I was born at Naples. My parents, though of noble rank, were
limited in fortune, or rather my father was ostentatious beyond
his means, and expended so much in his palace, his equipage, and
his retinue, that he was continually straitened in his pecuniary
circumstances. I was a younger son, and looked upon with
indifference by my father, who, from a principle of family pride,
wished to leave all his property to my elder brother.
I showed, when quite a child, an extreme sensibility. Every thing
affected me violently. While yet an infant in my mother’s arms,
and before I had learnt to talk, I could be wrought upon to a
wonderful degree of anguish or delight by the power of music. As
I grew older my feelings remained equally acute, and I was easily
transported into paroxysms of pleasure or rage. It was the
amusement of my relatives and of the domestics to play upon this
irritable temperament. I was moved to tears, tickled to laughter,
provoked to fury, for the entertainment of company, who were
amused by such a tempest of mighty passion in a pigmy frame. They
little thought, or perhaps little heeded the dangerous
sensibilities they were fostering. I thus became a little
creature of passion, before reason was developed. In a short time
I grew too old to be a plaything, and then I became a torment.
The tricks and passions I had been teased into became irksome,
and I was disliked by my teachers for the very lessons they had
taught me.
My mother died; and my power as a spoiled child was at an end.
There was no longer any necessity to humor or tolerate me, for
there was nothing to be gained by it, as I was no favorite of my
father. I therefore experienced the fate of a spoiled child in
such situation, and was neglected or noticed only to be crossed
and contradicted. Such was the early treatment of a heart, which,
if I am judge of it at all, was naturally disposed to the
extremes of tenderness and affection.
My father, as I have already said, never liked me—in fact, he
never Understood me; he looked upon me as wilful and wayward, as
deficient in natural affection:—it was the stateliness of his own
manner; the loftiness and grandeur of his own look that had
repelled me from his arms. I always pictured him to myself as I
had seen him clad in his senatorial robes, rustling with pomp and
pride. The magnificence of his person had daunted my strong
imagination. I could never approach him with the confiding
affection of a child.
My father’s feelings were wrapped up in my elder brother. He was
to be the inheritor of the family title and the family dignity,
and every thing was sacrificed to him—I, as well as every thing
else. It was determined to devote me to the church, that so my
humors and myself might be removed out of the way, either of
tasking my father’s time and trouble, or interfering with the
interests of my brother. At an early age, therefore, before my
mind had dawned upon the world and its delights, or known any
thing of it beyond the precincts of my father’s palace, I was
sent to a convent, the superior of which was my uncle, and was
confided entirely to his care.
My uncle was a man totally estranged from the world; he had never
relished, for he had never tasted its pleasures; and he deemed
rigid self-denial as the great basis of Christian virtue. He
considered every one’s temperament like his own; or at least he
made them conform to it. His character and habits had an
influence over the fraternity of which he was superior. A more
gloomy, saturnine set of beings were never assembled together.
The convent, too, was calculated to awaken sad and solitary
thoughts. It was situated in a gloomy gorge of those mountains
away south of Vesuvius. All distant views were shut out by
sterile volcanic heights. A mountain stream raved beneath its
walls, and eagles screamed about its turrets.
I had been sent to this place at so tender an age as soon to lose
all Distinct recollection of the scenes I had left behind. As my
mind expanded, therefore, it formed its idea of the world from
the convent and its vicinity, and a dreary world it appeared to
me. An early tinge of melancholy was thus infused into my
character; and the dismal stories of the monks, about devils and
evil spirits, with which they affrighted my young imagination,
gave me a tendency to superstition, which I could never
effectually shake off. They took the same delight to work upon my
ardent feelings that had been so mischievously exercised by my
father’s household.
I can recollect the horrors with which they fed my heated fancy
during an eruption of Vesuvius. We were distant from that
volcano, with mountains between us; but its convulsive throes
shook the solid foundations of nature. Earthquakes threatened to
topple down our convent towers. A lurid, baleful light hung in
the heavens at night, and showers of ashes, borne by the wind,
fell in our narrow valley. The monks talked of the earth being
honey-combed beneath us; of Streams of molten lava raging through
its veins; of caverns of sulphurous flames roaring in the centre,
the abodes of demons and the damned; of fiery gulfs ready to yawn
beneath our feet. All these tales were told to the doleful
accompaniment of the mountain’s thunders, whose low bellowing
made the walls of our convent vibrate.
One of the monks had been a painter, but had retired from the
world, and embraced this dismal life in expiation of some crime.
