was blowing hard and raining. His fondness for the bird made him take
it in and set it atop of a high old wardrobe. He clambered up and was
leaning over to place the cage steadily, when the chain from which the
portrait of his beloved was hanging broke, and the picture slid to the
wall and down behind the old oak chest. The unhappy are terrified by
the veriest trifles. He got down hastily to seek for his darling
treasure. He stoopt down to the ground, but his search was vain; it
was not to be seen beneath the large heavy cabinet. Everything,
whether of great or little moment, in his life seemed to be
persecuting him as it were under some spell. He shoved at the old
piece of furniture and tried to push it out of its place; but it was
fastened to the wall. His impatience grew more vehement with every
hinderance. He seized an old iron bar which he found in the anteroom,
and laboured with all his strength to move the wardrobe; and at last,
after much heaving and wrenching and a hundred fruitless efforts, it
gave way with a loud cracking as if an iron cramp or chain had snapt.
The cabinet now by degrees came forward, and Antonio was at length
able to squeeze himself in between it and the wall. He immediately saw
his beloved portrait. It was lying upon the broad knob of a door,
which jutted out of the wall. He kist it, and turned the handle, which
yielded. A door opened; and he resolved to push the great wardrobe
somewhat further away, and to explore this strange matter; for he
thought the owner of the house himself could hardly be acquainted with
this secret passage, which had been concealed with so much care, and,
as it appeared, for so long a time.
When he had gained a little more room, he saw that behind the door
there was a narrow winding staircase. He went down a few steps; the
thickest darkness came round him. He descended lower and still lower;
the stairs seemed to lead down almost to the bottom of the house. He
was on the point of returning, when he struck against a stoppage; for
the flight of steps was now at an end. As he groped up and down in the
darkness, his hand hit on a brass ring, which he pulled, and instantly
the wall opened, and a red glow streamed into his face. Before he
passed through, he examined the door, and found that a spring which
the ring had set in motion, had driven it back. He put it to and stept
cautiously into the room.
It was covered with costly red tapestry; purple curtains of heavy silk
hung down before the windows: a bed of brilliant scarlet embroidered
with gold rose in the middle of the room. Everything was still; no
sound was heard from the street; the windows lookt into a small
garden.
A painful anxiety came over the youth as he stood in the midst of the
chamber; he listened attentively, and at length seemed to hear the low
whisper of a breath, as from a sleeper. With throbbing heart he turned
round, and went forward, to spy whether any one was upon the bed; he
spread open the silken hangings, and ... he thought he must be in a
dream; for before him lay, pale as a corpse, but in a sweet slumber,
the form of his beloved Crescentia. Her bosom heaved visibly;
something like a slight blush had tinged her pale lips, which were
softly closed, quivering imperceptibly as a gentle smile ever and anon
flitted over them. Her hair was loose and lay in its dark heavy locks
upon her shoulders. Her dress was white, with a golden clasp at her
girdle. For a long time Antonio stood lost in gazing; at last as if
driven by a supernatural power he snatcht the lovely white hand, and
began to pull up the sleeper by force. She darted a plaintive cry
forth; and frightened by it he let go the arm again, which dropt
languidly upon the pillow.
But the dream, so seemed it, had flown away; the net of sleep which
had held the wonderous form inclosed, was rent asunder: and as clouds
and mists move along the side of the hills on the gentle morning
breeze in wavy forms and now rise and now sink again, so the slumberer
began to stir, stretcht herself as if powerless, and in slow and
graceful motions seemed striving to emerge from her sleep. Her arms
raised themselves, so that the broad sleeves fell back and displayed
their full beauteous roundness; her hands folded themselves, and then
dropt down again; the head arose, and the bright neck lifted itself
freely up; but the eyes were still fast closed; the black tresses fell
over the face, but the long taper fingers stroaked them back; now the
fair one was sitting quite upright; she crost her arms over her
breast, heaved a hard sigh, and on a sudden her large eyes stood wide
open and glancing.
She gazed at the youth; but it was as though she saw him not; she
shook her head; then she graspt the gold tassel which was fastened to
the top of the bed, lifted herself strongly up, and the tall slender
form was now standing on its feet raised up on high in the midst of
the scarlet drapery. She then stept safely and firmly down from the
couch, walkt a few paces up to Antonio who had drawn back, and with a
childish exclamation of surprise, as when children are suddenly
gladdened by a new plaything, she laid her hand upon his shoulder,
smiled lovelily upon him, and cried with a soft voice: "Antonio!"
But he, pierced through and through with fear and horrour and joy and
amazement and the deepest pity, knew not whether to fly from her, to
embrace her, to cast himself at her feet, or to melt away in tears and
die. That was the selfsame sound which of yore he had heard so often
and with such delight, at which his whole heart had turned round.
"Thou livest?" he cried with a voice which the swell of his feelings
stifled.
The sweet smile that had mounted from her pale lips over her cheeks
even into her radiant eyes, suddenly split, and froze into a stiff
expression of the deepest most unutterable woe.
Antonio could not endure the glance of those eyes; he covered his face
with his hands, and shriekt: "Art thou a ghost?"
The figure came still closer, prest down his arms with her hands, so
that his face lay bare, and said with a gently fluttering voice: "No,
look at me; I am not dead; and yet I live not. Give me that cup
there."
A fragrant liquid was floating in the crystal vessel; he held it out
to her trembling; she set it to her mouth and sipt the drink by slow
draughts. "Alas! my poor Antonio!" she then said: "I will only borrow
these earthly powers that I may disclose the most monstrous of crimes
to thee, that I may beseech thy aid, that I may prevail on thee to
help me to that rest after which all my feelings so fervently yearn."
She had sunk back into the arm-chair, and Antonio was sitting at her
feet. "Hellish arts," she again began, "have seemingly awakened me
from death. The same man whom my inexperienced youth honoured as an
apostle, is a spirit of darkness. He gave me this shadow of life. He
loves me, as he says. How my heart shrank back from him when my
awakening eye beheld him. I sleep, I breathe; I may, if I choose, be
restored to life altogether, so that wicked man has promist me, if I
will give myself up to him with my whole heart, if in secret
concealment I will let him become my husband.... O Antonio, how hard
is every word to me, every thought! All his art crumbles before my
longing for death. It was frightful, when my spirit, already at rest,
with new visions already unfolding before it, was summoned back so
cruelly out of its calm peace. My body was already a stranger to me, a
hostile and hateful thing. I came back like the freed slave to chains
and a dungeon. Help me, my true lover; save me."
"How!" said Antonio: "Oh God in Heaven! what have I lived to! in what
a state do I find thee again! And thou canst not, mayst not return to
life altogether? thou canst not again be mine, again be thy parents'
dear child?"
"Impossible!" cried Crescentia with a tone of anguish, and her
paleness became yet whiter from dismay. "Alas! Life! How can any one
seek it again, who has once been set free from it? Thou, my poor
Antonio, conceivest not the deep longing, the love, the rapture,
wherewith I think upon death and pant for it. Even more intensely than
of yore I loved thee, even more fervently than my lips at the Easter
festival pined for the holy wafer, do I now yearn for death. Then I
shall love thee more freely and more wholly in God; then I shall be
given back to my parents. Then I shall live; formerly I was dead; now
I am a cloud and a shadow, a riddle to myself and to thee. Alas, when
thy love and our youth have gleamed in upon me in my present state,
when I have heard my well-known nightingale from above pouring her
song into my loneliness, what a sweet shuddering, what a dark joy and
pain have then rippled through the dusk of my being! O help me to get
loose from this chain."
"What can I do for thee?" askt Antonio.
