faculties returned.
I sprang from the table as though her touch had been a blow.
“Gualtiero,” now her questions came fast, her voice rose a little
shrill, “what has happened? What was in that letter? I was told
you had received one. Now you say you are unwell. Whence was the
letter--from Germany?”
“Yes.” My mind was working with fearful rapidity. In a twinkling I
had decided it was best to tell the entire case without evasion. If I
must fight, I must fight.
“And from whom in Germany?”
“From Dr. Luther of Wittenberg.”
“The heretic friar! Santo Spirito, to have his vile paper in the
palace! Where is the cursed thing?”
“Behold.” I pointed with my foot at the tattered bits upon the carpet.
“Holy Mother be praised! You have treated it as it deserved. But why
do you look at me so fearfully?”
“Do I look fearful, Madonna? The only fearful thing is that Dr.
Luther has spoken the truth.”
“The truth? What has he had the madness to say?”
“That I have sinned against God and man in deserting Germany. That I
must return at once, and play my part there in the battle.”
“Good God!”
It was an instant before the full force of my remark struck her.
While words trembled on her tongue I attempted to break the blow by
an ill-conceived playfulness.
“It will have to come soon or late, Marianna, this parting of ours.
The last months have been too joyous to go on forever. Better folk
than we have been thrust asunder by the fates. Dante loved Beatrice
only from afar. Petrarch was severed from Laura. Boccaccio said his
farewell to Fiametta. I will not seek for like sorrows among the
ancient worthies. Venus and Cupido have given us more of the sweet
wine than they grant to most mortals; let us not cavil too loudly if
at last we taste the bitter lees.”
She was terribly pale now, and pressed close upon me. Her words came
with her panting breath. Her gestures would have been those of one
mad, save for her redeeming Italian grace.
“You mean--you mean that all is ended? That we are to part forever?
That you are returning to barbarous Germany? That you cast off Italy?
That you cast off me? That you forsake all--_all_, at the summons of
this heretic friar?”
“You have said it, Madonna,” I replied very gently, stepping away
from her contact.
“And since when have you reached this prudent, sage, pious, honorable
determination?” she called in rising accents of scorn.
“Since you entered the room, Madonna.” I knew the words would hurt,
but for once I was keeping back nothing.
“Am I such a fiend, then?” Her words were almost a wail. In the red
half light she had never looked more beautiful.
“Hear me, Marianna,” I threw back, still moving away from her, “this
may be the last time we shall speak face to face on the old terms.
Therefore hear the cold truth. Who am I--German, Italian? For believe
me no man can be truly the son of more than one country. If Italian,
I am yet too German to make a worthy one. You know the saying,
‘Tedesco Italianato è un diavolo incarnato.’ What have I to give to
Italy, to win even dim glory for the Palaestro name? Arms? I was
never shaped for a great general or even a tolerable captain. Poetry?
My sonnets show abundant talent; never genius. Elegant manners and
taste? I have too many noble ancestors, men of high words and higher
deeds, to desire to have fops say on the Corso, ‘imitate the cloaks
and cookery of the Conte di Palaestro.’ So much for Italy. But in
Germany--”
“Ay, in Germany,” she moaned.
“_There_ a work awaits one worthy at least of a
Lichtenstein-Regenstein. Old manners and beliefs change. New manners
and beliefs are born. If there is to be a battle, my fathers would
have me with the first in it. If wrongs threaten, it is mine to
strive to avert them. If wrongs are committed, mine to avenge them:
and if I fail, why, then, is not my state as glorious as that of the
old Regenstein ritters who died before the walls of Jerusalem, yet
never entered the Holy City? Not failure, but the manner of failure,
will disgrace my fathers’ house.”
“Gualtiero! are you turned mad? You know your heretic friar will be
burned.”
“No, by the pillars of heaven! First I prophesied that evil to him,
then you to me. We were wrong. He will not be burned.”
“Not burned?” her voice rose shriller than ever. “What devils will
save him?”
“I--we, the Germans.”
“You--the Germans? You link yourself finally with that accursed folk?”
I folded my arms across my breast.
“Yes, Marianna,” I replied, striving to speak calmly; “you have said
it. I _am_ a German. Martin Luther is a German. And we Germans will
not suffer our truth-telling, honor-loving friar to be banned and
burned by your un-Christian and sensual Italian Pope.”
