I COMMENCE PILGRIM
I arose from bed, some two or three days after the terrible occurrence
related--and how I had got into it, except for the charity of the
doorkeeper, there's no telling. I arose, I say, to a new heaven and a
new earth: a heaven impossibly remote, an earth of sickly horror, an
earth of serpents and worms, upon which I crawled and groped, the
loathliest of their spawn. I surveyed myself in the glass, faced myself
as I was--I the wrecker of homes, the betrayer of ladies, love's
atheist! Pale, hollow-cheeked, with eyes distraught, there was good
ground for believing that when Dr. Lanfranchi threw me upon my worthless
skull he had jogged out my wits.
The facts were otherwise, however. Resolution came back upon the crest,
as it were, of the wave that brought me full knowledge; the more
disastrously showed the ruin I had made, the more stoutly I determined
to repair it.
The surgeon who attended me was perfectly discreet and told me nothing
more than that Professor Lanfranchi had left Padua and was gone to
Venice. Not so the custode of the house: it was from him I had the rest.
Dr. Lanfranchi had taken his keys with him and had left no directions.
Donna Aurelia had been twice to the house since her first departure from
it, and had been unable to get access. The second time of failing, said
the custode, she had "lashed into the street like a serpent from a cage.
And nobody," he added, "nobody in this town, and nobody under heaven's
great eye, can say where she has gone. Perhaps she is dead, sir; but I
believe that she is not. Pretty and snug lady that she was, it's my
belief she will fret after her comforts, and that if she get them not
from one, she will have them from another." Old Nonna had also
disappeared, he said, which was better than things might have been; but
the strongest ray of comfort shed upon me from this worthy fellow's
store was this, that Donna Aurelia had returned to her house. Plainly,
if she had been thither twice, she could be induced thither a third
time. It must then be my business to induce her, and to see to it, if
possible, that she was properly received upon that occasion.
Here was a duty plainly set before me--my first and greatest reparation,
which no other tie must hinder, to accomplish which I must shrink from
no hardship however severe, no humiliation however bitter. Another lay
closer to my heart, I'll allow, the words of pardon which I hoped to sue
forth from the dearest lips in all the world--for I could never hope to
be happy until the being whom, most loving, I had most offended could
consent to assure me of my peace. This, however, I resolutely put by as
a selfish pleasure which I must not expect to enjoy until I had earned
it. However natural might be the impulse which urged me to find Aurelia,
fall at her feet, anoint them with my tears, I must withstand it until I
could be sure of her honour saved. Now, was that surety to be gained
first from her or first from her wrathful husband?
I turned to the custode, who stood smiling and rubbing his chin in my
doorway. I said, "Beppo, I am in great perplexity. It is idle to deny
that I am the immediate cause of all this misery, for you know it as
well as I do."
He said that he had guessed something of what I was so good as to tell
him. "There was, as I understand, a little misadventure with a cupboard
door," he said; "but who can contend with Fate?"
"It has been my fate," I said, "to bring ruin upon the lady whom I
adore. My sin is worse than that of Hophni and Phineas, and I would that
the requital might be as theirs was, save that I can make it more bitter
yet."
"Why," says he, "what was done to those gentlemen?" I told him that they
were slain with the sword; to which he replied that, so far as he had
ever heard, the doctor was nothing of a swordsman, and that he knew I
had some proficiency in fence. "I hope then," he added, "that your
honour will succeed where those other gentlemen failed; but if you ask
my advice, I say, leave the doctor alone, and comfort the little lady."
His gross misapprehension of every merit of the case nettled me: I saw
it was useless to talk with a person of his condition, and that instant
action was my only safety. I must go, on my knees if must be, to the
feet of Donna Aurelia, I must put myself entirely at her service. Should
that lie in spurning me with her heel I must endure it; should she bid
me go and receive public chastisement from her dangerous husband, I
would assuredly go. Tears, stripes, hunger, thirst, cold, heat,
loneliness, nakedness, unjust accusation, ridicule, malicious
persecution--all these I would cheerfully undergo; and if one or any of
them could repair her misfortunes, then they would be repaired. The
custode said that he believed they could not, but I bade him be silent
and begone. "Wretched Venetian," I cried at him, "thou art incapable of
comprehending anything but victuals. If I tell thee that I have
lacerated an angel and deserve the sword, thou speakest of my skill in
fence! I waste my breath upon thee. Comfort the lady, dost thou dare to
say? What comfort can she have but in my repentance? What have I to
offer but devotion?"
"It is just that which I advise your honour-" he began, but I was now
embarked upon the waters of adventure, cheered with the prospect of
action, impatient to begin my voyage. Astonishment cropped his period
midway; he gaped as he saw what I did. I threw upon the floor my sword
and finely laced coat; I threw my vest, ruffles, cravat, watch, rings,
after them. I kicked into a corner with my foot my buckled shoes, my
silk stockings, my fine gilt garters. Upon the top of the heap I cast my
Paris hat, my gloves and brooch. "There lies," I said, "the sinful husk
of Francis Strelley. Let the swine nozzle and rout in it for what they
can find to their liking. And here," I cried, standing before him in
shirt and breeches, barefooted, bareheaded, without a coat to my back,
"here, good man, stands the naked soul of that same Francis, which shall
go shivering forth to declare his shame, to meet his penance, to stand
begging at the door of the Holy Place for the mercy which he has shown
himself unworthy of."