Her talking had again broken the strength of the apparition: she
paused awhile with closed eyelids; then she spake faintly: "Alas! if I
could go into a church, if I could be present when the Lord is lifted
up and appears to the congregation in the sacrament, then in that
blessed moment I should die of rapture."
"What should hinder me," said Antonio, "from informing against the
villain, and delivering him up to the tribunals and to the
inquisition?"
"No! no! no!" groaned the figure in the greatest terrour: "thou dost
not know him; he is too mighty; he would make his escape, and again
tear me to him within the circle of his wickedness. Quietly and by
silence alone can we succeed; he must feel secure. A chance has
brought thee to me. Thou must make him believe himself quite safe, and
keep everything secret."
The youth collected his senses; he talkt much with his former
betrothed; but speaking became more and more difficult to her; her
eyelids dropt down; she drank once more of the wonderous potion; then
she made him lead her to the couch.
"Farewell!" she said, as if already in a dream; "do not forget me."
She mounted upon the bed, laid herself gently down; her hands searcht
for the crucifix, which she kist with her eyes closed; then she held
out her hand to her lover, and beckoned him away as she stretcht
herself out to sleep.
Antonio gazed at her awhile; then with the spring he shut the
invisible door again, crept back up the narrow winding stairs to his
chamber, fixt the wardrobe in its old place, and burst into hot tears
as the song of the nightingale welcomed him with the swell of its
mournful notes. He too longed for death, and only wisht beforehand to
release her, who but a few days since was to have been his earthly
bride, from her marvellous and awful state.
* * * * *
In order to be out of the way when his teacher returned from his
journey, Antonio had bent his steps toward the loneliest part of the
wood. It was an annoyance to him to meet his friend, the Spaniard,
here; for he was in no mood to carry on a conversation. However, as
there was no avoiding his comrade, he resigned himself in silent
sadness to the society which at other times had been a pleasure to him
and a comfort. He only half listened to what his friend said, and
answered but sparingly. As was almost always the case, Pietro was
again the theme of Alfonso's boundless admiration.
"Why are you thus stingy of your words today?" he at length began,
somewhat vext: "is my company troublesome to you? or are you no longer
as capable as you used to be of honouring our great teacher and giving
him the glory he deserves?"
Antonio was forced to collect himself, not to sink away entirely into
his dreamy state.
"What is the matter with you?" askt Alfonso again: "it seems I have
offended you."
"No, you have not;" cried the Florentine; "but if you have any regard
for me, if you would not excite my anger, if you would not have the
bitterest feelings rend my heart, do give over chaunting the praises
of your idolized Pietro for today. Let us talk on some other subject."
"Ha! by Heaven!" exclaimed Alfonso: "so the parsons have twisted your
feeble senses round at last. Go your own way henceforward, young man;
wisdom, I now well see, is too lofty a prize for you. Your head is too
weak for this fare; and you are longing again for the pap you were
wont to get from the former fathers of your soul. You will do better
to stay with them, at least till your milk teeth have dropt out."
"You are talking overweeningly," cried Antonio in wrath; "or rather
you are utterly ignorant of what you are saying, and I deserve not
this language from you."
"How has our teacher deserved," said the Spaniard hastily, "he who has
taken you in like a father, he who favours you so highly above all the
young men of our university, who allows you to dwell in his house, who
entrusts you with all the thoughts of his heart, by what offense has
he deserved, that you should thus mean-spiritedly deny him?"
"If I were to answer now," returned Antonio angrily, "that you do not
know him, that I have reasons, and the fullest, to think otherwise of
him, again you would not understand me."
"Verily," said Alfonso with a sneer, "you have already scaled so high
into the most secret places of his philosophy, that the common
unfavoured child of earth is unable to follow you. Here again one sees
that half-merit and quarter-merit puff themselves up the most. Pietro
Abano is more lowly-minded than you, his feeble mimic."
"You are unmannerly!" exclaimed the young Florentine irritated to the
utmost. "If I were now to assure you by my honour, by my faith, by
heaven, and by everything which must needs be holy and venerable to
you and me, that in all Italy, in all Europe, there is no such wicked
villain, no so atrocious hypocrite as this...."
"Who?" shouted Alfonso.
"Pietro Abano," said Antonio now grown calm: "what would you say
then?"
"Nothing!" furiously cried the other, who had not allowed him to
finish: "save that you, and everybody else who dares to speak in that
way, are the paltriest knaves that ever had the audacity to blaspheme
holy things. Draw, if you would not be called a mean coward as well as
a base slanderer."
Antonio's drawn sword met the challenger with the same speed; and it
was in vain that a hoarse anxious voice cried out to them: "Hold!"
Alfonso was wounded in the breast; and the blood at the same time ran
from Antonio's arm.
The old priest, who had wisht to separate the quarrellers, now
hastened forward; bound up their wounds and stancht the blood; then he
called to some students that he had seen a little way off, and told
them to carry the wounded Alfonso to the city.
Before he was removed, Antonio went up to him and whispered in his
ear: "If you are a man of honour, not a word about the cause of our
fray will pass over your lips. In four days time we will meet again:
and if you are not of my way of thinking then, I am ready to give you
any satisfaction."
Alfonso pledged his solemn promise; all the bystanders too assured
Antonio that the wound as well as the whole affair should be kept a
secret, not to expose him to any danger.
When they were all gone Antonio walkt with the priest Theodore deeper
into the wood.
"Why," began the latter, "will you, for a fiend's sake, make over your
own soul to hell? I see, you are now of a different opinion; but is
the sword the spokesman that should preach truth to a brother?"
Antonio felt in doubt how much he should disclose to the monk; however
he said nothing about the wonderful event that had befallen him, and
only entreated that, at the approaching festival of Easter, he might
be allowed to enter the great church during high mass through the
sacristy, near the altar.
After some objections Theodore complied, though he could not conceive
what was the youth's purpose in asking for this permission. All
Antonio said further was: "I wish to bring a friend into the church
that way, whose entrance at the great door might perhaps be stopt."
* * * * *
All the bells in the city were ringing, that the holy feast of Easter
might be kept with gladness and devotion. The people flockt toward the
dome, to celebrate the most joyous of Christian festivals, and also to
behold the renowned Apone in his new dignity. The students escorted
their illustrious teacher, who walkt along amid the reverent
salutations of the nobles, the council, and the citizens, in seeming
piety and humility, an example to all, the pride of the city, the
inspiring model of the youth. At the door of the cathedral the crowd
shrank back in timid respect, to make way for their honoured bishop,
who, in the garb of a prelate, with the golden chain round his neck,
with his white beard and the white locks on his head, might be
compared to an emperor or an ancient doctor of the church in his
majestic demeanour.
A seat had been raised up on high for the great man near the altar,
that the students and the people might see him; and when the multitude
of the devout had poured into the church, the service began.
Theodore, the little priest, read mass on this day; and young and old,
gentle and simple, all rejoiced to keep the festival of their Lord's
resurrection in a worthy manner, and to behold the pomp of worship
returning, glad that after the days of severe fasting, after the
saddening representations of suffering and sorrow, they might now
comfort themselves with the feeling of a new life springing forth from
the grave.
The first part of the divine service was already over, when people
were astonisht to see Antonio Cavalcanti stepping into the church by
the side of the altar, leading a thickly veiled figure in his hand. He
placed the figure on the raised pavement just in face of Pietro, and
then threw himself down before the altar praying. The muffled form
remained standing stiff and high, and beneath the covering one saw the
firy black eyes. Pietro lifted himself from his seat, and sank back
into it pale and trembling. The music of the mass now gusht and rolled
in fuller symphonies; the muffled form disentangled itself slowly from
its veils; the face became free; and those who were nearest with
horrour recognized the dead Crescentia. A shudder passed through the
whole church; even over those who were furthest off a secret shivering
crept, to see the image pale as death standing so tall there, and
praying so fervently, and never turning her large burning eyes from
the priest at the altar. Even the great mighty Pietro himself seemed
changed into a corpse; from his distorted features one might have held
him to be dead, but that his life betrayed itself in his violent
trembling.