“Gualtiero!” The word came as one long scream. She threw her arms
above her head and rushed from the room....
I paced to and fro a dozen times, then cast myself down again by the
table. I was laughing in a kind of unhealthy delirium. Hedwig’s lines
were dancing through my head again, louder, louder.
“Half of Northland,
Half of Southland,
Never gay
Till all of one land.”
“Ach! Gott,” I cried in round Saxon, “I should be very gay then--for
I am wholly German now!”
In a desperate, mad way I was feeling a great relief of spirits. The
hesitancy, the tension, was over. The battle had begun, and I had
chosen my part.
I did not know what my guests thought of my proceedings that night. I
did not care. I was going back to the Harzland, to the Regenstein, to
Ilsa, to Martin Luther. The accursed lotus eating of the past months
would cease. Life would be real; and come pain, come joy, come hell,
come heaven--they, too, would be real. I was too delighted at the
thought that I had truly chosen the man’s part, and would play it,
to endeavor to shape ways and means how I might creditably dismiss
my associates from Palaestro, and find occasion for returning to
Germany. Long, very long, I sat in the black room, till Marianna’s
candle had flickered down to its socket; then at last the door and
the arras were cautiously pushed one side. Rabbi Isaac Sarfati, the
Cardinal of Forli’s Jewish body physician drew his white beard and
long dark cloak into the room.
“The Conte is sadly indisposed;” he began, gliding about with his
long fingers; “he is excited. He will be the better for sleep. Allow
my officiousness to prevail. If he will but go to bed, and then a
draught--”
The deep booming of the tower clock announcing the hour after
midnight reënforced his suggestion. I rose hastily.
“Yes, yes,” I assented, “it is late. Let me retire.”
Andrea, who had been anxiously waiting without, entered on the first
sign, and I was assisted to bed. Rabbi Sarfati was there with his
silver cup. In a more cautious mood I would have hesitated at the
heavily spiced liquor he forced upon me, but at the moment I was
utterly unsuspicious. I felt sight and sound leaving me, and for many
hours must have been plunged in profound slumber.
* * * * *
When I awoke, I was in a small, mean room with narrow windows, and
these with view only over a distant landscape. The furniture was
dingy, the floor mere gray tiling. From the angle of the sunbeams
one could tell it was past noon. I rose with a sudden start, but was
plucked back by a hammer-like throbbing in my head. All my bones
seemed to ache together. I gave a faint groan from the mingled pain
and weakness. My call to Andrea brought at first no answer, but in a
moment I saw beside the bed the olive face of Eugenio, one of Forli’s
favorite body-servants.
“How in Satan’s name, rascal,” I began, “came I here? And how came
you here? I don’t take snakes such as you into my service. What has
happened?”
The fellow grinned most impudently before he replied. “The Conte
should be calm. He is very sick.”
“He was very well last night and will be well enough now to break a
cane over you soon.”
Again I started up. Again a sense of abject weakness and pain sent me
back upon the pillows. I could only curse under my breath.
“At least,” I ordered, “fetch hither Andrea.”
“That is not commanded,” was the reply.
“Not commanded? And who gives commands in Palaestro save myself? Was
the castle stormed last night, or am I turned mad?”
“We feared the latter,” said the sly villain gravely. “It was by
orders of his Eminence my master and Signor Sarfati that you were
brought hither. It was said in the palace, you were ill and deranged.
I am appointed to watch you.”
The whole intent of Sarfati’s solicitude for my health and the effect
of his medicine came now to me like a flash. It served to clear my
reeling senses. This, then, was Marianna’s handiwork. While I had
reflected complacently on my triumph over her, she had struck. I was
a prisoner in my own mansion. If I recovered my freedom without some
abject compromise, I was a fortunate man. In my unskilful folly I had
driven Marianna and her father to extremities, and well did I know
how they could fight.
“Well, Eugenio,” said I, regarding the fellow steadily, “I intend to
waste no breath cursing you.”
“Thanks, Eccellenza,” came his answer.
“You have doubtless been ordered to report when I have awakened.”
“I have, Eccellenza.”
“Go, then, and tell his Eminence or Madonna Marianna that I am awake,
but that if they wish to converse with me, they must first contrive
to ease this headache, which is driving me frantic.”
“I go to tell them, Eccellenza,” and out he went, leaving me to all
manner of imaginings.
