THE commissary conducted me to the police, in order to present me to the
director. What were my sensations upon recognising the house! it was my
first prison. It was then I thought with pain of Melchiorre Gioja, on
the rapid steps with which I had seen him pacing within those narrow
walls, or sitting at his little table, recording his noble thoughts, or
making signals to me; and his last look of sorrow, when forbidden longer
to communicate with me. I pictured to myself his solitary grave, unknown
to all who had so ardently loved him, and, while invoking peace to his
gentle spirit, I wept.
Here, too, I called to mind the little dumb boy, the pathetic tones of
Maddalene, my strange emotions of compassion for her, my neighbours the
robbers, the assumed Louis XVII., and the poor prisoner who had carried
the fatal letter, and whose cries under the infliction of the bastinado,
had reached me.
These and other recollections appeared with all the vividness of some
horrible dream; but most of all, I felt those two visits which my father
had made me ten years before, when I last saw him. How the good old man
had deceived himself in the expectation that I should so soon rejoin him
at Turin! Could he then have borne the idea of a son’s ten years’
captivity, and in such a prison? But when these flattering hopes
vanished, did he, and did my mother bear up against so unexpected a
calamity? was I ever to see them again in this world? Had one, or which
of them, died during the cruel interval that ensued?
Such was the suspense, the distracting doubt which yet clung to me. I
was about to knock at the door of my home without knowing if they were in
existence, or what other members of my beloved family were left me.
The director of police received me in a friendly manner. He permitted me
to stay at the _Bella Venezia_ with the imperial commissary, though I was
not permitted to communicate with any one, and for this reason I
determined to resume my journey the following morning. I obtained an
interview, however, with the Piedmontese consul, to learn if possible
some account of my relatives. I should have waited on him, but being
attacked with fever, and compelled to keep my bed, I sent to beg the
favour of his visiting me. He had the kindness to come immediately, and
I felt truly grateful to him.
He gave me a favourable account of my father, and of my eldest brother.
Respecting my mother, however, my other brother, and my two sisters, I
could learn nothing.
Thus in part comforted, I could have wished to prolong the conversation
with the consul, and he would willingly have gratified me had not his
duties called him away. After he left me, I was extremely affected, but,
as had so often happened, no tears came to give me relief. The habit of
long, internal grief, seemed yet to prey upon my heart; to weep would
have alleviated the fever which consumed me, and distracted my head with
pain.
I called to Stundberger for something to drink. That good man was a
sergeant of police at Vienna, though now filling the office of
_valet-de-chambre_ to the commissary. But though not old, I perceived
that his hand trembled in giving me the drink. This circumstance
reminded me of Schiller, my beloved Schiller, when, on the day of my
arrival at Spielberg, I ordered him, in an imperious tone, to hand me the
jug of water, and he obeyed me.
How strange it was! The recollection of this, added to other feelings of
the kind, struck, as it were, the rock of my heart, and tears began to
flow.