_Fall of Beatrice._
Castruccio was no inactive partaker in this busy scene. But, after the
combat was finished, and he perceived that Obizzo was engaged in acts of
peaceful sovereignty alone, he hastened to the palace of the bishop; for
he was painfully surprised in not seeing him among the nobles who waited
on the prince. The old man was ill: he had been dreadfully agitated by
the scenes of the preceding days, and his health for a while sunk under
it. Castruccio was introduced into his chamber, where he lay peacefully
sleeping on a magnificent couch, his adopted child, the lovely Beatrice,
watching before him, who, when she beheld Castruccio, blushed deeply,
while, in spite of every effort, a smile of delight spread itself over
her expressive countenance.
"He is not very ill," she said in a low voice, in answer to Castruccio's
enquiries; "the fever has left him entirely; he is weak, but recovering.
He sleeps sweetly now: look at him; at his reverend grey hairs strewn
over his naked temples; look at his eyes, sunken with age, yet, when
open, beaming with benevolence and affection: look what a gentle smile
there is upon his pale lips; there he sleeps, affection, benevolence,
matchless virtue, and excelling wisdom, all cradled by the baby Sleep;
I have been contemplating him for more than an hour; he draws his breath
as regularly as a sleeping infant who has sucked its fill, and his heart
heaves slowly, but calmly. It is a heavenly sight to look on the repose
of this good old man; it calms wild passion, and sheds the fresh dew of
healthful meditation over the strange reveries of youth."
She spoke in a whisper; but her countenance was all animation. The old
man moved; and, pressing her finger on her lips, she paused. "Beatrice,
my child," he said, "I have slept long and soundly, and feel quite well.
Who is that stranger? does he bring news from the marquess? Aye, I
remember this is the day,--I am strangely confused; I recollect now that
I heard of his success before I slept."
"Father, it is my lord Castruccio, who, after having reinstated our
prince in his sovereignty, visits your sick chamber."
Castruccio remained several hours conversing with the bishop; he gave
him an account of the action of the morning, and Beatrice listened with
her whole soul in her eyes; yet, attentive as she was to the narration,
she watched with sweet earnestness her sick friend, turning her looks
from him to the animated face of Castruccio; and again, as she crept
near her adoptive father, she adjusted some pillow, or performed some
little office that marked her earnest observation.
"How beautiful she is!" thought Castruccio, "and what will become of
her?" he fixed his eyes on the silver plate on her forehead. "Yes, she
is the _Ancilla Dei_, a maiden vowed to God and chastity; yet her eyes
seem penetrated with love; the changeful and blooming colours of her
face, her form, which is all that imagination can conceive of perfect,
appear not like those of a cloistered nun. Ah! Beatrice, if you would be
sacred to your God, you ought to hide your surpassing loveliness with
thick veils, behind treble grates. But she is a prophetess; something
more than human;--a character unapproachable even in thought."
Thus Castruccio tried to disentangle his perplexed thoughts, still
looking on the maiden, who, suddenly raising her eyes, and meeting his
which were fixed on her silver plate, blushed even till the tips of her
fingers became a rosy red; and then, complaining in an hesitating voice,
that the plate hurt her brow, she untied it; while her silken hair, no
longer confined, fell on her neck.
Thus many hours passed, and when at length the prophetess retired, it
was to feverish meditation, and thoughts burning with passion, rendered
still more dangerous from her belief in the divine nature of all that
suggested itself to her mind. She prayed to the Virgin to inspire her;
and, again giving herself up to reverie, she wove a subtle web, whose
materials she believed heavenly, but which were indeed stolen from the
glowing wings of love. Kneeling, her eyes raised to heaven, she felt the
same commotion in her soul, which she had felt before, and had
recognised as divine inspiration; she felt the same uncontrolable
transport and burst of imaginative vision, which she believed to flow
immediately from the invisible ray of heaven-derived prophecy. She felt
her soul, as it were, fade away, and incorporate itself with another and
a diviner spirit, which whispered truth and knowledge to her mind, and
then slowly receding, left her human nature, agitated, joyful, and
exhausted;--these were her dreams,--alas! to her they were realities.