He was a melancholy man, who pursued his art in the solitude of
his cell, but made it a source of penance to him. His employment
was to portray, either on canvas or in waxen models, the human
face and human form, in the agonies of death and in all the
stages of dissolution and decay. The fearful mysteries of the
charnel house were unfolded in his labors—the loathsome banquet
of the beetle and the worm.—I turn with shuddering even from the
recollection of his works. Yet, at that time, my strong, but
ill-directed imagination seized with ardor upon his instructions
in his art. Any thing was a variety from the dry studies and
monotonous duties of the cloister. In a little while I became
expert with my pencil, and my gloomy productions were thought
worthy of decorating some of the altars of the chapel.
In this dismal way was a creature of feeling and fancy brought
up. Every thing genial and amiable in my nature was repressed and
nothing brought out but what was unprofitable and ungracious. I
was ardent in my temperament; quick, mercurial, impetuous, formed
to be a creature all love and adoration; but a leaden hand was
laid on all my finer qualities. I was taught nothing but fear and
hatred. I hated my uncle, I hated the monks, I hated the convent
in which I was immured. I hated the world, and I almost hated
myself, for being, as I supposed, so hating and hateful an
animal.
When I had nearly attained the age of sixteen, I was suffered, on
one occasion, to accompany one of the brethren on a mission to a
distant part of the country. We soon left behind us the gloomy
valley in which I had been pent up for so many years, and after a
short journey among the mountains, emerged upon the voluptuous
landscape that spreads itself about the Bay of Naples. Heavens!
How transported was I, when I stretched my gaze over a vast reach
of delicious sunny country, gay with groves and vineyards; with
Vesuvius rearing its forked summit to my right; the blue
Mediterranean to my left, with its enchanting coast, studded with
shining towns and sumptuous villas; and Naples, my native Naples,
gleaming far, far in the distance.
Good God! was this the lovely world from which I had been
excluded! I Had reached that age when the sensibilities are in
all their bloom and freshness. Mine had been checked and chilled.
They now burst forth with the suddenness of a retarded spring. My
heart, hitherto unnaturally shrunk up, expanded into a riot of
vague, but delicious emotions. The beauty of nature intoxicated,
bewildered me. The song of the peasants; their cheerful looks;
their happy avocations; the picturesque gayety of their dresses;
their rustic music; their dances; all broke upon me like
witchcraft. My soul responded to the music; my heart danced in my
bosom. All the men appeared amiable, all the women lovely.
I returned to the convent, that is to say, my body returned but
my heart and soul never entered there again. I could not forget
this glimpse of a beautiful and a happy world; a world so suited
to my natural character. I had felt so happy while in it; so
different a being from what I felt myself while in the
convent—that tomb of the living. I contrasted the countenances of
the beings I had seen, full of fire and freshness and enjoyment,
with the pallid, leaden, lack-lustre visages of the monks; the
music of the dance, with the droning chant of the chapel. I had
before found the exercises of the cloister wearisome; they now
became intolerable. The dull round of duties wore away my spirit;
my nerves became irritated by the fretful tinkling of the convent
bell; evermore dinging among the mountain echoes; evermore
calling me from my repose at night, my pencil by day, to attend
to some tedious and mechanical ceremony of devotion.
I was not of a nature to meditate long, without putting my
thoughts into action. My spirit had been suddenly aroused, and
was now all awake within me. I watched my opportunity, fled from
the convent, and made my way on foot to Naples. As I entered its
gay and crowded streets, and beheld the variety and stir of life
around me, the luxury of palaces, the splendor of equipages, and
the pantomimic animation of the motley populace, I seemed as if
awakened to a world of enchantment, and solemnly vowed that
nothing should force me back to the monotony of the cloister.
I had to inquire my way to my father’s palace, for I had been so
young on leaving it, that I knew not its situation. I found some
difficulty in getting admitted to my father’s presence, for the
domestics scarcely knew that there was such a being as myself in
existence, and my monastic dress did not operate in my favor.
Even my father entertained no recollection of my person. I told
him my name, threw myself at his feet, implored his forgiveness,
and entreated that I might not be sent back to the convent.