About my disordered hair I tied Aurelia's ribbon, round my upper arm I
placed her garter, to my neck, upon a silken cord, I hung her Venice
slipper. In the bosom of my shirt I placed the little book of devotion
which she had given me, and the "Aminta" of Tasso in which we had last
read together. "Farewell, Beppo," said I; "you may not see Francis
again."
"Where are you going, sir?" he asked me, wondering.
"To Siena--to Aurelia--to Heaven!" and he held up his hands.
"You are never going to Siena as you are," he cried; and I asked him how
else he would have me go.
"Your honour will take cold in the chest," says he, "that's very plain;
but long before that can declare itself your honour will be lodged in
the madhouse. And what is Madam Aurelia to say, by your leave, to an
undressed young gentleman which she declined to say to a dressed one?
Let me tell you, young sir," he added with a sneer, "Siena's not the
only city in Italy where there are madmen."
"Man," I said, "what is it to me, do you suppose, whether I am in a
madhouse or a prison this night? I intend for Siena, and shall certainly
get there in good time. Now I will ask you to leave me."
"Tis your honour is for leaving, not I," said he, "and though I shall be
taking a liberty, it's in a case of bad-is-the-best I do believe." He
took off his jacket and put it on the bed.
"What are you proposing, Beppo?" said I.
"A strait-waistcoat," said he, and came at me with determination.
I was his master in a very few minutes, for I was much stronger than he
reckoned for. When I had him at my discretion, I let him get up and thus
addressed him:
"I have every reason to be extremely offended with you," I said, "but I
believe that you have acted honestly. Let me, however, recommend you not
to interfere in the private and personal affairs of gentlemen until you
have fitted yourself to understand them. I am going upon a journey in a
manner which appears becoming to one who is responsible for these
lamentable troubles. I shall leave my property here in your charge, but
will ask you to accept such of those articles as are on the floor as may
be of use to you. When you see me again it will be as your indulgent
master; but he who now bids you farewell is unworthy to shake your
hand."
He nevertheless took my hand and kissed it devotedly immediately
afterwards he had fallen upon my discarded trifles.
"Excellency! Excellency!" he cried, gasping, "what bounty! what
splendour of soul!" He fingered my watch, listened to it. "It goes yet--
it is a famous watch!" He babbled like a happy child. "Mechlin stuff,
every thread of it!" He smoothed out the lace ends of my cravat. So he
ran through the silly things one after another--shoes which he could not
wear, a sword which he could not use, a coat which must exhibit him a
monkey--he grovelled before me and would have kissed my foot, but that I
shrank from him in disgust. "Horrible, venal Venetian," I said, "thou
hast shown me one more degraded than I." He was out of sight with his
bundle of treasures before I could finish my reproof, and I busied
myself with my last preparations.
I wrote two letters: the first was to Dr. Lanfranchi, the second to my
father. To the doctor I said what was, I think, becoming, namely, that
his wife was as spotless as the snow, and that the very blackness of my
guilt did but show her whiteness more dazzling. I added an expression of
my undying sorrow for having brought misfortune upon her whom I must
always love, and him whom I had once respected, and assured him that I
did not intend to rest until I had repaired it. This I addressed to the
university.
I explained briefly to my father the reason of my temporary absence from
Padua; and upon reconsideration of my plans, desiring to avoid any
affectation of extravagance, added a cloak, a small bundle of clean
linen, a staff and a few gold pieces to my thin equipment. At four
o'clock in the afternoon I went out into the street and directed my
steps towards the gate of San Zuan.
Leaving Padua, I turned and looked for the last time upon her domes and
towers. "Farewell, once proud city, now brought low by my deed," I said.
"Keep, if thou must, the accursed memory and name of Francis Antony
Strelley, gentleman--Poisoner of Homes, Stabber-in-secret, Traitor in
Love. I leave him behind me for the worst thou canst do. He that quits
thee now is another than he: Francesco Ignoto, Pilgrim, in need of
Grace."
Then I addressed myself stoutly to the hills; and it is a circumstance
worthy of remark that the further I pushed the more certainly I
recovered my spirits. I suppose there never was yet in this world a
young man to whom the future did not appeal more urgently than the
present, or who would not rather undertake an adventure without a
shilling to his name than in his post-chaise and four. It is, I take it,
of the essence of romance that the lady's castle-prison of enchantment
lies beyond the forest, across the hills or over sea; and most assuredly
that damsel who is to be won by means of a courier leading a spare horse
is as little worth your pains as she whose price is half a guinea. I, in
that commencement of my pilgrimage, then, was happy because I was doing
something, and hopeful because I could not see my way!