The following morning she again met Castruccio in the chamber of the
bishop. She now looked upon him fearlessly; and, if the virgin modesty
of her nature had not withheld her, her words would have been as frank
as she innocently believed them to be inspired. But, although she was
silent, her looks told that she was changed. Her manner the day before
had been soft, concentrated, and retiring; now she was unconstrained;
her eyes sparkled, and a joyous expression dwelt in every feature. Her
manner towards her guardian was endearing, nor was the affectionate
modulation of her voice different when she addressed his guest:
Castruccio started to hear it. It reminded him of the accents of
Euthanasia, whom for a while he had forgotten; and, looking at Beatrice,
he thought, "How lovely she is, and yet how unlike!"
Several days passed thus; Beatrice became embarrassed; it seemed as if
she wished to speak to Castruccio, and yet dared not: when she
approached, she blushed, and again drew back, and would again seek him,
but again vainly. She had framed the mode of her address, conned and
reconned the words she should say; but, when an opportunity occurred to
utter them, her voice failed her, the memory of what she was about to
utter deserted her, and it was not until the approach of a third person
took from her the possibility of speaking, that speech again returned,
and the lost occasion was uselessly lamented. At night she sought the
counsels of heaven, and gave herself up to her accustomed extasies; they
always told her the same things, until to her bewildered and untamed
mind it seemed as if the spirit that had power over her, reprimanded her
hesitation, her little trust in the promises of heaven, and her
reluctance to follow the path it pointed out.
"Surely, oh! most certainly," she thought, "thus I am commanded by the
Power who has so often revealed his will to me. Can I penetrate his
hidden designs? can I do more than execute his decrees? did I not feel
thus, when with prophetic transport I foretold distant events that
surely came to pass? when I foresaw yet afar off the death of Lorenzo,
that lovely child blooming in health, when every one called me a false
prophet? And yet he died. And now, the marquess's return? nay, am I not
approved by heaven? did I not escape from the malice of my enemies
through its miraculous interposition? Oh! I will no longer scan with
presumptuous argument, purposes that are ruled by mightier hands than
mine; I will resign myself to the guidance of what has ever conducted me
aright, and which now points out the path to happiness."
The next morning, her cheeks flushed, her eyes weighed down, trembling
and abashed, she sought Castruccio. It is impossible that there should
not have been much tenderness in his manner towards this lovely girl;
her history, her strange and romantic contemplations and impulses, and
the great intimacy which had arisen between them, were sufficient for
this. He regarded her also as a nun; and this made him feel less
restraint in the manner of his address, since he feared not to be
misconstrued; while at the same time it gave an elevation and unusual
tone to his ideas concerning her, that made him watch her every motion
with interest. She now approached; and he said playfully; "Where is thy
mark, prophetess? art thou no longer the _Maiden of God?_ For some days
thou hast cast aside the hallowed diadem."
"I still have it," she replied; "but I have dismissed it from my brow; I
will give it you; come, my lord, this evening at midnight to the secret
entrance of the viscountess's palace." Saying these words, she fled to
hide her burning blushes in solitude, and again to feel the intoxicating
delusions that led her on to destruction.
Castruccio came. If it were in human virtue to resist the invitation of
this angelic girl, his was not the mind, strictly disciplined to right,
self-examining and jealous of its own integrity that should thus weigh
its actions, and move only as approved by conscience. He was frank and
noble in his manner; his nature was generous; and, though there lurked
in his heart the germ of an evil-bearing tree, it was as yet undeveloped
and inanimated; and, in obeying the summons of Beatrice, he passively
gave himself up to the strong excitements of curiosity and wonder.
