In the gardens at Naples, one summer evening in the last century, some
four or five gentlemen were seated under a tree drinking their sherbet
and listening, in the intervals of conversation, to the music which
enlivened that gay and favorite resort of an indolent population. One
of this little party was a young Englishman who had been the life of the
whole group, but who for the last few moments had sunk into a gloomy and
abstracted revery. One of his countrymen observed this sudden gloom,
and tapping him on the back, said, “Glyndon, why, what ails you? Are you
ill? You have grown quite pale; you tremble: is it a sudden chill? You
had better go home; these Italian nights are often dangerous to our
English constitutions.”
“No, I am well now,--it was but a passing shudder; I cannot account for
it myself.”
A man apparently of about thirty years of age, and of a mien and
countenance strikingly superior to those around him, turned abruptly,
and looked steadfastly at Glyndon.
“I think I understand what you mean,” said he,--“and perhaps,” he added,
with a grave smile, “I could explain it better than yourself.”
Here, turning to the others, he added, “You must often have felt,
gentlemen,--each and all of you,--especially when sitting alone at
night, a strange and unaccountable sensation of coldness and awe creep
over you; your blood curdles, and the heart stands still; the limbs
shiver, the hair bristles; you are afraid to look up, to turn your
eyes to the darker corners of the room; you have a horrible fancy that
something unearthly is at hand. Presently the whole spell, if I may so
call it, passes away, and you are ready to laugh at your own weakness.
Have you not often felt what I have thus imperfectly described? If so,
you can understand what our young friend has just experienced, even
amidst the delights of this magical scene, and amidst the balmy whispers
of a July night.”
“Sir,” replied Glyndon, evidently much surprised, “you have defined
exactly the nature of that shudder which came over me. But how could my
manner be so faithful an index to my impressions?”
“I know the signs of the visitation,” returned the stranger, gravely;
“they are not to be mistaken by one of my experience.”
All the gentlemen present then declared that they could comprehend,
and had felt, what the stranger had described. “According to one of
our national superstitions,” said Merton, the Englishman who had first
addressed Glyndon, “the moment you so feel your blood creep, and your
hair stand on end, some one is walking over the spot which shall be your
grave.”
“There are in all lands different superstitions to account for so common
an occurrence,” replied the stranger; “one sect among the Arabians hold
that at that instant God is deciding the hour either of your death or
that of some one dear to you. The African savage, whose imagination is
darkened by the hideous rites of his gloomy idolatry, believes that the
Evil Spirit is pulling you towards him by the hair. So do the Grotesque
and the Terrible mingle with each other.”
“It is evidently a mere physical accident,--a derangement of the
stomach; a chill of the blood,” said a young Neapolitan.
“Then why is it always coupled, in all nations, with some superstitious
presentiment or terror,--some connection between the material frame
and the supposed world without us?” asked the stranger. “For my part, I
think--”
“What do you think, sir?” asked Glyndon, curiously.
“I think,” continued the stranger, “that it is the repugnance and horror
of that which is human about us to something indeed invisible, but
antipathetic to our own nature, and from a knowledge of which we are
happily secured by the imperfection of our senses.”
“You are a believer in spirits, then?” asked Merton, with an incredulous
smile.
“Nay, I said not so. I can form no notion of a spirit, as the
metaphysicians do, and certainly have no fear of one; but there may be
forms of matter as invisible and impalpable to us as the animalculae to
which I have compared them. The monster that lives and dies in a drop of
water, carniverous, insatiable, subsisting on the creatures minuter than
himself, is not less deadly in his wrath, less ferocious in his nature,
than the tiger of the desert. There may be things around us malignant
and hostile to men, if Providence had not placed a wall between them and
us, merely by different modifications of matter.”
“And could that wall never be removed?” asked young Glyndon, abruptly.
“Are the traditions of sorcerer and wizard, universal and immemorial as
they are, merely fables?”
“Perhaps yes; perhaps no,” answered the stranger, indifferently. “But
who, in an age in which the reason has chosen its proper bounds, would
be mad enough to break the partition that divides him from the boa
and the lion, to repine at and rebel against the law of nature
which confines the shark to the great deep? Enough of these idle
speculations.”
Here the stranger rose, summoned the attendant, paid for his sherbet,
and, bowing slightly to the company, soon disappeared among the trees.
“Who is that gentleman?” asked Glyndon, eagerly.
The rest looked at each other, without replying, for some moments.
“I never saw him before,” said Merton, at last.
“Nor I.”
“Nor I.”
“I have met him often,” said the Neapolitan, who was named Count Cetoxa;
“it was, if you remember, as my companion that he joined you. He has
been some months at Naples; he is very rich,--indeed enormously so. Our
acquaintance commenced in a strange way.”
“How was it?”
“I had been playing at a public gaming-house, and had lost considerably.