He received me with the condescension of a patron rather than the
kindness of a parent. He listened patiently, but coldly, to my
tale of monastic grievances and disgusts, and promised to think
what else could be done for me. This coldness blighted and drove
back all the frank affection of my nature that was ready to
spring forth at the least warmth of parental kindness. All my
early feelings towards my father revived; I again looked up to
him as the stately magnificent being that had daunted my childish
imagination, and felt as if I had no pretensions to his
sympathies. My brother engrossed all his care and love; he
inherited his nature, and carried himself towards me with a
protecting rather than a fraternal air. It wounded my pride,
which was great. I could brook condescension from my father, for
I looked up to him with awe as a superior being, but I could not
brook patronage from a brother, who, I felt, was intellectually
my inferior. The servants perceived that I was an unwelcome
intruder in the paternal mansion, and, menial-like, they treated
me with neglect. Thus baffled at every point; my affections
outraged wherever they would attach themselves, I became sullen,
silent, and despondent. My feelings driven back upon myself,
entered and preyed upon my own heart. I remained for some days an
unwelcome guest rather than a restored son in my father’s house.
I was doomed never to be properly known there. I was made, by
wrong treatment, strange even to myself; and they judged of me
from my strangeness.
I was startled one day at the sight of one of the monks of my
convent, gliding out of my father’s room. He saw me, but
pretended not to notice me; and this very hypocrisy made me
suspect something. I had become sore and susceptible in my
feelings; every thing inflicted a wound on them. In this state of
mind I was treated with marked disrespect by a pampered minion,
the favorite servant of my father. All the pride and passion of
my nature rose in an instant, and I struck him to the earth.
My father was passing by; he stopped not to inquire the reason,
nor indeed could he read the long course of mental sufferings
which were the real cause. He rebuked me with anger and scorn; he
summoned all the haughtiness of his nature, and grandeur of his
look, to give weight to the contumely with which he treated me. I
felt I had not deserved it—I felt that I was not appreciated—I
felt that I had that within me which merited better treatment; my
heart swelled against a father’s injustice. I broke through my
habitual awe of him. I replied to him with impatience; my hot
spirit flushed in my cheek and kindled in my eye, but my
sensitive heart swelled as quickly, and before I had half vented
my passion I felt it suffocated and quenched in my tears. My
father was astonished and incensed at this turning of the worm,
and ordered me to my chamber. I retired in silence, choking with
contending emotions.
I had not been long there when I overheard voices in an adjoining
apartment. It was a consultation between my father and the monk,
about the means of getting me back quietly to the convent. My
resolution was taken. I had no longer a home nor a father. That
very night I left the paternal roof. I got on board a vessel
about making sail from the harbor, and abandoned myself to the
wide world. No matter to what port she steered; any part of so
beautiful a world was better than my convent. No matter where I
was cast by fortune; any place would be more a home to me than
the home I had left behind. The vessel was bound to Genoa. We
arrived there after a voyage of a few days.
As I entered the harbor, between the moles which embrace it, and
beheld the amphitheatre of palaces and churches and splendid
gardens, rising one above another, I felt at once its title to
the appellation of Genoa the Superb. I landed on the mole an
utter stranger, without knowing what to do, or whither to direct
my steps. No matter; I was released from the thraldom of the
convent and the humiliations of home! When I traversed the Strada
Balbi and the Strada Nuova, those streets of palaces, and gazed
at the wonders of architecture around me; when I wandered at
close of day, amid a gay throng of the brilliant and the
beautiful, through the green alleys of the Aqua Verdi, or among
the colonnades and terraces of the magnificent Doria Gardens, I
thought it impossible to be ever otherwise than happy in Genoa.
A few days sufficed to show me my mistake. My scanty purse was
exhausted, and for the first time in my life I experienced the
sordid distress of penury. I had never known the want of money,
and had never adverted to the possibility of such an evil. I was
ignorant of the world and all its ways; and when first the idea
of destitution came over my mind its effect was withering. I was
wandering pensively through the streets which no longer delighted
my eyes, when chance led my stops into the magnificent church of
the Annunciata.
A celebrated painter of the day was at that moment superintending
the placing of one of his pictures over an altar. The proficiency
which I had acquired in his art during my residence in the
convent had made me an enthusiastic amateur. I was struck, at the
first glance, with the painting. It was the face of a Madonna. So
innocent, so lovely, such a divine expression of maternal
tenderness! I lost for the moment all recollection of myself in
the enthusiasm of my art. I clasped my hands together, and
uttered an ejaculation of delight. The painter perceived my
emotion. He was flattered and gratified by it. My air and manner
pleased him, and he accosted me. I felt too much the want of
friendship to repel the advances of a stranger, and there was
something in this one so benevolent and winning that in a moment
he gained my confidence.