He went again and again. When the silent night was spread over every
thing, and the walls of the town stood black and confused amidst the
overshadowing trees, whose waving foliage was diversified by no gleam of
light, but all was formless as the undistinguishable air; or if a star
were dimly seen, it just glistened on the waters of the marsh, and then
swiftly the heavy web of clouds hid both star and water; when the watch
dogs were mute, unawakened by the moon, and the wind that blew across
the plain alone told to the ear the place of the trees; when the bats
and the owls were lulled by the exceeding darkness; it was on such
nights as these, that Castruccio sought the secret entrance of the
viscountess's palace, and was received by the beautiful Beatrice,
enshrined in an atmosphere of love and joy.
She was a strange riddle to him. Without vow, without even that slight
shew of distrust which is the child of confidence itself; without
seeking the responsive professions of eternal love, she surrendered
herself to his arms. And, when the first maiden bashfulness had passed
away, all was deep tenderness and ardent love. Yet there was a dignity
and a trusting affection in her most unguarded moments, that staggered
him: a broken expression would sometimes fall from her lips, that seemed
to say that she believed him indissolubly hers, which made him start, as
if he feared that he had acted with perfidy; yet he had never solicited,
never promised,--what could she mean? What was she? He loved her as he
would have loved any thing that was surpassingly beautiful; and, when
these expressions, that intimated somewhat of enduring and unchangeable
in their intercourse, intruded themselves, they pained and irritated
him: he turned to the recollection of Euthanasia, his pure, his
high-minded, and troth-plight bride;--she seemed as if wronged by such
an idea; and yet he hardly dared think her purer than poor Beatrice,
whose soul, though given up to love, was imbued in its very grain and
texture with delicate affections and honourable feelings; all that makes
the soul and living spark of virtue. If she had not resisted the
impulses of her soul, it was not that she wanted the power; but that,
deluded by the web of deceit that had so long wound itself about her,
she believed them, not only lawful, but inspired by the special
interposition of heaven.
Poor Beatrice! She had inherited from her mother the most ardent
imagination that ever animated a human soul. Its images were as vivid as
reality, and were so overpowering, that they appeared to her, when she
compared them to the calm sensations of others, as something superhuman;
and she followed that as a guide, which she ought to have bound with
fetters, and to have curbed and crushed by every effort of reason.
Unhappy prophetess! the superstitions of her times had obtained credit
for, and indeed given birth to her pretensions, and the compassion and
humanity of her fellow creatures had stamped them with the
truth-attesting seal of a miracle. There is so much life in love!
Beatrice was hardly seventeen, and she loved for the first time; and all
the exquisite pleasures of that passion were consecrated to her, by a
mysteriousness and delusive sanctity that gave them tenfold zest. It is
said, that in love we idolize the object; and, placing him apart and
selecting him from his fellows, look on him as superior in nature to all
others. We do so; but, even as we idolize the object of our affections,
do we idolize ourselves: if we separate him from his fellow mortals, so
do we separate ourselves, and, glorying in belonging to him alone, feel
lifted above all other sensations, all other joys and griefs, to one
hallowed circle from which all but his idea is banished; we walk as if a
mist or some more potent charm divided us from all but him; a sanctified
victim which none but the priest set apart for that office could touch
and not pollute, enshrined in a cloud of glory, made glorious through
beauties not our own. Thus we all feel during the entrancing dream of
love; and Beatrice, the ardent, affectionate Beatrice, felt this with
multiplied power: and, believing that none had ever felt so before, she
thought that heaven itself had interfered to produce so true a paradise.
If her childish dreams had been full of fire, how much more vivid and
overpowering was the awakening of her soul when she first loved! It
seemed as if some new and wondrous spirit had descended, alive,
breathing and panting, into her colder heart, and gave it a new impulse,
a new existence. Ever the dupe of her undisciplined thoughts, she
cherished her reveries, believing that heavenly and intellectual, which
was indebted for its force to earthly mixtures; and she resigned herself
entire to her visionary joys, until she finally awoke to truth, fallen,
and for ever lost.