Now the priest turned round and lifted up the consecrated host;
trumpets announced the renewed presence of the Lord; and with a voice
of triumph, with a face of high transport, her arms widely outspread,
as she cried aloud "Hosannah!" so that the church resounded with it,
the pale apparition dropt down, and lay dead, stiff, and motionless,
before Pietro's feet.
The people rusht forward; the music stopt; curiosity, astonishment,
horrour, and affright spake from every asking countenance; the nobles
and students went up to comfort and support the venerable old man, who
appeared so deeply shockt; when Antonio with a yelling sound shouted:
"Murder! Murder!" and began the most fearful charge, the most
appalling tale, unfolded the hellish arts, the accursed magic of the
dismayed sinner, spake of himself and of Crescentia and of their awful
meeting again, until anger and rage and imprecations and loathing and
curses raved like a stormy sea around the criminal, and threatened to
annihilate him, to tear him to pieces in the madness of their fury.
They talkt of gaolers and chains; the inquisitors drew near; when
Pietro started up as in a frenzy, thrust and struck about him with
clencht fists, and seemed to spread himself out to a gigantic size. He
walkt up to Crescentia's body that lay smiling like the picture of a
saint, gazed at her once more, and then passed roaring and with
flashing eyes through the crowd.
A new horrour seized the people; they made room for the huge form; all
moved out of his way. Thus Pietro came to the open street: but the mob
now bethought themselves, and with cries and curses and revilings
pursued the fugitive, who ran hastily onward, while his long robes
flew far behind him, and the gold chain beat and rattled upon his
breast and shoulders. The rabble, as they could not catch him, tore up
the stones from the pavement, and threw them after him; and wounded,
bleeding, dripping with sweat, his teeth chattering from fear, Pietro
at last reacht the threshold of his house.
He hid himself in the innermost apartments; and Beresynth came forward
inquisitively, asking all sorts of questions, to meet the mob and the
rush of the people.
"Fall upon the maskt devil! the familiar!" they all shouted: "tear in
pieces the profane creature who never yet set foot in a church!"
He was dragged and pusht into the street; no answer was made to his
inquiries and intreaties, to his howls and shrieks, nor indeed was
anything heard through the stormy tumult except curses and threats of
death. "Bring me before the magistrate!" at length screamed the dwarf;
"there my innocence will be made clear as day."
The constables were summoned, and seizing him led him toward the
prison. All the people prest after him. "In here with him!" cried the
chief of the officers: "chains and faggots are waiting for thee."
He tried to tear himself away from them; the constables laid hold on
him and shoved him to and fro: one seized him by the collar, another
by the arm, the next clung round his leg to hold him fast, a fourth
caught his head to make quite sure of him.
While they were pulling him backward and forward in this way amid
shouts and curses and laughter, on the sudden they all started off
from one another; for each had got nothing but a piece of clothing, a
sleeve, cap, or shoe of the monster; he himself was nowhere to be
seen. He could not have run away; he seemed to have vanisht; but
nobody could tell how.
When they had broken into Apone's chamber, those who rusht in found
him lying on his bed, lifeless, having bled to death. They plundered
the house; the magical implements, the books, the strange furniture,
were all made over to the flames; and throughout the whole city
nothing resounded except curses on the man whom but this morning all
had honoured as a messenger from Heaven. This only embittered the
loathing with which they now revolted from the phantom.
* * * * *
When the turmoil by which the people were agitated was somewhat
allayed, the body of Pietro was silently buried at night, without the
consecrated churchyard. Antonio and Alfonso renewed their friendship,
and attacht themselves to the pious Theodore, who, after going through
the solemn rites and pronouncing a devout oration, had the body of the
beautiful Crescentia laid a second time in the vault designed for her.
Antonio however could not bear to stay any longer at Padua; he
resolved to revisit his native city, that he might settle his affairs,
and then perhaps get admitted into a convent. Alfonso on the other
hand determined to make a pilgrimage to Rome, where the holy Father
had just been proclaiming a year of jubilee with a plenary indulgence
for sins. Not only throughout Italy was every one in motion; but from
France too, and Germany, and Spain, came numerous trains of pilgrims,
to celebrate this till then unheard of solemnity, this great festival
of the church, in the holy city.
After the friends had parted, Antonio pursued his lonely path,
shunning the great road, partly for the sake of brooding
uninterruptedly over his sorrows, and partly to avoid the swarms that
were flocking along the highway, and were often troublesome at the
nightly resting-places.
Thus following his own mood, he roamed through the plains and through
the vallies of the Apennines. One evening the sun set and no inn was
to be seen. As the shades were deepening, he heard a hermit's little
bell tinkling in a wood on one side. He bent his steps toward the
sound, and when the darkness of night was already closing, he arrived
at a small hut, to which a narrow plank led across a brook, surrounded
by bushes.
He found an aged infirm man praying with the deepest devotion before a
crucifix. The hermit received the youth, who greeted him courteously,
with kindness made up a couch of moss for him in a recess of the rock
which was separated by a door from his cell, and placed some of his
fruit, some water, and a little wine before him. When Antonio was
refresht, he was greatly pleased with the conversation of the monk,
who in earlier times had lived in the world, and served as a soldier
in many campaigns. In this way it had grown late in the night, and the
youth betook himself to his bed, just as another weak and sickly monk
entered, who meant to pass the night with the hermit in prayer.
When Antonio had rested about an hour he started suddenly out of his
sleep. It seemed to him as though loud voices were disputing. He sat
up; and all doubt about the quarelling and squabbling was removed. The
tones too struck him as if he knew them; and he askt himself whether
he was not dreaming. He went to the door, and found a crevice through
which he could pry into the front room.
How was he amazed at beholding Pietro Abano, whom he could not but
deem dead, speaking loudly, with eyes of rage and a red face, and
striding about with violent gestures! Over against him stood little
Beresynth's hideous carcase.
"So you have got your persecutor," cried the latter with a croaking
voice, "who has made you thus wretched, the lovesick godly fool, here
under your roof! he has run of his own accord like a silly rabbit into
the snare: and you are shillishallying about cutting his throat."
"Silence!" cried the large figure: "I have already taken counsel with
my spirits; they will not consent; I have no hold upon him; for he is
imprisoned in no sin."
"Smite him dead then," said the little one, "without your spirits,
with your own gracious hands: so his virtue and his sinlessness will
not avail him much; and I should be a sorry servant if I were not to
stand by you in so praiseworthy an exploit."
"Well then!" said Pietro: "let us go to work; take thou the hammer;
I'll carry the axe; he is fast asleep now."
They advanced toward the door; but Antonio tore it back, to meet the
villains boldly in the face. He had drawn his sword; but he remained
like a statue, standing with uplifted arm, when he saw two sickly
decrepit hermits lying on their knees before the cross, mumbling their
prayers.
"Do you want anything?" askt his host, rising toilsomely from the
floor. Antonio was so astounded, he could make no answer.
"Why that drawn sword?" askt the weak stooping hermit; "and wherefore
these menacing looks?"
Antonio drew back with the excuse that a frightful dream had scared
and worried him. He could not fall asleep again; his senses were in
such a tumult. Ere long he again plainly heard Beresynth's croaking
voice; and Pietro said with a full clear tone: "Have done; thou seest
he is armed and warned; he will not trust himself to sleep again."