I told him my story and my situation, concealing only my name and
rank. He appeared strongly interested by my recital; invited me
to his house, and from that time I became his favorite pupil. He
thought he perceived in me extraordinary talents for the art, and
his encomiums awakened all my ardor. What a blissful period of my
existence was it that I passed beneath his roof. Another being
seemed created within me, or rather, all that was amiable and
excellent was drawn out. I was as recluse as ever I had been at
the convent, but how different was my seclusion. My time was
spent in storing my mind with lofty and poetical ideas; in
meditating on all that was striking and noble in history or
fiction; in studying and tracing all that was sublime and
beautiful in nature. I was always a visionary, imaginative being,
but now my reveries and imaginings all elevated me to rapture.
I looked up to my master as to a benevolent genius that had
opened to me a region of enchantment. I became devotedly attached
to him. He was not a native of Genoa, but had been drawn thither
by the solicitation of several of the nobility, and had resided
there but a few years, for the completion of certain works he had
undertaken. His health was delicate, and he had to confide much
of the filling up of his designs to the pencils of his scholars.
He considered me as particularly happy in delineating the human
countenance; in seizing upon characteristic, though fleeting
expressions and fixing them powerfully upon my canvas. I was
employed continually, therefore, in sketching faces, and often
when some particular grace or beauty or expression was wanted in
a countenance, it was entrusted to my pencil. My benefactor was
fond of bringing me forward; and partly, perhaps, through my
actual skill, and partly by his partial praises, I began to be
noted for the expression of my countenances.
Among the various works which he had undertaken, was an
historical piece for one of the palaces of Genoa, in which were
to be introduced the likenesses of several of the family. Among
these was one entrusted to my pencil. It was that of a young
girl, who as yet was in a convent for her education. She came out
for the purpose of sitting for the picture. I first saw her in an
apartment of one of the sumptuous palaces of Genoa. She stood
before a casement that looked out upon the bay, a stream of
vernal sunshine fell upon her, and shed a kind of glory round her
as it lit up the rich crimson chamber. She was but sixteen years
of age—and oh, how lovely! The scene broke upon me like a mere
vision of spring and youth and beauty. I could have fallen down
and worshipped her. She was like one of those fictions of poets
and painters, when they would express the _beau ideal_ that
haunts their minds with shapes of indescribable perfection.
I was permitted to sketch her countenance in various positions,
and I Fondly protracted the study that was undoing me. The more I
gazed on her the more I became enamoured; there was something
almost painful in my intense admiration. I was but nineteen years
of age; shy, diffident, and inexperienced. I was treated with
attention and encouragement, for my youth and my enthusiasm in my
art had won favor for me; and I am inclined to think that there
was something in my air and manner that inspired interest and
respect. Still the kindness with which I was treated could not
dispel the embarrassment into which my own imagination threw me
when in presence of this lovely being. It elevated her into
something almost more than mortal. She seemed too exquisite for
earthly use; too delicate and exalted for human attainment. As I
sat tracing her charms on my canvas, with my eyes occasionally
riveted on her features, I drank in delicious poison that made me
giddy. My heart alternately gushed with tenderness, and ached
with despair. Now I became more than ever sensible of the violent
fires that had lain dormant at the bottom of my soul. You who are
born in a more temperate climate and under a cooler sky, have
little idea of the violence of passion in our southern bosoms.
A few days finished my task; Bianca returned to her convent, but
her image remained indelibly impressed upon my heart. It dwelt on
my imagination; it became my pervading idea of beauty. It had an
effect even upon my pencil; I became noted for my felicity in
depicting female loveliness; it was but because I multiplied the
image of Bianca. I soothed, and yet fed my fancy, by introducing
her in all the productions of my master. I have stood with
delight in one of the chapels of the Annunciata, and heard the
crowd extol the seraphic beauty of a saint which I had painted; I
have seen them bow down in adoration before the painting: they
were bowing before the loveliness of Bianca.
I existed in this kind of dream, I might almost say delirium, for
upwards of a year. Such is the tenacity of my imagination that
the image which was formed in it continued in all its power and
freshness. Indeed, I was a solitary, meditative being, much given
to reverie, and apt to foster ideas which had once taken strong
possession of me. I was roused from this fond, melancholy,
delicious dream by the death of my worthy benefactor. I cannot
describe the pangs his death occasioned me. It left me alone and
almost broken-hearted. He bequeathed to me his little property;
which, from the liberality of his disposition and his expensive
style of living, was indeed but small; and he most particularly
recommended me, in dying, to the protection of a nobleman who had
been his patron.