In a few moments the door was opened by no less a visitor than the
Cardinale di Forli. The good prelate was smiling benignantly, and
bore in his hand a tiny glass of pure green liquid.
“Drink,” he said, advancing to the bedside; “this, more than most
liqueurs, is for your health.”
I eyed the glass shrewdly.
“After what has just befallen, Eminenza,” I hesitated, “I may well
think twice even ere drinking from the hands of the Cardinale di
Forli.”
“Nonsense,” he answered jauntily; “this is not _aqua tofana_. A
man as sensible as yourself should know that we know that all your
Italian property is willed to your Florentine kinsfolk and your
sudden demise would work more havoc with our wishes than even this
return to Germany.”
Convinced that the Cardinal for once spoke the truth, I drank off the
glass and at once experienced a beneficial effect; my head cleared
and the throbbing partially ceased. I was able to sit up in bed and
ask Forli if he would graciously state his business.
From his more than customary gesticulations, his circumlocutions,
his use of delicate innuendo rather than open threats, I was led to
perceive that he felt he had a ticklish business, and I played my own
hand more boldly. He began by recalling that he had been favored with
the early friendship of my noble kinsmen of Florence and Bologna;
that I had been after a manner under his tutelage since quitting my
studies at Padua, that he had introduced me to fashion and preferment
at Rome, “and would have carried me yet higher, but for that
dastardly bungling by Orosi.” Finally he referred delicately to “his
near relationship to that lady whom I had so worthily honored with my
affections.” All this, however, was mere preliminary to an admirably
marshalled attack--in far more subtle language than Marianna had
used--upon my determination to return to Germany.
But unfortunately for his Eminence, the arguments advanced had
already been amply deliberated upon and refuted by my own sorely
hesitant self. I had anticipated everything Forli had to say, and I
replied to it, not indeed to his satisfaction, but vastly to my own.
The result was that our dialogue did not run smoothly, and the worthy
churchman presently raised his voice to no dignified pitch, while we
exchanged parry and thrust.
“Do you believe in this swinish friar’s theology?” he shouted for the
tenth time.
“You know I have no theology. I perhaps say ‘_credo_’ blindly to what
the Church teaches, never asking whether what I speak with my lips is
written on my heart. But now comes this man of Wittenberg who speaks
not to my interest, my intellect, but to my soul.”
“Your soul? The strangest word that ever left your tongue. How can
this friar, soon to feel the full displeasure of the Church, speak to
your soul? It’s sure damnation.”
“Let us have no ‘damnation’ from such as you,” I returned. “I repeat,
for reasons I cannot fathom, this Martin Luther has stirred me to
the depths of my being. If damnation there is, it is such as he
threatens.”
“You talk like one possessed. Explain.”
“I despair of explaining.” I strove vainly to speak with composure.
“I understand myself, but not how to make all clear to you. Surely
your Eminence knows the story of the women dancers, who danced before
the cross in mockery of our Lord and His passion--how they must now
dance through all eternity on sharp points amid hell fire. I tell
you, I dread lest if I turn my back on this summons now--and go on
dancing, feasting, laughing, here in Palaestro--I will meet their
fate. I will not, I cannot invite it--”
The Cardinal shrugged his shoulders eloquently, and threw up his
hands.
“My poor Gualtiero; who would have thought it? You are about to begin
on ‘duty, honor, and conscience’ again. You are indeed very ill.”
“Not so. I am just growing better.”
“To think that a little thing like Tetzel’s incautious zeal with
indulgences could make you so deranged.”
“Not Tetzel, but Luther. Oh! You are only an Italian, you will never
understand.”
“I agree with you. Pestilenza! we will have to take you in hand
roundly. I fear much, it will be some time before you can be allowed
to go again without restraint. We cannot let you wreck your fine
career. No, _per Dei Immortales_, your friends will save you, despite
yourself. Since you are turned wholly unreasonable, you must remain
here till the order comes from Rome.”
“From Rome--”
“Naturally I sent a courier thither as soon as Marianna explained to
me your state. Your moody and nervous condition has been observed by
your guests some time. They quite understand that you are unwell. I
have written to the Holy Father for authority to keep you in easy
custody until we are satisfied this dementia is entirely passed. The
Pope will naturally designate your place of confinement, and the time
of your release will be largely of your own determination.”
