“AMOUR DURE—DURE AMOUR.”
_Dec. 23rd.—_
So it is true! I was reserved for something wonderful in this world.
I have at last found that after which my soul has been straining.
Ambition, love of art, love of Italy, these things which have occupied
my spirit, and have yet left me continually unsatisfied, these were
none of them my real destiny. I have sought for life, thirsting for
it as a man in the desert thirsts for a well; but the life of the
senses of other youths, the life of the intellect of other men, have
never slaked that thirst. Shall life for me mean the love of a dead
woman? We smile at what we choose to call the superstition of the
past, forgetting that all our vaunted science of today may seem just
such another superstition to the men of the future; but why should the
present be right and the past wrong? The men who painted the pictures
and built the palaces of three hundred years ago were certainly of
as delicate fiber, of as keen reason, as ourselves, who merely print
calico and build locomotives. What makes me think this, is that I have
been calculating my nativity by help of an old book belonging to Sor
Asdrubale—and see, my horoscope tallies almost exactly with that of
Medea da Carpi, as given by a chronicler. May this explain? No, no; all
is explained by the fact that the first time I read of this woman’s
career, the first time I saw her portrait, I loved her, though I hid my
love to myself in the garb of historical interest. Historical interest
indeed!
I have got the hatchet and the saw. I bought the saw of a poor joiner,
in a village some miles off; he did not understand at first what I
meant, and I think he thought me mad; perhaps I am. But if madness
means the happiness of one’s life, what of it? The hatchet I saw lying
in a timber-yard, where they prepare the great trunks of the fir-trees
which grow high on the Apennines of Sant’ Elmo. There was no one in
the yard, and I could not resist the temptation; I handled the thing,
tried its edge, and stole it. This is the first time in my life that I
have been a thief; why did I not go into a shop and buy a hatchet? I
don’t know; I seemed unable to resist the sight of the shining blade.
What I am going to do is, I suppose, an act of vandalism; and certainly
I have no right to spoil the property of this city of Urbania. But
I wish no harm either to the statue or the city, if I could plaster
up the bronze, I would do so willingly. But I must obey Her; I must
avenge Her; I must get at that silver image which Robert of Montemurlo
had made and consecrated in order that his cowardly soul might sleep
in peace, and not encounter that of the being whom he dreaded most in
the world. Aha! Duke Robert, you forced her to die unshriven, and you
stuck the image of your soul into the image of your body, thinking
thereby that, while she suffered the tortures of Hell, you would rest
in peace, until your well-scoured little soul might fly straight up to
Paradise;—you were afraid of Her when both of you should be dead, and
thought yourself very clever to have prepared for all emergencies! Not
so, Serene Highness. You too shall taste what it is to wander after
death, and to meet the dead whom one has injured.
What an interminable day! But I shall see her again tonight.
Eleven o’clock.—No; the church was fast closed; the spell had ceased.
Until tomorrow I shall not see her. But tomorrow! Ah, Medea! did any of
thy lovers love thee as I do?
Twenty-four hours more till the moment of happiness—the moment for
which I seem to have been waiting all my life. And after that, what
next? Yes, I see it plainer every minute; after that, nothing more.
All those who loved Medea da Carpi, who loved and who served her,
died: Giovanfrancesco Pico, her first husband, whom she left stabbed
in the castle from which she fled; Stimigliano, who died of poison;
the groom who gave him the poison, cut down by her orders; Oliverotto
da Narni, Marcantonio Frangipani, and that poor boy of the Ordelaffi,
who had never even looked upon her face, and whose only reward was that
handkerchief with which the hangman wiped the sweat off his face, when
he was one mass of broken limbs and torn flesh: all had to die, and I
shall die also.
The love of such a woman is enough, and is fatal—“Amour Dure,” as her
device says. I shall die also. But why not? Would it be possible to
live in order to love another woman? Nay, would it be possible to drag
on a life like this one after the happiness of tomorrow? Impossible;
the others died, and I must die. I always felt that I should not live
long; a gipsy in Poland told me once that I had in my hand the cut-line
which signifies a violent death. I might have ended in a duel with some
brother-student, or in a railway accident. No, no; my death will not be
of that sort! Death—and is not she also dead? What strange vistas does
such a thought not open! Then the others—Pico, the Groom, Stimigliano,
Oliverotto, Frangipani, Prinzivalle degli Ordelaffi—will they all be
_there?_ But she shall love me best—me by whom she has been loved after
she has been three hundred years in the grave!
_Dec. 24th.—_
I have made all my arrangements. Tonight at eleven I slip out; Sor
Asdrubale and his sisters will be sound asleep. I have questioned
them; their fear of rheumatism prevents their attending midnight mass.
Luckily there are no churches between this and the Corte; whatever
movement Christmas night may entail will be a good way off. The
Vice-Prefect’s rooms are on the other side of the palace; the rest of
the square is taken up with state-rooms, archives, and empty stables
and coach-houses of the palace. Besides, I shall be quick at my work.
I have tried my saw on a stout bronze vase I bought of Sor Asdrubale;
and the bronze of the statue, hollow and worn away by rust (I have even
noticed holes), cannot resist very much, especially after a blow with
the sharp hatchet. I have put my papers in order, for the benefit of
the Government which has sent me hither. I am sorry to have defrauded
them of their “History of Urbania.” To pass the endless day and calm
the fever of impatience, I have just taken a long walk. This is the
coldest day we have had. The bright sun does not warm in the least, but
seems only to increase the impression of cold, to make the snow on the
mountains glitter, the blue air to sparkle like steel. The few people
who are out are muffled to the nose, and carry earthenware braziers
beneath their cloaks; long icicles hang from the fountain with the
figure of Mercury upon it; one can imagine the wolves trooping down
through the dry scrub and beleaguering this town. Somehow this cold
makes me feel wonderfully calm—it seems to bring back to me my boyhood.