The latter was a man who passed for munificent. He was a lover
and an encourager of the arts, and evidently wished to be thought
so. He fancied he saw in me indications of future excellence; my
pencil had already attracted attention; he took me at once under
his protection; seeing that I was overwhelmed with grief, and
incapable of exerting myself in the mansion of my late
benefactor, he invited me to sojourn for a time in a villa which
he possessed on the border of the sea, in the picturesque
neighborhood of Sestri de Ponenti.
I found at the villa the Count’s only son, Filippo: he was nearly
of my age, prepossessing in his appearance, and fascinating in
his manners; he attached himself to me, and seemed to court my
good opinion. I thought there was something of profession in his
kindness, and of caprice in his disposition; but I had nothing
else near me to attach myself to, and my heart felt the need of
something to repose itself upon. His education had been
neglected; he looked upon me as his superior in mental powers and
acquirements, and tacitly acknowledged my superiority. I felt
that I was his equal in birth, and that gave an independence to
my manner which had its effect. The caprice and tyranny I saw
sometimes exercised on others, over whom he had power, were never
manifested towards me. We became intimate friends, and frequent
companions. Still I loved to be alone, and to indulge in the
reveries of my own imagination, among the beautiful scenery by
which I was surrounded.
The villa stood in the midst of ornamented grounds, finely
decorated With statues and fountains, and laid out into groves
and alleys and shady bowers. It commanded a wide view of the
Mediterranean, and the picturesque Ligurian coast. Every thing
was assembled here that could gratify the taste or agreeably
occupy the mind. Soothed by the tranquillity of this elegant
retreat, the turbulence of my feelings gradually subsided, and,
blending with the romantic spell that still reigned over my
imagination, produced a soft voluptuous melancholy.
I had not been long under the roof of the Count, when our
solitude was enlivened by another inhabitant. It was a daughter
of a relation of the Count, who had lately died in reduced
circumstances, bequeathing this only child to his protection. I
had heard much of her beauty from Filippo, but my fancy had
become so engrossed by one idea of beauty as not to admit of any
other. We were in the central saloon of the villa when she
arrived. She was still in mourning, and approached, leaning on
the Count’s arm. As they ascended the marble portico, I was
struck by the elegance of her figure and movement, by the grace
with which the _mezzaro_, the bewitching veil of Genoa, was
folded about her slender form.
They entered. Heavens! what was my surprise when I beheld Bianca
before me. It was herself; pale with grief; but still more
matured in loveliness than when I had last beheld her. The time
that had elapsed had developed the graces of her person; and the
sorrow she had undergone had diffused over her countenance an
irresistible tenderness.
She blushed and trembled at seeing me, and tears rushed into her
eyes, for she remembered in whose company she had been accustomed
to behold me. For my part, I cannot express what were my
emotions. By degrees I overcame the extreme shyness that had
formerly paralyzed me in her presence. We were drawn together by
sympathy of situation. We had each lost our best friend in the
world; we were each, in some measure thrown upon the kindness of
others. When I came to know her intellectually, all my ideal
picturings of her were confirmed. Her newness to the world, her
delightful susceptibility to every thing beautiful and agreeable
in nature, reminded me of my own emotions when first I escaped
from the convent. Her rectitude of thinking delighted my
judgment; the sweetness of her nature wrapped itself around my
heart; and then her young and tender and budding loveliness, sent
a delicious madness to my brain.
I gazed upon her with a kind of idolatry, as something more than
mortal; and I felt humiliated at the idea of my comparative
unworthiness. Yet she was mortal; and one of mortality’s most
susceptible and loving compounds; for she loved me!
How first I discovered the transporting truth I cannot recollect;
I believe it stole upon me by degrees, as a wonder past hope or
belief. We were both at such a tender and loving age; in constant
intercourse with each other; mingling in the same elegant
pursuits; for music, poetry, and painting were our mutual
delights, and we were almost separated from society, among lovely
and romantic scenery! Is it strange that two young hearts thus
brought together should readily twine round each other?
Oh, gods! what a dream—a transient dream! of unalloyed delight
then passed over my soul! Then it was that the world around me
was indeed a paradise, for I had a woman—lovely, delicious woman,
to share it with me. How often have I rambled over the
picturesque shores of Sestri, or climbed its wild mountains, with
the coast gemmed with villas, and the blue sea far below me, and
the slender Pharo of Genoa on its romantic promontory in the
distance; and as I sustained the faltering steps of Bianca, have
thought there could no unhappiness enter into so beautiful a
world. Why, oh, why is this budding season of life and love so
transient—why is this rosy cloud of love that sheds such a glow
over the morning of our days so prone to brew up into the
whirlwind and the storm!