"We must overpower him then;" screamed the little one: "now that he
has recognized us, we are quite undone every way. The pious slave will
go and give us up to the inquisition tomorrow; and the pious rabble
will then be at hand in a trice with their faggots and flames."
Through the chink in the door he perceived the two magicians. He again
rusht in with his sword drawn, and again found two decrepit old men
lying on the ground and whining their prayers. Enraged at the cheating
forms, he seized them in his arms and wrestled violently with them;
they defended themselves desperately; it was now Pietro, now the
hermit, one moment the imp Beresynth, the next a crippled old monk.
After much screaming and raving, cursing and wailing, he at last
succeeded in thrusting them out of the cell, which he then carefully
fastened. He now heard a whining without and entreaties and groans,
mixt up with the whispering of many voices, and with songs and yells;
afterward rain and wind seemed to be stirring, and a storm afar off
rolled athwart the multitudinous sound. Stunned at length by all this,
Antonio fell asleep, leaning on his sword as he sat before the
crucifix; and when the cold morning breeze awakened him, he found
himself on the highest peak of a narrow ridge in the midst of a thick
forest, and thought he heard bursts of scornful laughter behind him.
It was at the peril of his life that he climbed down the steep
precipice, tearing his clothes, and wounding his face and hands and
feet. He had then to wander wearisomely through the forest: there was
not a soul to call to, not a hut to be discovered far around, often as
he mounted the hights to explore. When it was almost night, faint with
fatigue, hunger, and exhaustion, he fell in with an old collier who
refresht him in his little hut. He learnt that he must be some twelve
miles and upward from the hermitage he had met with the evening
before. It was only late on the following day that, somewhat
strengthened and cheered, he could pursue his journey toward Florence.
* * * * *
Antonio had returned to Florence for the sake of visiting his kindred
and his paternal house again. He could not make up his mind on what
course of life to enter, since all the happiness of existence had
proved so treacherous, and even realities had shewn themselves to him
under the aspect of a mad dream.
He settled his affairs, and gave himself up to his sorrow in the great
palace of his fathers; where that fatal grotto and every well-known
room only harast his mind with the liveliest images of his own and his
parents misfortunes. He thought too of that hateful witch who was so
entangled in his fate, and of that Crescentia who had appeared to him
and then vanisht again in a way scarcely less marvellous than his
bride. If he could have caught the slightest glimmering of hope, he
might in time have grown reconciled to life again.
At last there rose up within his soul, like a pale star, the wish of
making a pilgrimage to Rome, which he had never yet seen, there to
partake in the graces bestowed upon the faithful, to visit the famous
churches and holy relics, to divert his thoughts from himself in the
midst of the streaming multitude, the throng of numberless strangers
who had journied thither from all quarters of the earth, and to seek
out his friend Alfonso. He also expected that he should find old
Ambrosio in the great city, should receive comfort from this mourner
who had meant to become his father, and might perhaps afford him too
some comfort in his affliction. With these feelings and views he set
out on his way, and after some time arrived at Rome.
He was astonisht when he entered the great city. He had framed no
conception of her grandeur, her ancient monuments, or of such a
concourse of innumerable strangers. It might well be deemed matter of
wonder if one found out any friend or acquaintance, without being able
beforehand to give an accurate account of where he lived. And yet this
wonderful chance befell him in his suddenly meeting Ambrosio, as he
was going up to the Capitol from which the old man was coming down.
The Podesta carried him to his house, where Antonio greeted the
sorrowing mother. The rumour of Pietro's strange end, of Crescentia's
return to life and second departure from it, had already been bruited
as far as Rome: this marvellous story was in the mouth of every
pilgrim, disfigured with confused additions and contradictions, and
drest out by frequent repeating into the very reverse of the truth.
The parents listened with alternations of joy and woe to the story as
Antonio told it, awestruck as they both were, especially the mother,
who gave vent to her loathing in execrations against the old
hypocritical magician, and in her rage more than half believed that he
had himself been the cause of her daughter's death, having perhaps
taken a bribe for that purpose from the family of Marconi, that he had
poisoned her for the sake of awakening her corpse again to gratify his
frantic abominations.
"Let us leave all this to heaven;" said the old man. "What happened
and was notorious to the whole city and country, was quite horrible
enough, without involving others, who may perhaps have been innocent,
in this enormous wickedness. However, let the matter with regard to
the Marconis stand as it may, I am perfectly resolved that they shall
never be the better off for my fortune. By the help of my patrons here
I shall obtain leave to make over my property to some convents or
charitable foundations; and perhaps my weariness of life may lead me
to end my own days as a monk or hermit."
"But what," threw in the mother weeping, "if it were possible after
all to find out that second Crescentia again, of whom Antonio has told
us! The child was stolen from me during your absence in a most
incomprehensible manner; the witch who named the Marconis on that
night, the likeness, all, all agrees so wonderfully, that surely we
ought not to cast away hope, that first and chief good of life, too
early, not too hastily, in our despair."
"Good Eudoxia," said the father, "have done, have done with all these
dreams and stories and wild fancies: for us there remains in this
world nothing that is certain, except death; and that ours may be
pious and easy, is what we must wish and pray to heaven for."
"And if hereafter, when it is already too late," exclaimed the mother,
"our poor orphan child should be found again, may not the unhappy girl
justly reproach us for not relying on the bounty and mercy of Heaven,
and waiting for her return with a little more calmness and patience?"
Ambrosio cast a dark frown on the youth, and then said: "This too has
come in over and above all the rest to deepen our wretchedness: you
have infected my poor wife with your sick fancies, and have thereby
robbed her of her peace, the only, the last blessing of life."
"What mean you by these words?" askt Antonio.
"Young man," answered the father, "ever since that ride of yours
through field and forest, when you pinned that wild tale upon me about
the events which you said had befallen you the night before...."
"Signor Ambrosio!" cried Antonio, and his hand fell involuntarily on
his sword.
"Leave that alone," continued the old man calmly: "far be from me the
wish to accuse you of a falsehood; I have too long known your noble
character, and your love for truth. But has it never struck you, my
poor young friend, without my putting it into your head, that ever
since the night when you met my daughter's coffin, having come with
the thought to carry her home with you the next day as your bride,
your senses have got into disorder, your reason has been much
weakened? During that lonely night, beneath that storm, in the
strongly excited state of your passions, you fancied you saw my lost
child again; and the recollections of your unfortunate father, of your
long-lost mother, connected themselves with her image. In this way
were those visions bred, and fixt themselves firmly in your brain. Did
we find a single trace of the hut? Was a human creature in the
neighbourhood able to tell us a word about the robbers you killed?
That awful meeting again with my real daughter, in which I perforce
must believe, is of itself enough to fever the very coldest feelings
into madness; and need one marvel then at your talking of having
encountered another impossibility, at your story about finding the
dead Pietro come to life among the mountains, and not knowing him
again, and about those almost farcical tricks of jugglery that were
played you, all which you have related to us with the very same
assurance? No, my good Antonio, pain and grief have distracted your
sounder senses, so that you see and believe in things which have no
real existence."
Antonio was perplext and knew not what to reply. Greatly as the loss
of his beloved had shaken all the faculties of his soul, he still was
too clearly conscious of the events he had past through, to bring
their reality thus in question.
He now felt a new motive to activity: he wisht at least to prove that
the story of that night was no dreamy phantom, that his second
Crescentia was an actual being; and thus it became his liveliest
desire to find her again, and to restore her to her afflicted parents,
or at least make Ambrosio acknowledge that he had misjudged him.