In the mean time peace was entirely restored to Ferrara: on the
fifteenth of August Castel Tealdo surrendered, and the Pope's governor,
with his foreign guard, quitted the territories of the marquess of Este.
Galeazzo Visconti returned to Milan, but still Castruccio lingered: he
wished to go; he found himself out of place as a dangling courtier in
the train of Obizzo; but how could he leave Beatrice? What did she
expect or wish? The passionate tenderness that she evinced, could not be
an ephemeral spark of worthless love; and how often did the _We,_ she
used in talking of futurity, make him pause when he wished to speak of
their separation! She seemed happy; her words flowed in rich abundance,
and were adorned with various imagery and with delicate thoughts,
shewing that her soul, at rest from fear, wandered as it was wont amidst
the wilds of her imagination. He found her untaught, undisciplined, but
so sincere, so utterly forgetful of self, so trusting, that he dared not
speak that, which each day shewed more clearly would be as a dagger to
her heart. A thousand times he cursed himself for having mistaken her,
and imagining, inspired as she believed herself to be, that her actions
and feelings had not been dictated by the loftiest impulses. But the
time arrived, when he was obliged to undeceive her; and the hand, that
tore away the ties her trusting heart had bound round itself, at the
same time tore away the veil which had for her invested all nature, and
shewed her life as it was--naked and appalling.
They sat in her apartment at the Malvezzi palace; she radiant,
beautiful, and happy; and, twining her lovely arms around Castruccio,
she said: "The moon will set late to-morrow-night, and you must not
venture here; and indeed for several nights it will spread too glaring a
beam. But tell me, are you become a citizen of Ferrara? They averred
that you were the head of a noble city; but I see they must have been
mistaken, or the poor city must totter strangely, so headless as your
absence must make it. How is this, my only friend? Are you not
Antelminelli? Are we not to go to Lucca?"
Castruccio could not stand the questioning of her soft yet earnest eyes;
he withdrew himself from her arms, and taking her hands in his, kissed
them silently. "How is my noble lord?" she repeated, "have you had ill
news? are you again banished? that cannot be, or methinks my heart would
have told me the secret. Yet, if you are, be not unhappy:--your own
Beatrice, with prophetic words, and signs from heaven that lead the
multitude, will conduct you to greater glory and greater power than you
before possessed. My gentle love, you have talked less about yourself,
and about your hopes and desires, than I should have wished:--Do not
think me a foolish woman, tied to an embroidery frame, or that my heart
would not beat high at the news of your success, or that with my whole
soul I should not enter into your plans, and tell you how the stars
looked upon your intents. In truth my mind pants for fitting exertion;
and, in being joined to thee, dearest love, I thought that I had found
the goal for which heaven had destined me. Nay, look not away from me; I
do not reproach thee; I know that, in finding thee, in being bound to
thy fate, mine is fulfilled; and I am happy. Now speak--tell me what has
disturbed thy thoughts."
"Sweetest Beatrice, I have nothing to tell; yet I have for many days
wished to speak; for in truth I must return to Lucca."
The quick sensations of Beatrice could not be deceived. The words of
Castruccio were too plain; she looked at him, as if she would read the
secret in his soul,--she did read it:--his downcast eyes, confused air,
and the words he stammered out in explanation, told her every thing. The
blood rushed to her face, her neck, her hands; and then as suddenly
receding, left even her lips pale. She withdrew her arms from the soft
caress she had bestowed; playfully she had bound his head with her own
hair and the silken strings entangled with his; she tore her tresses
impatiently to disengage herself from him; then, trembling, white, and
chilled, she sat down, and said not a word. Castruccio looked on with
fear; he attempted consolation.
"I shall visit thee again, my own Beatrice; for a time we must
part;--the viscountess--the good bishop--you cannot leave them,--fear
not but that we shall meet again."
"We shall meet again!" she exclaimed with a passionate voice; "Never!"
Her tone, full of agitation and grief, sunk into the soul of Castruccio.