I was the first to awaken from this blissful delirium of the
affections. I had gained Bianca’s heart: what was I to do with
it? I had no wealth nor prospects to entitle me to her hand. Was
I to take advantage of her ignorance of the world, of her
confiding affection, and draw her down to my own poverty? Was
this requiting the hospitality of the Count?—was this requiting
the love of Bianca?
Now first I began to feel that even successful love may have its
bitterness. A corroding care gathered about my heart. I moved
about the palace like a guilty being. I felt as if I had abused
its hospitality—as if I were a thief within its walls. I could no
longer look with unembarrassed mien in the countenance of the
Count. I accused myself of perfidy to him, and I thought he read
it in my looks, and began to distrust and despise me. His manner
had always been ostentatious and condescending, it now appeared
cold and haughty. Filippo, too, became reserved and distant; or
at least I suspected him to be so. Heavens!—was this mere coinage
of my brain: was I to become suspicious of all the world?—a poor
surmising wretch; watching looks and gestures; and torturing
myself with misconstructions. Or if true—was I to remain beneath
a roof where I was merely tolerated, and linger there on
sufferance? “This is not to be endured!” exclaimed I; “I will
tear myself from this state of self-abasement; I will break
through this fascination and fly—Fly?—whither?—from the
world?—for where is the world when I leave Bianca behind me?”
My spirit was naturally proud, and swelled within me at the idea
of being looked upon with contumely. Many times I was on the
point of declaring my family and rank, and asserting my equality,
in the presence of Bianca, when I thought her relatives assumed
an air of superiority. But the feeling was transient. I
considered myself discarded and contemned by my family; and had
solemnly vowed never to own relationship to them, until they
themselves should claim it.
The struggle of my mind preyed upon my happiness and my health.
It seemed as if the uncertainty of being loved would be less
intolerable than thus to be assured of it, and yet not dare to
enjoy the conviction. I was no longer the enraptured admirer of
Bianca; I no longer hung in ecstasy on the tones of her voice,
nor drank in with insatiate gaze the beauty of her countenance.
Her very smiles ceased to delight me, for I felt culpable in
having won them.
She could not but be sensible of the change in me, and inquired
the cause with her usual frankness and simplicity. I could not
evade the inquiry, for my heart was full to aching. I told her
all the conflict of my soul; my devouring passion, my bitter
self-upbraiding. “Yes!” said I, “I am unworthy of you. I am an
offcast from my family—a wanderer—a nameless, homeless wanderer,
with nothing but poverty for my portion, and yet I have dared to
love you—have dared to aspire to your love!”
My agitation moved her to tears; but she saw nothing in my
situation so hopeless as I had depicted it. Brought up in a
convent, she knew nothing of the world, its wants, its
cares;—and, indeed, what woman is a worldly casuist in matters of
the heart!—Nay, more—she kindled into a sweet enthusiasm when she
spoke of my fortunes and myself. We had dwelt together on the
works of the famous masters. I had related to her their
histories; the high reputation, the influence, the magnificence
to which they had attained;—the companions of princes, the
favorites of kings, the pride and boast of nations. All this she
applied to me. Her love saw nothing in their greatest productions
that I was not able to achieve; and when I saw the lovely
creature glow with fervor, and her whole countenance radiant with
the visions of my glory, which seemed breaking upon her, I was
snatched up for the moment into the heaven of her own
imagination.
I am dwelling too long upon this part of my story; yet I cannot
help Lingering over a period of my life, on which, with all its
cares and conflicts, I look back with fondness; for as yet my
soul was unstained by a crime. I do not know what might have been
the result of this struggle between pride, delicacy, and passion,
had I not read in a Neapolitan gazette an account of the sudden
death of my brother. It was accompanied by an earnest inquiry for
intelligence concerning me, and a prayer, should this notice meet
my eye, that I would hasten to Naples, to comfort an infirm and
afflicted father.
I was naturally of an affectionate disposition; but my brother
had never been as a brother to me; I had long considered myself
as disconnected from him, and his death caused me but little
emotion. The thoughts of my father, infirm and suffering, touched
me, however, to the quick; and when I thought of him, that lofty,
magnificent being, now bowed down and desolate, and suing to me
for comfort, all my resentment for past neglect was subdued, and
a glow of filial affection was awakened within me.
The predominant feeling, however, that overpowered all others was
transport at the sudden change in my whole fortunes. A home—a
name—a rank—wealth awaited me; and love painted a still more
rapturous prospect in the distance. I hastened to Bianca, and
threw myself at her feet. “Oh, Bianca,” exclaimed I, “at length I
can claim you for my own. I am no longer a nameless adventurer, a
neglected, rejected outcast. Look—read, behold the tidings that
restore me to my name and to myself!”