In this mood he left his old friend, and wandered about the city to
and fro, prest by the concourse of people, and half stunned by shouts,
and questions, and stories in all the languages of the earth. Thus,
shoved and pusht about, he had been driven on as far as the Lateran,
when he fancied that, as the crowd now and then opened a little, he
distinctly perceived, though some way off, that selfsame hideous old
woman, the mother of the beautiful maiden, who bore the name of his
Crescentia.
He endeavoured to get up to her, and seemed to be succeeding, when a
train of pilgrims came pouring from a cross street, who cut him off
entirely, and made all further advance impossible. While he was
struggling with all his might, and working his way up the steps of St
John's Church, that he might be able to overlook the multitude, he
felt a friendly slap on his shoulder, and a wellknown voice pronounced
his name. It was the Spaniard Alfonso.
"So I find you exactly in the place," said he joyfully, "where I lookt
for you."
"What do you mean by that?" askt Antonio.
"First let us get out of the way of this torrent of human flesh,"
cried the other: "in this place, from the myriads of tongues that are
wagging, from the ceaseless buz of this monstrous Babylonian beehive,
one can't hear a single word."
They took a walk out into the country; and here Alfonso confest to his
friend that, since he had been at Rome, he had devoted himself to the
science of astrology, divination, and other like things, which he had
formerly held in abhorrence, having been of opinion that they could
only be acquired by accursed means and by the help of evil spirits.
"But since the day," he continued, "when I made acquaintance with the
incomparable Castalio, this knowledge appears to me in a far higher
and purer light."
"And is it possible," exclaimed Antonio, "that after all those fearful
events at Padua, you can again expose your soul to such perils? Do you
not clearly see that whatsoever is to be attained in a natural way and
by means of our own reason does not repay the trouble, being nothing
more than a set of petty tricks that can only excite merriment and
laughter! that everything beyond on the other hand, which does not
turn upon empty delusion, cannot possibly be called into being, unless
by evil and damnable powers?"
"Declaiming," said the Spaniard, "is not proving. We are far too young
to understand the whole of our own nature; much less can we comprehend
the rest of the world and all its unexplored mysteries. When you once
see the man whom I have so much to thank for, all your doubts will
vanish. Pious, simple-hearted, nay childlike, as he is, every look of
his eye pours the light of confidence into you."
"And how was it with Apone?" Antonio threw in.
"He," replied his friend, "always wanted to be coming forward in the
light of a supernatural being: he was evermore labouring, consciously
and purposely, to appear as a messenger from Heaven, and with
counterfeit splendour to dazzle the ordinary sons of men. He delighted
in pomp; he would indeed be condescending at times, but it was only to
make the enormous distance between him and us more palpably felt. Did
he not revel in the admiration which the nobles and citizens, the
young and old, were all forced to pay him? But my present friend (for
such he is, because he renders himself altogether my equal) has no
wish to seem great and sublime: he smiles at the endeavours of so many
men to do so, and considers this of itself as an assurance that there
is something spurious and hollow to be concealed; since a clear
consciousness of worth would only wish to pass for what it feels
itself to be, and the wisest of mortals must after all acknowledge
that he too, as well as the most ignorant vagabond, is merely a child
of the dust."
"You make me curious;" said Antonio: "so he knows both what is past
and what is to come? the destinies of men? and could tell me how happy
or unhappy the cast of my future life is to be? whether certain secret
wishes can be accomplisht? Would he then be able to decipher and
divine such parts of my history as are obscure even to myself?"
"It is in this very thing that his wisdom lies," answered Alfonso with
enthusiasm; "by means of letters and numbers, in the simplest and most
harmless way, he finds out everything for which those wretches have to
employ conjurations and charms and yells and screams and the agonies
of death. Hence too you will find none of that odious magical
apparatus about him, no crystals with spirits blockt up in them, no
mirrors and skeletons, no incense, and no nauseous imps: he has all
his stores in himself. I told him about you; and he found out by his
calculations that I was quite sure of meeting you today at this hour
on the steps of the Lateran church. And so it has turned out at the
very instant he foretold."
Antonio was desirous of becoming acquainted with this wonderfully
gifted old man, in the hope of learning his destiny from him. They
dined in a garden, and toward evening went back to the city. The
streets had grown somewhat quieter; they could pursue their way with
less hinderance. At dusk they came into the allies which pass close
behind the tomb of Augustus. They walkt through a little garden; a
friendly light glimmered upon them from the windows of a small house.
They pulled the bell; the door opened; and full of the strangest and
highest expectations Antonio entered with his friend into the hall.
* * * * *
Antonio was surprised at seeing before him a simple-mannered
middle-sized young man, who from his appearance could not be much
above thirty years old. With an unaffected air he greeted the youth on
his entrance like an old acquaintance.
"Be welcome!" said he with a pleasing voice: "your Spanish friend has
told me much good of you, so that I have long lookt forward with
pleasure to becoming acquainted with you. Only you must by no means
fancy that you are come to one of the sages, to an adept, or forsooth
to a man before whom hell trembles in its foundations: you will find
me a mere mortal, such as you yourself are and may become, as may
every man whom such graver studies, and retirement from the vain
tumult of the world, do not scare away."
Antonio felt comfortable and at ease, greatly as he was astonisht: he
cast his eyes round the room, which beside a few books and a lute
displayed nothing out of the way. In his own mind he compared this
little house and its straightforward inmate with the palace and the
pomp, the instruments and the mysteries, of his former teacher, and
said: "In truth one sees no traces here of that high and hidden
knowledge which my friend has been extolling to me, and in which you
are said to be infallible."
Castalio laught heartily, and then replied: "No, my young friend, not
infallible; no mortal can go so far as that. Only look around you;
this is my sitting-room; there in that little chamber stands my bed: I
have neither space nor means for hiding any instruments of fraud, or
setting any artificial machinery in action. All those circles and
glasses, those celestial globes and maps of the stars, which your
conjurers need for their tricks, would find no room here: and those
poor creatures after all are only deluded by the spirit of falsehood,
because they will not labour to learn the powers of their own minds.
He however who descends into the depths of his own soul, with humility
and a pious disposition to guide him, he who is in earnest in wishing
to know himself, will at the same time find every thing here which he
would vainly strive by desperate means and devices to extort from
Heaven and Hell. _Become like children._ In this exhortation the whole
mystery lies hidden. Only let our feelings be pure, and we may again,
even though it be but for hours or moments, cast off all that our
first parents drew down upon themselves by their wanton disobedience;
we walk again as in paradise; and Nature with all her powers comes
forward as she did then, in the youthful bridal age of the world, to
meet the transfigured man. Is not this the very thing which proves our
spirit to be a spirit, that bodily hinderances, space and time, with
the confusion they breed, cannot confine it? It soars even now on the
wings of yearning and devotion far above all the circles of the stars:
nothing checks its flight, save that earthly power which, when sin
entered, pounced upon it and enslaved it. This however we can and
ought to subdue, by prayer, by self-abasement before the Lord, by
confessing our vast guilt, and by boundless gratitude to him for his
unfathomable love; and then we see and hear the things that are
curtained from us by space and time; we are here and there; the future
comes forward and, like the past, pours out its secrets before us; the
whole realm of knowledge, of comprehension, lies open to us; the
powers of heaven become our willing servants: and yet to the truly
wise man one glimpse into the mysteries of the Godhead, one emotion of
his own heart when toucht by God's love, is far higher, and far more
precious knowledge, than all the treasures which do homage to the
inquiring mind, than the revealed soul of history or of the present
time, than the bending knees of a thousand angels who are ready to
call him their master."
