IT was the first of August, 1830. Ten years had elapsed since I was
deprived of my liberty: for eight years and a half I had been subjected
to hard imprisonment. It was Sunday, and, as on other holidays, we went
to our accustomed station, whence we had a view from the wall of the
valley and the cemetery below, where Oroboni and Villa now reposed. We
conversed upon the subject, and the probability of our soon sharing their
untroubled sleep. We had seated ourselves upon our accustomed bench, and
watched the unhappy prisoners as they came forth and passed to hear mass,
which was performed before our own. They were women, and were conducted
into the same little chapel to which we resorted at the second mass.
It is customary with the Germans to sing hymns aloud during the
celebration of mass. As the Austrian empire is composed partly of
Germans and partly of Sclavonians, and the greater part of the prisoners
at Spielberg consist of one or other of these people, the hymns are
alternately sung in the German and the Sclavonian languages. Every
festival, two sermons are preached, and the same division observed. It
was truly delightful to us to hear the singing of the hymns, and the
music of the organ which accompanied it. The voices of some of these
women touched us to the heart. Unhappy ones! some of them were very
young; whom love, or jealousy, or bad example, had betrayed into crime.
I often think I can still hear their fervidly devotional hymn of the
sanctus—_Heilig_! _heilig_! _heilig_!—Holy of holies; and the tears would
start into my eyes. At ten o’clock the women used to withdraw, and we
entered to hear mass. There I saw those of my companions in misfortune,
who listened to the service from the tribune of the organ, and from whom
we were separated only by a single grate, whose pale features and
emaciated bodies, scarcely capable of dragging their irons, bore witness
to their woes.
After mass we were conveyed back to our dungeons. About a quarter of an
hour afterwards we partook of dinner. We were preparing our table, which
consisted in putting a thin board upon a wooden target, and taking up our
wooden spoons, when Signor Wagrath, the superintendent, entered our
prison. “I am sorry to disturb you at dinner; but have the goodness to
follow me; the Director of Police is waiting for us.” As he was
accustomed to come near us only for purposes of examination and search,
we accompanied the superintendent to the audience room in no very good
humour. There we found the Director of Police and the superintendent,
the first of whom moved to us with rather more politeness than usual. He
took out a letter, and stated in a hesitating, slow tone of voice, as if
afraid of surprising us too greatly: “Gentlemen, . . . I have . . . the
pleasure . . . the honour, I mean . . . of . . . of acquainting you that
his Majesty the Emperor has granted you a further favour.” Still he
hesitated to inform us what this favour was; and we conjectured it must
be some slight alleviation, some exemption from irksome labour,—to have a
book, or, perhaps, less disagreeable diet. “Don’t you understand?” he
inquired. “No, sir!” was our reply; “have the goodness, if permitted, to
explain yourself more fully.”
“Then hear it! it is liberty for your two selves, and a third, who will
shortly bear you company.”
One would imagine that such an announcement would have thrown us into
ecstasies of joy. We were so soon to see our parents, of whom we had not
heard for so long a period; but the doubt that they were no longer in
existence, was sufficient not only to moderate—it did not permit us to
hail, the joys of liberty as we should have done.
“Are you dumb?” asked the director; “I thought to see you exulting at the
news.”
“May I beg you,” replied I, “to make known to the Emperor our sentiments
of gratitude; but if we are not favoured with some account of our
families, it is impossible not to indulge in the greatest fear and
anxiety. It is this consciousness which destroys the zest of all our
joy.”
He then gave Maroncelli a letter from his brother, which greatly consoled
him. But he told me there was no account of my family, which made me the
more fear that some calamity had befallen them.
“Now, retire to your apartments, and I will send you a third companion,
who has received pardon.”
We went, and awaited his arrival anxiously; wishing that all had alike
been admitted to the same act of grace, instead of that single one. Was
it poor old Munari? was it such, or such a one? Thus we went on guessing
at every one we knew; when suddenly the door opened, and Signor Andrea
Torrelli, of Brescia, made his appearance. We embraced him; and we could
eat no more dinner that day. We conversed till towards evening, chiefly
regretting the lot of the unhappy friends whom we were leaving behind us.
After sunset, the Director of Police returned to escort us from our
wretched prison house. Our hearts, however, bled within us, as we were
passing by the dungeons of so many of our countrymen whom we loved, and
yet, alas, not to have them to share our liberty! Heaven knows how long
they would be left to linger here! to become the gradual, but certain,
prey of death.
We were each of us enveloped in a military great-coat, with a cap; and
then, dressed as we were in our jail costume, but freed from our chains,
we descended the funereal mount, and were conducted through the city into
the police prisons.
It was a beautiful moonlight night. The roads, the houses, the people
whom we met—every object appeared so strange, and yet so delightful,
after the many years during which I had been debarred from beholding any
similar spectacle!