I will not dwell on the scene that ensued. Bianca rejoiced in the
reverse of my situation, because she saw it lightened my heart of
a load of care; for her own part she had loved me for myself, and
had never doubted that my own merits would command both fame and
fortune.
I now felt all my native pride buoyant within me; I no longer
walked with my eyes bent to the dust; hope elevated them to the
skies; my soul was lit up with fresh fires, and beamed from my
countenance.
I wished to impart the change in my circumstances to the Count;
to let him know who and what I was, and to make formal proposals
for the hand of Bianca; but the Count was absent on a distant
estate. I opened my whole soul to Filippo. Now first I told him
of my passion; of the doubts and fears that had distracted me,
and of the tidings that had suddenly dispelled them. He
overwhelmed me with congratulations and with the warmest
expressions of sympathy. I embraced him in the fullness of my
heart. I felt compunctious for having suspected him of coldness,
and asked him forgiveness for having ever doubted his friendship.
Nothing is so warm, and enthusiastic as a sudden expansion of the
heart between young men. Filippo entered into our concerns with
the most eager interest. He was our confidant and counsellor. It
was determined that I should hasten at once to Naples to
re-establish myself in my father’s affections and my paternal
home, and the moment the reconciliation was effected and my
father’s consent insured, I should return and demand Bianca of
the Count. Filippo engaged to secure his father’s acquiescence;
indeed, he undertook to watch over our interests, and was the
channel through which we were to correspond.
My parting with Bianca was tender—delicious—agonizing.
It was in a little pavilion of the garden which had been one of
our favorite resorts. How often and often did I return to have
one more adieu—to have her look once more on me in speechless
emotion—to enjoy once more the rapturous sight of those tears
streaming down her lovely cheeks—to seize once more on that
delicate hand, the frankly accorded pledge of love, and cover it
with tears and kisses! Heavens! There is a delight even in the
parting agony of two lovers worth a thousand tame pleasures of
the world. I have her at this moment before my eyes—at the window
of the pavilion, putting aside the vines that clustered about the
casement—her light form beaming forth in virgin white—her
countenance all tears and smiles—sending a thousand and a
thousand adieus after me, as, hesitating, in a delirium of
fondness and agitation, I faltered my way down the avenue.
As the bark bore me out of the harbor of Genoa, how eagerly my
eyes Stretched along the coast of Sestri, till it discerned the
villa gleaming from among trees at the foot of the mountain. As
long as day lasted, I gazed and gazed upon it, till it lessened
and lessened to a mere white speck in the distance; and still my
intense and fixed gaze discerned it, when all other objects of
the coast had blended into indistinct confusion, or were lost in
the evening gloom.
On arriving at Naples, I hastened to my paternal home. My heart
yearned for the long-withheld blessing of a father’s love. As I
entered the proud portal of the ancestral palace, my emotions
were so great that I could not speak. No one knew me. The
servants gazed at me with curiosity and surprise. A few years of
intellectual elevation and development had made a prodigious
change in the poor fugitive stripling from the convent. Still
that no one should know me in my rightful home was overpowering.
I felt like the prodigal son returned. I was a stranger in the
house of my father. I burst into tears, and wept aloud. When I
made myself known, however, all was changed. I who had once been
almost repulsed from its walls, and forced to fly as an exile,
was welcomed back with acclamation, with servility. One of the
servants hastened to prepare my father for my reception; my
eagerness to receive the paternal embrace was so great that I
could not await his return; but hurried after him.
What a spectacle met my eyes as I entered the chamber! My father,
whom I had left in the pride of vigorous age, whose noble and
majestic bearing had so awed my young imagination, was bowed down
and withered into decrepitude. A paralysis had ravaged his
stately form, and left it a shaking ruin. He sat propped up in
his chair, with pale, relaxed visage and glassy, wandering eye.
His intellects had evidently shared in the ravage of his frame.
The servant was endeavoring to make him comprehend the visitor
that was at hand. I tottered up to him and sunk at his feet. All
his past coldness and neglect were forgotten in his present
sufferings. I remembered only that he was my parent, and that I
had deserted him. I clasped his knees; my voice was almost
stifled with convulsive sobs. “Pardon—pardon—oh my father!” was
all that I could utter. His apprehension seemed slowly to return
to him. He gazed at me for some moments with a vague, inquiring
look; a convulsive tremor quivered about his lips; he feebly
extended a shaking hand, laid it upon my head, and burst into an
infantine flow of tears.