Alfonso cast a look of enthusiasm upon his friend; and Antonio could
not refrain from acknowledging to himself that here in the garb of
lowly simplicity he found more than had ever delighted him from
Apone's mouth, even at the time of his greatest admiration for that
ostentatious philosopher. Indeed he was already become fully convinced
that the knowledge which people call supernatural may be easily united
with piety and a thorough resignation to the Lord.
"Do you know now what my fate has been?" askt the youth with emotion:
"can you tell me anything about the events that are hereafter to
befall me?"
"If I learn the year, the day, and the hour of your birth," answered
Castalio, "compare the horoscope I shall then draw with the lines of
your face and the marks on your hands, and afterward give free range
to my mind in contemplating the results, I hardly doubt my being able
to tell you something about your destinies."
Antonio gave him a pocket-book, in which his father had himself noted
down the hour of his birth. Castalio placed some wine before the young
men, himself partaking a little of it, turned over a few books, and
then sat down to calculate, without however entirely breaking off his
conversation with his guests. It only seemed as if the cheerful young
man had some common business in hand, which was far from requiring the
whole of his attention. Thus amid laughing and lively talk an hour may
have past away, when Castalio stood up and beckoned to Antonio to go
with him to the window.
"I know not, he began, how far you trust your friend there, or what
you may wish to keep secret from him."
Hereupon he examined Antonio's face and hands very minutely, and then
in regular connexion told him the story of his parents and their
misfortunes, the early violent death of his mother, and his father's
sinful passion, together with his murder by the hand of his wicked
complice. Afterward he came to Antonio's own affairs, how he had
sought for the murderer and pursued him, and had been detained at
Padua by love.
"So you," he concluded, "as not without astonishment I have learnt,
are the very young man who a short time since detected the wickedness
of the abominable Apone in such a wonderful way, and who delivered the
shameless villain over to his punishment, although you yourself only
became still unhappier than before, from having to lose your beloved a
second time in so horrible a manner."
Antonio confirmed all that the friendly man said, and had gained such
confidence in him, that he felt just as if he was talking to himself.
He then went on to tell him about the adventures of that night, about
the second Crescentia, and the odious witch, who, he could not help
fancying, had appeared to him a second time on that day.
"Can you inform me now," he askt eagerly, "whether this is all true,
who that Crescentia is, and whether I shall ever see her again and
carry her back to her parents?"
Castalio became more thoughtful than before. "Unless that strange
creature Beresynth," he answered, "the imp that used to be at the
magician's side, has been disguising himself as a woman, to escape
from his pursuers, I feel assured that I shall find the hag out. Only
have patience till tomorrow, and I will then give you your answer.
Meanwhile you may be satisfied that the occurrences of that night were
no phantoms of your mind, but realities; thus far you may set yourself
and your elderly friend at rest."
The young people were lost in thought as they left the wonderful man,
and Antonio thankt the Spaniard heartily for having procured him this
acquaintance.
* * * * *
Antonio had not been mistaken. It was in fact the old woman that he
had caught sight of in the crowd. She was living in a little hut,
behind some ruinous houses, not far from the Lateran. Persecuted,
destitute, deserted and hated and dreaded by all the world, she was
here, in the abode of wretchedness, reduced to the brink of despair.
She seldom ventured to shew herself abroad, and on this day too had
only gone out from necessity, to bring her Crescentia, who had run
away from her, back again.
As everybody shrank out of her path, as it was hard work for her even
to obtain here and there an alms, and as her former arts found few
lovers, she was no little astonisht that evening to hear a knock at
her door, while cries and shouts were tossing without. She took her
lamp, and, opening the door, saw a swarm of street-boys and of the
lowest rabble at the heels of a little crooked figure fantastically
clad in red velvet and gold.
"Does not the worthy Pancrazia live here?" screamed the deformed
dwarf.
"Ay, to be sure!" said the old woman, as she forcibly banged the door
to, and tried to drive away the people on the outside by abuse. "Who
are you, worthy Sir? what do you seek from an old forlorn lady?"
"Set yourself down," said the little stranger, "and kindle some more
light, that we may spy and look at one another; and whereas you call
yourself poor, take these gold pieces, and we will sip a glass of wine
together to our better acquaintance."
The old woman smirkt, lighted some wax-candles which she kept lockt up
in a drawer, and said: "I have still a flask of good Florence,
worshipful sir, that shall warm our insides." She opened a little
cupboard and placed the red comforter upon the table, pouring out the
first glass for her unknown guest.
"Why do you call me worshipful?" askt he.
"Don't the pieces of gold declare it?" answered she: "and your
doublet, and the lace upon it, and the feather in your hat? Are you
not a prince, not a magnate?"
"No!" howled the little one: "what, odds bodikins! cousin, don't you
know me in the least? and yet in my younger days people wanted to
flatter me by assuring me that we in some degree resembled each other:
and faith! when I come to look thus closely at your figure, your
physiognomy, your expression, your sweet smile, and those twinkling
stars in your eyes there, and when I weigh all this with scrupulous
impartiality, why, cousin Pancrazia of the house of Posaterrena in
Florence, and little Beresynth of the family of Fuocoterrestro in
Milan, are for such degrees of kin, as cousinhood, like each other
enough."
"O gemini!" screamed the old woman in delight: "so you are the
Beresynth of Milan about whom I heard so much talk in my childhood.
Hey! Hey! so am I at this late hour in the day, in the depth of old
age, to become acquainted with such a lovely cousin face to face!"
"Ay!" said the dwarf: "just nose to nose; for that great bastion
thrown up there is certainly the biggest piece of bonework in our
faces. For curiosity's sake, dear coz, let us make an experiment for
once, whether we can manage to give each other a cousinly kiss.... No,
purely impossible! the far outjutting promontories immediately begin
rattling against each other, and forclose our lowly lips from
everything like a soft meeting. We must force our noble Roman noses
aside with our two fists. So! Don't let it fly, my lady cousin! I
might come by a box on the ears that would make my last teeth tumble
out."
With a hearty laugh the hag cried: "Hey! I have not been so merry this
long time. But what did they want with you before the door there,
cousin?"
"What!" screamed the little one: "to look at me, to delight their eyes
with me, nothing more. Is not man, my highly esteemed cousin gossip, a
thoroughly silly animal? Here in Rome now have hundreds of thousands
been assembled whole months, for their Redeemer's honour, as they give
out, and to do penance for their sins and get rid of them; and the
moment I peep out of the window (I only arrived here the day before
yesterday) be it merely in my nightcap, and still more when I come
forth at full length and in my Sunday suit into the marketplace, one
can't help swearing that the whole gang of them have started out of
every hole and corner in Europe merely for my sake: they so leer, and
ogle me, and whisper, and ask questions, and laugh, and are in
ecstacies. I might grow rich, meseems, were I to let myself be stared
at for money while I stay here; and if I chance to give them all this
pleasure gratis, forthwith a pack of blockheads begin barking and
hallooing at my tail. To see a long-tailed monkey, apes or seals, the
dogs must put themselves to some expense; yet instead of enjoying my
magnanimity quietly and like sensible people, they rave and revile me
all round, and hunt for every expression of loathing they can root out
of the animal creation, to display their gross ignorance."
"Very true! very true!" sighed the old woman: "it fares no better with
me. Are the beasts such sheer fools then? Only let a body have a
regular, average, commonplace nose, eyes, and chin, and all goes on
quietly."