As I walked up the rough, steep, paved alleys, slippery with frost,
and with their vista of snow mountains against the sky, and passed
by the church steps strewn with box and laurel, with the faint smell
of incense coming out, there returned to me—I know not why—the
recollection, almost the sensation, of those Christmas Eves long ago
at Posen and Breslau, when I walked as a child along the wide streets,
peeping into the windows where they were beginning to light the tapers
of the Christmas-trees, and wondering whether I too, on returning
home, should be let into a wonderful room all blazing with lights and
gilded nuts and glass beads. They are hanging the last strings of
those blue and red metallic beads, fastening on the last gilded and
silvered walnuts on the trees out there at home in the North; they are
lighting the blue and red tapers; the wax is beginning to run on to the
beautiful spruce green branches; the children are waiting with beating
hearts behind the door, to be told that the Christ-Child has been. And
I, for what am I waiting? I don’t know; all seems a dream; everything
vague and unsubstantial about me, as if time had ceased, nothing could
happen, my own desires and hopes were all dead, myself absorbed into I
know not what passive dreamland. Do I long for tonight? Do I dread it?
Will tonight ever come? Do I feel anything, does anything exist all
round me?
I sit and seem to see that street at Posen, the wide street with the
windows illuminated by the Christmas lights, the green fir-branches
grazing the window-panes.
_Christmas Eve, Midnight.—_
I have done it. I slipped out noiselessly. Sor Asdrubale and his
sisters were fast asleep. I feared I had waked them, for my hatchet
fell as I was passing through the principal room where my landlord
keeps his curiosities for sale; it struck against some old armor which
he has been piecing. I heard him exclaim, half in his sleep; and blew
out my light and hid in the stairs. He came out in his dressing-gown,
but finding no one, went back to bed again. “Some cat, no doubt!” he
said. I closed the house door softly behind me. The sky had become
stormy since the afternoon, luminous with the full moon, but strewn
with grey and buff-colored vapors; every now and then the moon
disappeared entirely. Not a creature abroad; the tall gaunt houses
staring in the moonlight.
I know not why, I took a roundabout way to the Corte, past one or two
church doors, whence issued the faint flicker of midnight mass. For a
moment I felt a temptation to enter one of them; but something seemed
to restrain me. I caught snatches of the Christmas hymn. I felt myself
beginning to be unnerved, and hastened towards the Corte. As I passed
under the portico at San Francesco I heard steps behind me; it seemed
to me that I was followed. I stopped to let the other pass. As he
approached his pace flagged; he passed close by me and murmured, “Do
not go: I am Giovanfrancesco Pico.” I turned round; he was gone. A
coldness numbed me; but I hastened on.
Behind the cathedral apse, in a narrow lane, I saw a man leaning
against a wall. The moonlight was full upon him; it seemed to me that
his face, with a thin pointed beard, was streaming with blood. I
quickened my pace; but as I grazed by him he whispered, “Do not obey
her; return home: I am Marcantonio Frangipani.” My teeth chattered, but
I hurried along the narrow lane, with the moonlight blue upon the white
walls. At last I saw the Corte before me: the square was flooded with
moonlight, the windows of the palace seemed brightly illuminated, and
the statue of Duke Robert, shimmering green, seemed advancing towards
me on its horse. I came into the shadow. I had to pass beneath an
archway. There started a figure as if out of the wall, and barred my
passage with his outstretched cloaked arm. I tried to pass. He seized
me by the arm, and his grasp was like a weight of ice. “You shall not
pass!” he cried, and, as the moon came out once more, I saw his face,
ghastly white and bound with an embroidered kerchief; he seemed almost
a child. “You shall not pass!” he cried; “you shall not have her! She
is mine, and mine alone! I am Prinzivalle degli Ordelaffi.” I felt his
ice-cold clutch, but with my other arm I laid about me wildly with the
hatchet which I carried beneath my cloak. The hatchet struck the wall
and rang upon the stone. He had vanished.
I hurried on. I did it. I cut open the bronze; I sawed it into a wider
gash. I tore out the silver image, and hacked it into innumerable
pieces. As I scattered the last fragments about, the moon was suddenly
veiled; a great wind arose, howling down the square; it seemed to me
that the earth shook. I threw down the hatchet and the saw, and fled
home. I felt pursued, as if by the tramp of hundreds of invisible
horsemen.
Now I am calm. It is midnight; another moment and she will be here!
Patience, my heart! I hear it beating loud. I trust that no one will
accuse poor Sor Asdrubale. I will write a letter to the authorities
to declare his innocence should anything happen.... One! the clock in
the palace tower has just struck.... “I hereby certify that, should
anything happen this night to me, Spiridion Trepka, no one but myself
is to be held...” A step on the staircase! It is she! it is she! At
last, Medea, Medea! Ah! AMOUR DURE—DURE AMOUR!
* * * * *
_NOTE.—Here ends the diary of the late Spiridion Trepka. The chief
newspapers of the province of Umbria informed the public that,
on Christmas morning of the year 1885, the bronze equestrian
statue of Robert II. had been found grievously mutilated; and that
Professor Spiridion Trepka of Posen, in the German Empire, had been
discovered dead of a stab in the region of the heart, given by an
unknown hand._