I rose from the table, resolved no longer to tempt Fortune, when this
gentleman, who had hitherto been a spectator, laying his hand on my arm,
said with politeness, ‘Sir, I see you enjoy play,--I dislike it; but I
yet wish to have some interest in what is going on. Will you play this
sum for me? The risk is mine,--the half-profits yours.’ I was startled,
as you may suppose, at such an address; but the stranger had an air and
tone with him it was impossible to resist. Besides, I was burning to
recover my losses, and should not have risen had I had any money left
about me. I told him I would accept his offer, provided we shared the
risk as well as profits. ‘As you will,’ said he, smiling, ‘we need have
no scruple, for you will be sure to win.’ I sat down, the stranger stood
behind me; my luck rose, I invariably won. In fact, I rose from the
table a rich man.”
“There can be no foul play at the public tables, especially when foul
play would make against the bank.”
“Certainly not,” replied the count. “But our good fortune was indeed
marvellous,--so extraordinary that a Sicilian (the Sicilians are all
ill-bred, bad-tempered fellows) grew angry and insolent. ‘Sir,’ said he,
turning to my new friend, ‘you have no business to stand so near to
the table. I do not understand this; you have not acted fairly.’ The
spectator replied, with great composure, that he had done nothing
against the rules; that he was very sorry that one man could not win
without another man losing; and that he could not act unfairly even
if disposed to do so. The Sicilian took the stranger’s mildness for
apprehension,--blustered more loudly, and at length fairly challenged
him. ‘I never seek a quarrel, and I never shun a danger,’ returned
my partner; and six or seven of us adjourned to the garden behind the
house. I was of course my partner’s second. He took me aside. ‘This man
will die,’ said he; ‘see that he is buried privately in the church of
St. Januario, by the side of his father.’
“‘Did you know his family?’ I asked with great surprise. He made no
answer, but drew his sword and walked deliberately to the spot we had
selected. The Sicilian was a renowned swordsman; nevertheless, in the
third pass he was run through the body. I went up to him; he could
scarcely speak. ‘Have you any request to make,--any affairs to settle?’
He shook his head. ‘Where would you wish to be interred?’ He pointed
towards the Sicilian coast. ‘What!’ said I, in surprise, ‘not by the
side of your father?’ As I spoke, his face altered terribly, he uttered
a piercing shriek; the blood gushed from his mouth, and he fell dead.
The most strange part of the story is to come. We buried him in the
church of St. Januario. In doing so, we took up his father’s coffin; the
lid came off in moving it, and the skeleton was visible. In the hollow
of the skull we found a very slender wire of sharp steel; this caused
great surprise and inquiry. The father, who was rich and a miser, had
died suddenly and been buried in haste, owing, it was said, to the heat
of the weather. Suspicion once awakened, the examination became minute.
The old man’s servant was questioned, and at last confessed that the son
had murdered the sire. The contrivance was ingenious; the wire was so
slender that it pierced to the brain and drew but one drop of blood,
which the gray hairs concealed. The accomplice was executed.”
“And this stranger, did he give evidence? Did he account for--”
“No,” interrupted the count, “he declared that he had by accident
visited the church that morning; that he had observed the tombstone of
the Count Salvolio; that his guide had told him the count’s son was
in Naples,--a spendthrift and a gambler. While we were at play, he had
heard the count mentioned by name at the table; and when the challenge
was given and accepted, it had occured to him to name the place of
burial, by an instinct he could not account for.”
“A very lame story,” said Merton.
“Yes, but we Italians are superstitious. The alleged instinct was
regarded as the whisper of Providence; the stranger became an object of
universal interest and curiosity. His wealth, his manner of living, his
extraordinary personal beauty, have assisted also to make him the rage.”
“What is his name?” asked Glyndon.
“Zicci. Signor Zicci.”
“Is it not an Italian name? He speaks English like a native.”
“So he does French and German, as well as Italian, to my knowledge. But
he declares himself a Corsican by birth, though I cannot hear of any
eminent Corsican family of that name. However, what matters his birth or
parentage? He is rich, generous, and the best swordsman I ever saw in my
life. Who would affront him?”
“Not I, certainly,” said Merton, rising. “Come, Glyndon, shall we seek
our hotel? It is almost daylight. Adieu, signor.”
“What think you of this story?” said Glyndon as the young men walked
homeward.
“Why, it is very clear that this Zicci is some impostor, some clever
rogue; and the Neapolitan shares booty, and puffs him off with all the
hackneyed charlatanism of the marvellous. An unknown adventurer gets
into society by being made an object of awe and curiosity; he is
devilish handsome; and the women are quite content to receive him
without any other recommendation than his own face and Cetoxa’s fables.”
“I cannot agree with you. Cetoxa, though a gambler and a rake, is a
nobleman of birth and high repute for courage and honor. Besides,
this stranger, with his grand features and lofty air,--so calm, so
unobtrusive,--has nothing in common with the forward garrulity of an
impostor.”
“My dear Glyndon, pardon me, but you have not yet acquired any knowledge
of the world; the stranger makes the best of a fine person, and his
grand air is but a trick of the trade. But to change the subject: how
gets on the love affair?”
“Oh! Isabel could not see me to-night. The old woman gave me a note of
excuse.”
“You must not marry her; what would they all say at home?”
“Let us enjoy the present,” said Glyndon, with vivacity; “we are young,
rich, good-looking: let us not think of to-morrow.”
“Bravo, Glyndon! Here we are at the hotel. Sleep sound, and don’t dream
of Signor Zicci.”