"Look at the fish," continued Beresynth, "who are dunces in many
things. What philosophical tolerance! and yet among them many a fellow
is all snout, and confronts the learned physiognomists of the ocean
with a countenance, grave, cold, calm in the consciousness of its
originality: nay, the whole deep brims and swims with one can't count
how many eccentric faces, and gills, and teeth, and eyes astart from
their sockets, and every other kind of striking contour: but every
monster there floats his own way quietly and peaceably, without having
his sleeve twitcht or any other annoyance. Man alone is so absurd as
to laugh and sneer at his fellow creatures."
"And on what," said the beldam, "after all does this mighty difference
turn? I am sure I never yet saw a nose that was but a single yard
long: an inch, at most two, hardly ever three, make the vast
distinction between what they call monsters, and what they are pleased
in their modesty to style beauty. And now to come to a hump. If it
were not in one's way sometimes in bed, as you know, coz, it is in
itself far more agreeable to the eye than those dull flats by way of
backs, where in many a lank lathy booby the tiresome straight line
stretches up as far as one can see without a single twist, or curl, or
flourish."
"You are in the right, my dame cousin!" cried Beresynth already drunk
to his drunken hostess. "What can Nature be about when she turns off
the things they christen beauties from her pottery-wheel? Why, they
are hardly worth the trouble of setting to work at them. But such
cabinet pieces as you and I! there the creative power, or the
principle of nature, or the soul of the world, or the mundane animal,
or whatever title one chooses to give the thing, can look at its
product with a certain degree of complacency and satisfaction. For it
has your curved lines: it starts off into noticeable angles; it is
jagged like corals; it darts forward like crystals; it agglomerates
like basalt; nay, there is no conceivable line that does not hop,
skip, and jump about our bodies. We, coz, are the spoilt, the cockered
children of the formation: and this is why the common rabble of nature
are so malicious and envious toward us. Their slim wretched fashion is
next door to the slimy eel: there is nothing edifying in such an
edifice. From that piece of monotony to the prawn is already a good
step; and how far above that is the seal! how do we surpass them both,
as well as the seastar, the crab, and the lobster, my trustiest
cousin, in our excursive irregularities, which defy all the
mathematicians in the world to find an expression for their law. But
coz, pray where did you get those two gorgeous teeth? the incomparable
couple cut a grand and gloomy figure there across the chasm ... of
your unfathomable mouth, and form a capital bridge over the gulf that
gapes between the dark cliffs of your gums."
"O you rogue! O you flatterer!" laught the old woman: "but your
darling chin that comes forward so complaisantly, and is so ready to
wait upon you and spread itself out like a table. Don't you think you
could put a good-sized platter upon it comfortably, where your mouth
might then quietly nibble away, while your hands were seeking work
elsewhere. This I call an economical arrangement."
"We won't spoil ourselves by too much praise;" said the dwarf: "we are
already, it seems, vain enough of our advantages; and after all we did
not give them to ourselves."
"You are right," said she. "But what profession are you of, cousin?
where do you live?"
"Oddly enough;" answered Beresynth: "sometimes here, sometimes there,
like a vagabond: however I now mean to settle quietly; and as I heard
there was still a near kinswoman of mine living, I resolved to seek
her out and beg her to come and live with me. This is what brought me
hither. In my youth I was an apothecary in Calabria; there they drove
me away, because they fancied I manufactured love-powders. O dear, as
if there was any need of 'em nowadays. Then once upon a time I was a
tailor; the outcry was, I thieved too much: a pastrycook; all accused
me of thinning the cat and dog population. I wanted to put on a monk's
cowl; but no convent would let me in. Then came my doctoring days, and
I was to be burnt; for they muttered about, what think you?
witchcraft. I became a scholar, wrote essays, systems of philosophy,
poems: those who could not read were sure I was blaspheming God and
Christianity, and that was too bad. After many long years I betook
myself to the man who was making such a pother in the world, Pietro
Apone, and became his familiar, next a hermit, and what not? The best
is that in every state of life I have made money and hoarded it up; so
that I can now lay down my grey head free from want and care. And now,
coz, for your history."
"Just like yours;" answered she: "the innocent are always persecuted.
I have had a few times to stand in the pillory; have been banisht out
of half a dozen countries; among other things they even wanted to burn
me; they would have it I conjured, I stole children, I bewitcht
people, I fabricated poisons."
"And coz," said Beresynth in the openness of his heart, "there was
some truth in all this, was not there? innocent as you are. I at least
must confess it as to myself, and perhaps it may lie in the family,
that I have given in to more than one of the aforesaid practices. My
amiable gossip, he who has once swallowed a titbit of dear witchcraft,
can never keep his fingers from it afterward as long as he lives. The
thing is just like dram-drinking: once get the taste for it, and
tongue, and throat, and gums, and marry! even lungs and liver, will
never let it go."
"You know human nature, I see, my dear cousin;" said the hag, with a
grin that tried to be a simper. "Such trifles as a little murder and
witchcraft, poisoning and stealing, run in the blood even of the
innocentest. Bawding was a thing in which I could never hit the mark.
And what shall one say when one has to endure thanklessness and woe
from one's own children? My daughter, though she has seen how I suffer
hunger and trouble, and how I have stinted and starved my old mouth,
merely to put her into fine clothes, the graceless wench would never
let me coax her into earning but a single half-crown. Some time since
she might have made a good match of it! there was Ildefonso and
Andrea, and many other brave fellows besides, who supported our whole
house, herself among the rest; but she set up the paltry pretense that
the gentry were robbers and murderers, and that she could not let them
into her heart. The gallants were such generous spirits, they meant to
have the baggage actually tied to them in church; but silly youth has
neither sense nor truth. Now they are lying in their graves, those
worthy men, and have been turned out of life's doors in a most
scandalous way. But this does not move her a whit more than my sorrow
and distress; so that I can't make her consent to live with a rich
young noble cavalier, the nephew of a cardinal, who could floor this
whole room with gold. The silly jade has run away, and they absolutely
won't give her up to me again. Such is the respect shewn to a mother
in these days."
"Let her go, the worthless trumpery!" cried Beresynth: "we shall live
happily together without her, I warrant; our ways of thinking and
feeling are so well paired."
"But why should she run away," continued the old woman, "like a
faithless cat after a flogging? We might have parted as if we loved
each other, and like two rational beings. Surely some occasion would
have turned up before long of selling the greensick minx
advantageously to an old lover or a young one; and this might have
succeeded too, why should not it? if she had not lockt up a silly
young fellow in her heart, whom she loves, as she tells me."
"O have done, gammer!" screamed Beresynth, reeling and already half
asleep. "If you begin to talk about love, coz, I shall tumble into
such a laughing convulsion that I shall not recover from it for this
next three days. Love! that stupid word broke the neck of my famous
master, Pietro. But for this tarantula-dance the great hawk-nose would
still be sitting as professor at his lecturing desk, and tickling the
young goslings with philosophy and wisdom as they perkt up their
yellow beaks to catch the crumbs he dropt into them. Marry! old
beldam, this monkey-trick of love, this Platonic drunkenness of the
soul, was the only thing wanting to us, to me as well as you, and then
the miracle of our heroic existence would have been quite perfect....
Well, goodbye, old dame; tomorrow night about this time I'll come to
fetch you, and then we never part more."
"Cousin," said Pancrazia, "goodbye, till we meet again. Since you came
through my door, I have grown quite a different creature. We will make
a royal housekeeping of it hereafter."
"So we too have had our jubilee now!" stammered Beresynth, who was
already standing in the street, and who reeled through the dark night
to his lodging.
* * * * *
Antonio meanwhile had already been to prepare old Ambrosio and his
wife, telling them he was now sure of finding out the hideous old
woman again, and no doubt her daughter Crescentia also. The mother
readily believed him; but the father persisted in his doubts.