I sat before him, amazed and dumb. The Cardinal held out his hands
insinuatingly.
“Come, Gualtiero. You see the trouble you have plunged us in. Give me
your word you will not return to Germany, and I will send a second
courier to undo the errand of the first.”
“No!” I said it stolidly and obstinately. Another shrug and Forli was
gone, throwing over his shoulder a promise to come and argue again
the next morning.
After a few moments Eugenio entered with a tray and a simple
luncheon, whereof I partook, reflecting that if my captors wished
to murder me they would find a thousand ways to accomplish it even
if I grew lean with starvation. I soon discovered the method of my
confinement. I was in one of the small extra rooms upon the northern
wing of the palazzo, set off for the retainers of some distinguished
guest. Three of the Cardinal’s stoutest serving-men were keeping
watch outside the door. It was only twenty feet from the window
to the ground, which sloped away into luxuriant vineyards; but a
stout iron bar closed the narrow aperture, and I was without the
least weapon or tool to force it. My behavior for recent days, and
especially during the hours following the receipt of Luther’s letter,
gave every color to the report among my guests that I was deranged,
even to the need of restraint. Although the palazzo and its servants
were nominally my own, I could count on almost no personal love
and loyalty at Palaestro. The mansion had been practically deserted
save for a few caretakers, until on my arrival a horde of mercenary
attendants had been recruited from Florence. With bitterness I
contrasted the attitude of my Regensteiners, who would have plucked
down their schloss, rock from rock, rather than let their liege lord
be imprisoned within it.
There was evidently no intention of making my custody unduly severe.
Eugenio brought in an armful of my favorite books and writing
materials, also candles when it began to darken, but I was in no
mood even for Tully and Pico Della Mirandola. Painful as had been my
process of resolving to return to Germany, I did not in the least
regret my determination. I knew that it would take a good four days
before any order could come from Rome for my legal detention; in the
meantime it remained to be proved whether a Conte di Palaestro could
be incarcerated in his own palace by one of his own guests.
“And as for you,” I muttered, “oh! Eminenza of Forli, and you,
dark-eyed Madonna Marianna, I owe you both fair gratitude for this
right noble proof of how unselfishly you love me!”
Eugenio and his companions were discreetly partaking of their
macaroni and sour wine in the passage outside the door, whilst I
was pretending to bend over my Latin; but in reality was devoting
my mind not to the _Cluentius_, but to the more pressing problem
of escape, when I was stirred by a sound at the lattice. A human
form was hanging across the darkening sky at the window. I started
instinctively, but a warning “hist!” held me in my chair.
“Do not stir, Eccellenza,” came in a clear whisper which I recognized
as Andrea. His little peaked goatee and his bright beady eyes were
thrust between the cross-bar.
“Whence are you fallen?” I spoke softly, but in astonishment; “the
clouds?”
“Only the roof, Eccellenza. It is vastly easy to reach a trap-door to
the tiling, to climb along the ridgepole, then swing downwards on a
rope duly knotted around a pinnacle and with a good loop for my feet.
‘The Conte is stark mad,’ they told me; ‘he is raging and attempted
the Cardinal’s life when his Eminence approached him.’ ‘_Si! Si!_’
said I, for it seldom pays to quarrel over an unlikely story; but as
for myself, I have too many hairs in my chin to accept such a tale
unsalted. ‘Either,’ said I to myself, ‘the Conte is indeed mad, in
which case the mere sight of his sad state will be sorrowful but not
deadly, or he is not mad--in which case he may need Andrea’s wits to
help him out of the spider’s silk of Madonna Marianna.’”
“You reason like a philosopher. Only tell me,--do you think I am
dangerous or sane?”
“The Eccellenza had a sharp tongue and a short temper the other
night, but he seems marvellously himself just now. Only will he
graciously answer a question?”
“Servants should not ask questions, but I am in no place to command
you. Say on.”
“Eccellenza, is it true you have resolved to return to Germany and
the Regenstein?”
“Cat! You have been overhearing the Cardinal and the Signorina.”
“It ill becomes me to contradict the Conte. But may I crave an answer
nevertheless?”
“Then, sirrah, I go back to Germany as soon as I escape from this
strange prison.”
“I am very sorry the Conte is so resolved. Is he quite sure no power
can move him?”
“I did not ask you to applaud. I know you love the Germans as much as
a monk does the Soldan. Now I have said this I imagine you will be
prompt enough to leave me.”