He took her hand; it was lifeless; he would have kissed her; but she
drew back coldly and sadly. His words had not been those of the heart;
he had hesitated and paused: but now compassion, and the memory of what
she had been, awoke his powers, and he said warmly, and with a voice
whose modulations seemed tuned by love: "You mistake me, Beatrice;
indeed you do. I love you;--who could help loving one so true, so
gentle, and so trusting?--we part for a while;--this is necessary. Does
not your character require it? the part you act in the world? every
consideration of honour and delicacy:--Do you think that I can ever
forget you? does not your own heart tell you, that your love, your
caresses, your sweet eyes, and gentle words, have woven a net which must
keep me for ever? You will remain here, and I shall go; but a few suns,
a few moons, and we shall meet again, and the joy of that moment will
make you forget our transient separation."
How cold were these words to the burning heart of the prophetess; she,
who thought that Heaven had singled out Castruccio to unite him to her,
who thought that the Holy Spirit had revealed himself to bless their
union, that, by the mingled strength of his manly qualities, and her
divine attributes, some great work might be fulfilled on earth; who saw
all as God's command, and done by his special interposition; to find
this heavenly tissue swept away, beaten down, and destroyed! It was to
his fortunes, good or bad, that she had bound herself, to share his
glory or soothe his griefs; and not to be the mistress of the passing
hour, the distaff of the spinning Hercules. It was her heart, her whole
soul she had given; her understanding, her prophetic powers, all the
little universe that with her ardent spirit she grasped and possessed,
she had surrendered, fully, and without reserve; but alas! the most
worthless part alone had been accepted, and the rest cast as dust upon
the winds. How in this moment did she long to be a winged soul, that her
person heedlessly given, given only as a part of that to the whole of
which he had an indefeasible right, and which was now despised, might
melt away from the view of the despiser, and be seen no more! The words
of her lover brought despair, not comfort; she shook her head in
silence; Castruccio spoke again and again; but many words are dangerous
where there is much to conceal, and every syllable he uttered laid bare
some new forgery of her imagination, and shewed her more and more
clearly the harsh reality. She was astounded, and drank in his words
eagerly, though she answered not; she was impatient when he was silent,
for she longed to know the worst; yet she dared not direct the course of
his explanations by a single enquiry: she was as a mother, who reads the
death-warrant of her child on the physician's brow, yet blindly trusting
that she decyphers ill, will not destroy the last hope by a question.
Even so she listened to the assurances of Castruccio, each word being a
fresh assurance of her misery, yet not stamping the last damning seal on
her despair.
At length grey dawn appeared; she was silent, motionless and wan; she
marked it not; but he did; and rising hastily he cried, "I must go, or
you are lost; farewel, Beatrice!"
Now she awoke, her eyes glared, her lovely features became even
distorted by the strength of her agony,--she started up--"Not yet, not
yet--one word more! Do you--love another?"
Her tone was that of command;--her flashing eyes demanded the truth, and
seemed as if they would by their excessive force strike the falsehood
dead, if he dared utter it: he was subdued, impelled to reply:--
"I do."
"Her name?"
"Euthanasia."
"Enough, I will remember that name in my prayers. Now, go! seek not to
come again; the entrance will be closed; do not endeavour to see me at
the house of the bishop; I shall fly you as a basilisk, and, if I see
you, your eyes will kill me. Remember these are my words; they are as
true, as that I am all a lie. It will kill me; but I swear by all my
hopes never to see you more. Oh, never, never!"
She again sank down pale and lifeless, pressing her hands upon her eyes,
as if the more speedily to fulfil her vow. Castruccio dared stay no
longer, he fled as the dæmon might have fled from the bitter sorrows of
despoiled Paradise; he left her aghast, overthrown, annihilated.