Even before the sun had set, the youth was again with his friend at
the door of the wise Castalio. The latter met them smiling, and said:
"Here, Antonio, take this paper: you will find noted down on it, in
what street, in what house, you may meet with the old crone. When you
have discovered her, you will no longer entertain any doubts about my
science."
"I am already convinced;" replied Antonio: "I was so even yesterday:
you are the wisest of mortals, and by the help of your art will make
me the happiest. I will go to seek for the old woman: and if
Crescentia is not dead or lost, I shall carry her to the arms of her
parents."
Powerfully excited and full of expectation he was about to depart in
haste; his hand was already on the door-knob; when a low timid knock
was heard on the outside, accompanied by a hoarse coughing and a
scraping of feet.
"Who's there?" cried Castalio; and, when the friends opened the door,
in came Beresynth, who immediately stationed himself in the middle of
the room, and with sundry antick bows and writhings of his features,
offered his services to the wise man.
"Who are you?" exclaimed Castalio, who had changed colour, and pale
and trembling had shrunk back a few steps.
"A villain he is, the fiend!" cried Antonio: "a magician, whom we must
put into the inquisition's hands. It is the accursed Beresynth
himself, whose name, my honoured friend, you have already heard, and
of whom I have told you."
"Think you so, young jackanapes?" said Beresynth with a sneer of the
deepest contempt. "With you, children, I have no business. Do you not
know me?" cried he turning to Castalio: "perhaps you have nothing for
me to do."
"How should I?" said Castalio with a faltering voice: "I never saw you
before. Leave me; I must decline your services. In this little house
of mine I have no room for any stranger."
Beresynth paced with his biggest strides up and down. "So, you don't
know me? It may be; folks alter a good deal sometimes; for no man is
always in his bloom. But, it strikes me, people ought not to forget
me, or to mistake me for any one else, quite so soon as they might
many of your smooth nicely painted ninnies.... And you too," as he
turned round to the youths, "you perchance don't know that
wisdommonger there."
"O yes!" said Antonio: "he is our best friend, the excellent
Castalio."
Here the dwarf raised such an enormous shout of laughter, that the
walls and windows of the room clattered and echoed it back. "Castalio!
Castalio!" screamed he as if possest: "why not Aganippe too, or
Hippocrene? So, you have got spectacles before your eyes, and your
souls stare stupidly with a calf's look out of your round pumpkins of
heads! Rub your noses, and see, and recognize, I pray you, your
honoured Pietro of Abano, the great jack-of-all-trades from Padua!"
He who called himself Castalio had sunk as if fainting into a chair:
his trembling was so violent that all his limbs fluttered; the muscles
of his face quivered with such force that no feature in it could be
distinguisht; and after the young men had gazed on it for some time
amazedly, they thought with horrour they perceived that from this
distortion of all the lineaments came forth the well-known countenance
of the aged Apone.
With a loud scream the magician started from his seat, clencht his
fists, and foamed at the mouth; he seemed in his fury of a gigantic
size. "Well, yes!" he roared in a tone of thunder: "it is I, I,
Pietro! and thou slave, thou art spoiling my game, as I was destroying
those young brats after a new fashion. What wouldst thou, worm, of me,
who am thy master, and who have cast thee off? Tremblest thou not
through all thy bones at the thought of my vengeance and punishment?"
Beresynth again raised the same pealing horrid laugh. "Vengeance!
Punishment!" he repeated grinning. "Fool! matchless fool! art thou now
for the first time to find out that such language toward me does not
beseem thee? that thou juggler, must crawl in the dust before me? that
a glance of my eye, a grasp of my iron arm, will dash thee to pieces,
thou earth-born mummery with thy wretched tricks, which only prospered
through my countenance."
A spectre stood in the hall. His eyes shot forth sparks of fire; his
arms spread themselves out like an eagle's wings; his head toucht the
ceiling: Pietro lay whining and howling at his feet. "It was I," so
the demon spake on, "who furthered thy paltry tricks; who deluded the
people; who made thee sin and thrive in thy sins. Thou troddest me
under foot; I was thy scorn; thy high-minded wisdom triumpht over my
silliness. Now I am thy master. Now thou shalt follow me as my
bondslave into my kingdom.... Depart hence, ye poor wretches!" he
cried to the youths: "what more we have still to settle, it befits not
you to behold!" and a tremendous clap of thunder shook the house to the
bottom.
Dazzled, horrour-struck, Antonio and Alfonso rusht out; their knees
tottered; their teeth chattered. Without knowing how, they found
themselves again in the street; they fled into a neighbouring church;
for a howling whirlwind now arose, with thunder and lightning, and the
house, when they lookt behind them, was burning and had fallen in
ruins.
Two dark shadows hovered over the flame, fighting, as it seemed, and
twining round each other, and wrestling and dashing each other to and
fro: yells of despair and peals of scornful laughter resounded
alternately between the pauses of the loudly raving storm.
* * * * *
It was a long time before Antonio could collect calmness enough to go
and seek for the house of the old woman according to the directions he
had received. He found her drest out; and she cried to him merrily:
"What! Florentine! are you too come to see me again at last?"
"Where is your daughter?" askt Antonio, trembling with anxiety.
"If you wish to have her now," replied the old woman, "I won't keep
her from you. But you must pay honestly for her, you or the Podesta of
Padua, if he still lives; for she is his child, whom I stole from him
long since, because the Marconis vouchsafed me a round sum of money
for doing so."
"If you can prove it," said the youth, "you shall have whatever you
ask."
"Proofs, as many as you please," cried the beldam: "trinkets with arms
on them, clothes she had on at the time, a mole on her right shoulder,
which of course her mother must know best. But you shall also have
letters from the Marconis, writings which I carried off with her from
Padua in my hurry, everything ... only money must be forthcoming."
Antonio paid her all that he had about him, and then gave her the
jewels from his hat and clothes, some pearls, and a gold chain. She
swept it all in laughing, while she said: "Don't be surprised that I
am in such haste, and so easily satisfied. The wench has run away from
me, because she was determined not to have any lover, and has stuck
herself into the nunnery beside Trajan's column: the abbess would not
give her up to me; but only send in your name, and the young chit will
jump into your arms; for she dreams and thinks of nothing but you; you
have so bewitcht her silly heart, that ever since that night, which
you will probably remember, she has not spoken a single word of sense,
and can't bear to hear the mention of a lover or a husband. I am glad
to be quit of her in this way; I am going with my noble cousin, Signor
Beresynth, who came of his own accord to invite me, this very night to
his villa. Fare thee well young man! good luck attend you with your
Crescentia!"
Antonio took all the letters, the baby clothes, and every proof of
Crescentia's birth. At the door he was met by the terrible being that
called itself Beresynth. He hastened on, and was so light of heart, so
winged on his way, that he did not notice the storm behind him, which
threatened to lay the country waste, and to heave the houses from
their foundations.
During the night the overhappy parents examined the letters; and
these, as well as the clothes, convinced them that this second
Crescentia was their child, the twin sister of her that died, whom at
her christening they had named Cecilia. In the morning the father
fetcht the lovely pale girl from the convent; and she felt as though
in heaven at belonging to such noble parents, and at having again
found a youth who adored her, and to whom on that perilous night she
could not help giving up her whole heart for ever.
Rome talkt for some time of the two unfortunate persons whom the storm
had slain: and Ambrosio lived thenceforward with his wife, his
recovered daughter, and his son-in-law, Antonio, in the neighbourhood
of Naples. The youth amid the bliss of love ceast to mourn over the
sorrows of his younger days; and the parents were comforted by their
children and grandchildren for the loss of their beautiful and most
dearly loved Crescentia.
* * * * *