“Wrong, Eccellenza;” said Andrea soberly; “an honest servant does not
leave a master just because the master resolves upon what is unwise.
I can lie to you, steal from you, disobey your small orders, do a
thousand other things to make you curse and flog me, but forsake you
in trouble--alas! what have I done to make the Conte think of me so
ill?”
“You are the most honest rascal that ever escaped the gallows,” spoke
I, with an imprudent laugh.
“Softer, Eccellenza,” entreated Andrea. “They think I am down at the
village for a frolic. What we have to do were best done to-night. Is
the Conte again hale and well?”
“Never sounder. Rabbi Sarfati’s cordial has spent itself,--the
circumcised villain!”
I need not detail all that he then suggested. The invaluable fellow
had already fathomed my entire predicament, and had a plan of
escape devised. It was useless to strive to remain in Palaestro in
the face of the authority Forli was attempting to exercise in the
Pope’s name, but escape from my present imprisonment did not promise
vast difficulties, though it irked my pride to seem to flee like
an outlaw from my own paternal stronghold. Promising to be back
before midnight Andrea swung his feet into the loops of his rope and
vanished overhead, leaving me to possess my soul in what patience was
permitted it.
From the state apartments of the palazzo came the sounds of music and
merriment. The tidings of my derangement clearly had not blighted the
spirits of the guests. They were, I imagined, arranging a _Moresche_,
a ballet then much in vogue, the men of the company blackened like
Moors and winding in giddy Oriental mazes, flourishing lighted
tapers. I could hear the harps, flutes, and viols; some one was
declaiming amorous sonnets, glasses were tinkling, the dance was
swaying at its height. I could imagine the beauty of the women, the
beauty of Marianna. One consenting word from me would put me back as
centre and master of all that throng. Yet sooner might wild horses
have torn me limb from limb than that I should say it. Many were my
vices, but fickle mindedness, I dare to boast, was not among them. I
had chosen. “I am facing toward the north,” I whispered to myself,
whilst with impatience I awaited Andrea.
* * * * *
My worthy valet, councillor, and, I sometimes feared, governor, was
evidently bent on proving that he could execute a masterpiece. “I had
only sheep and asses from Rome to dispose of,” he explained to me
afterward. “What chance had they against a Tuscan, against Andrea?
Did I not suck my first milk at Siena? Their master, _il cardinale_,
may know much about trussing capons so as to retain their juice, but
as for circumventing an adversary by an act of real _virtù_--bah!”
The first I knew of Signor Andrea’s craftmanship was when Eugenio,
after satisfying himself first that the grating at the window seemed
strong, and second, that I lacked nothing of the ordinary creature
comforts, barred and locked my door carefully from the outside,
then retired with his two mates a considerable distance down the
passageway. The songs and laughter from them soon told how Giovanna
and Benedetta, well-known ladies of the servants’ hall, were with
them, and I suspected they were not without wherewithal to drink.
The loud crashing of music from the state chambers was all in our
favor. I caught next the rattle of a rope against the outer wall, and
Andrea was swinging on his loops again across the window. Once a good
chisel had been passed to me inside, and what with Andrea working
without, it did not take two active men long to force the base of the
bar, especially as the iron had not been let very deeply into the
stone, and with the lower end once free I twisted the whole clear in
a twinkling. I piled the chair and table against the door, for what
proved a needless precaution, and Andrea held out his hand to me.
“All is ready, Eccellenza,” he whispered.
“For Germany, then,” I answered.
The opening was narrow, but my slight figure writhed through without
too much difficulty. The black wall yawned below me; above I could
only see the blinking stars, but it was no moment for squeamish
stomachs or hesitancy. Andrea had clambered up before me. I closed
my eyes and felt for the loops. There was a nervously long interval
of clutching and swinging ere my hands closed over the tiles of the
roof, but they were quickly gained, and a lantern dimly burning
at an opening showed us whither to clamber with what speed, yet
silence, we might. A sliding door, then a ladder, a small room where
Andrea quickly cast over me the cloak and biretta of a seedy genteel
townsman of Tuscany, and again I was following him. He himself had
adopted a similar guise. Knowing the labyrinthian corridors and
galleries of the palazzo far better than I, he had no difficulty in
conducting me through the vast building without encountering a soul.