He quitted Ferrara that day. He was miserable: careless of the road, he
sought solitude alone. Before night he was among the wild forests of the
Apennines,--and there he paused; he was surrounded by the dark
pine-forests that sung above him, covered by a night which was cloudy
and unquiet, for the swift wind drove the rack along the sky, and
moaned, and howled; while the lightnings of a distant storm, faint, but
frequent, displayed the savage spot on which he rested. He threw himself
from his horse, and abandoned himself to sorrow: it stung him to
reflect, that he was the cause of sharpest pain to one who loved him;
and the excuses he fondly leaned upon before his explanation, broke as a
reed under the wild force of Beatrice's despair. He had heard her story,
he knew her delusions, and ought not to have acted towards her, as to a
fellow-being who walked in the same light as himself, and saw objects
dressed in the same colours: a false sun made every thing deceptive for
her eyes,--and he knew it.
Yet what could he now do? Go again to Beatrice? Wherefore? What could he
say? but one word--"forget me!" And that was already said. His early
vows, his deepest and his lasting hopes, were bound up in Euthanasia:
she depended on him alone; she had no father, no relation, none to love
but him. She had told him that she gave up her soul to him, and had
intreated him not to cast aside the gift. Beatrice had never demanded
his faith, his promise, his full and entire heart; but she believed that
she had them, and the loss sustained by her was irretrievable.
Yet she would soon forget him: thus he reasoned; hers was one of those
minds ever tossed like the ocean by the tempest of passion; yet, like
the ocean, let the winds abate, and it subsides, and quickly again
becomes smiling. She had many friends; she was loved, nay, adored, by
all who surrounded her: utter hopelessness of ever seeing him again
would cause her to forget him; her old ideas, her old habits would
return, and she would be happy. His interference alone could harm her;
but she, the spoiled child of the world, would weep out her grief on
some fond and friendly bosom, and then again laugh and play as she was
wont.
He spent the following day and night among these forests; until the
tempest of his soul was calmed, and his thoughts, before entangled and
matted by vanity and error, now flowed loose, borne on by repentance, as
the clinging weeds of a dried-up brook are spread free and distinct by
the re-appearance of the clear stream. He no longer felt the withering
look of Beatrice haunt even his dreams; it appeared to him that he had
paid the mulct of remorse and error; the impression of her enchantments
and of her sorrows wore off; and he returned with renewed tenderness to
Euthanasia, whom he had wronged; and, in the knowledge that he had
shamed her pure lessons, he felt a true and wholesome sorrow, which was
itself virtue. Yet he dared not go back to her; he dared not meet her
clear, calm eye; and he felt that his cheek would burn with shame under
her innocent gaze. He suddenly remembered his engagement to visit Pepi,
the old Ghibeline politician, who, without honesty or humanity, snuffed
up the air of self-conceit, and who, thus inflated, believed himself
entitled to cover others with the venom of sarcasm and contempt.
"Yes, old fox!" he cried, "I will unearth you, and see if there is aught
in your kennel worth the labour. Methinks you would give out as if gold
were under the dirt, or that power and wisdom lurked beneath your
sheep-skin and wrinkles; but believe me, my good friend, we Italians,
however base our politics may be, are not yet low enough to feed from a
trough with you for the driver."
The recollection of something so low and contemptible as Benedetto of
Cremona, relieved Castruccio from a load of dissatisfaction and remorse.
Comparing Pepi with himself, not directly, but by inference of infinite
contempt, he felt that he could again unabashed raise his eyes. This was
not well; far better was the blush of humiliation which covered him in
comparing his soiled purposes and strayed heart to something high and
pure, than the ignoble heavings of self-consequence in matching himself
with such a blotted specimen of humanity as Pepi. So, as we are wont,
when we return from the solitude of self-examination to the company of
fellow-sinners, he twisted up again the disentangled tresses of his
frank and sincere thoughts into the million-knotted ties of the world's
customs and saintly-looking falsehoods; and, leaving the woods of the
Apennines, something wiser in self-knowledge, and but little improved in
generous virtue, and the government of his passions, he put spurs to his
horse, and turned his steps towards Cremona.