Once I paused for an instant at a balcony overlooking the great hall.
The candles were burning low, but the musicians were still sustaining
the throb of the dance. Around and around in graceful mazes went
Marianna, pirouetting before the admiring Campelli. Upon a time I
would have been close to murder on seeing another showing her favors,
but I was past all such moving now.
“Will it be he, who will console her?” I asked of myself with curling
lip, “or the Spaniard Don Velasco, or the Milanese Conte di Tempori?”
And then I turned to Andrea: “Lead on. We are going where things are
real.”
He knew the private sally-port. The varlet there on duty had long
since yawned and gone off to play cards with his mates. The stable
grooms were sampling the liquor at the village trattoría; and saddled
and bridled stood my four best horses; “two to ride and two to lead
and relay, and I have thrown the bits and buckles for all the others
down the well,” chuckled my admirable mentor, tightening the girths;
“there will be enough cursing to cancel a great indulgence before
they can harness for any pursuit.”
“And my jewels and papers?” I asked.
“So far as portable they are in the saddle bags, Eccellenza. The
Cardinal just lacked the courage to seize them. And now if the Conte
will deign to mount.”
“Bravo!” I cried, almost aloud, “I will no longer name you Andrea,
but Ulysses.”
“The Conte will graciously keep his voice lower until we are well
clear of the palazzo. Then he can venture upon such gracious
compliments as he may desire.”
Thus admonished, I suffered Andrea to lead our two horses well down
the stony slope and by a road behind the straggling village. It was
about midnight. No shout of alarm was rising from the mass of the
palace looming now above us. The lights at the windows were growing
fewer. I could still catch the dim vibration of the music, presumably
for the last dance. It would be dawn, and an hour or more past it
before Eugenio would think of venturing to inquire of his high-born
captive “if he had slept well”; an hour more or longer before Forli
could organize an effective pursuit. All the dice had fallen in our
favor.
“Andrea,” I said, “give me your hand. You have not been my servant,
but my friend. Ask what you will of me.”
The fellow pressed my own hand to his lips.
“Eccellenza, you are going to Germany?”
“Certainly.”
“And you are very likely to remain there always?”
“Very likely.”
“Well, then, Eccellenza, promise that however much you may learn to
love that dreadful North, however much you may desire to have those
swinish Saxon louts around you, I may be ever your first valet.”
I thrust my hand into his, and squeezed hard.
“Andrea,” I said, and my throat choked a little, “you shall go with
me, though I sail to the Western Isles like another Ammiraglio
Colombo.”
I was winking fast while he climbed up into his saddle.
“I thank the Conte,” he observed quietly. “And now, Eccellenza, let
us ride.”
The touch of the night air had kindled my spirits. They rose too
at the thought that I was leaving Palaestro and its garden of evil
delights. The good horse under me responded to my spur. I felt
the wind rush past my hot cheek, I saw the stars ahead of me, and
clearest of all the North Star; and the road led straight towards
it. Swift as light we seemed to fly. Come weal, or woe, come victory
or disaster, I knew that a great milestone in my life had been past.
Other things might fail me. I had not utterly failed myself.
* * * * *
I travelled northward as rapidly as possible, calling myself the
Signor Cervoni (a name in my mother’s family), and easily passing
for a nobleman of decayed circumstances who was journeying without
state. Once outside the Papal Territories I had nothing to fear as to
pursuit, but I had no desire to loiter at any of the princely courts
in northern Italy. From Modena I despatched a letter to my cousin in
Florence acquainting him with my return to Germany, and directing him
to make such representations at Rome as would halt any proceedings by
Forli on the ground of my insanity; also to send a competent agent to
secure my rights and property at Palaestro. I likewise sent a letter
to Marianna, in which I informed her that after the desperate means
used by her father and herself to thwart my decision I must consider
our relations forever at an end. In concluding the epistle I added
that I intended shortly to marry a German Gräfin.
I need scarce remark that I here referred to Ilsa. I was not sure
how far I was deeply in love with that lady, but certainly I had
vast esteem for her and it would be highly regrettable to have her
enter the convent. If I was to live in Germany, of course I needed a
German bride; and with the dowry which I knew now Von Steinitz could
furnish, the match had at length become eminently suitable. I was
sure of Moritz’s consent; and that Ilsa herself would think twice
ere becoming the Lady of Regenstein, I had not the least idea in the
world.