From that moment he would scarcely spare me from his sight. I
appeared the only object that his heart responded to in the
world; all else was as a blank to him. He had almost lost the
powers of speech, and the reasoning faculty seemed at an end. He
was mute and passive; excepting that fits of child-like weeping
would sometimes come over him without any immediate cause. If I
left the room at any time, his eye was incessantly fixed on the
door till my return, and on my entrance there was another gush of
tears.
To talk with him of my concerns, in this ruined state of mind,
would have been worse than useless; to have left him, for ever so
short a time, would have been cruel, unnatural. Here then was a
new trial for my affections. I wrote to Bianca an account of my
return and of my actual situation; painting in colors vivid, for
they were true, the torments I suffered at our being thus
separated; for to the youthful lover every day of absence is an
age of love lost. I enclosed the letter in one to Filippo, who
was the channel of our correspondence. I received a reply from
him full of friendship and sympathy; from Bianca full of
assurances of affection and constancy.
Week after week, month after month elapsed, without making any
change in my circumstances. The vital flame, which had seemed
nearly extinct when first I met my father, kept fluttering on
without any apparent diminution. I watched him constantly,
faithfully—I had almost said patiently. I knew that his death
alone would set me free; yet I never at any moment wished it. I
felt too glad to be able to make any atonement for past
disobedience; and, denied as I had been all endearments of
relationship in my early days, my heart yearned towards a father,
who, in his age and helplessness, had thrown himself entirely on
me for comfort. My passion for Bianca gained daily more force
from absence; by constant meditation it wore itself a deeper and
deeper channel. I made no new friends nor acquaintances; sought
none of the pleasures of Naples which my rank and fortune threw
open to me. Mine was a heart that confined itself to few objects,
but dwelt upon those with the intenser passion. To sit by my
father, and administer to his wants, and to meditate on Bianca in
the silence of his chamber, was my constant habit. Sometimes I
amused myself with my pencil in portraying the image that was
ever present to my imagination. I transferred to canvas every
look and smile of hers that dwelt in my heart. I showed them to
my father in hopes of awakening an interest in his bosom for the
mere shadow of my love; but he was too far sunk in intellect to
take any more than a child-like notice of them.
When I received a letter from Bianca it was a new source of
solitary luxury. Her letters, it is true, were less and less
frequent, but they were always full of assurances of unabated
affection. They breathed not the frank and innocent warmth with
which she expressed herself in conversation, but I accounted for
it from the embarrassment which inexperienced minds have often to
express themselves upon paper. Filippo assured me of her
unaltered constancy. They both lamented in the strongest terms
our continued separation, though they did justice to the filial
feeling that kept me by my father’s side.
Nearly eighteen months elapsed in this protracted exile. To me
they were so many ages. Ardent and impetuous by nature, I
scarcely know how I should have supported so long an absence, had
I not felt assured that the faith of Bianca was equal to my own.
At length my father died. Life went from him almost
imperceptibly. I hung over him in mute affliction, and watched
the expiring spasms of nature. His last faltering accents
whispered repeatedly a blessing on me—alas! how has it been
fulfilled!
When I had paid due honors to his remains, and laid them in the
tomb of our ancestors, I arranged briefly my affairs; put them in
a posture to be easily at my command from a distance, and
embarked once more, with a bounding heart, for Genoa.
Our voyage was propitious, and oh! what was my rapture when
first, in the dawn of morning, I saw the shadowy summits of the
Apennines rising almost like clouds above the horizon. The sweet
breath of summer just moved us over the long wavering billows
that were rolling us on towards Genoa. By degrees the coast of
Sestri rose like a sweet creation of enchantment from the silver
bosom of the deep. I behold the line of villages and palaces
studding its borders. My eye reverted to a well-known point, and
at length, from the confusion of distant objects, it singled out
the villa which contained Bianca. It was a mere speck in the
landscape, but glimmering from afar, the polar star of my heart.
Again I gazed at it for a livelong summer’s day; but oh how
different the emotions between departure and return. It now kept
growing and growing, instead of lessening on my sight. My heart
seemed to dilate with it. I looked at it through a telescope. I
gradually defined one feature after another. The balconies of the
central saloon where first I met Bianca beneath its roof; the
terrace where we so often had passed the delightful summer
evenings; the awning that shaded her chamber window—I almost
fancied I saw her form beneath it. Could she but know her lover
was in the bark whose white sail now gleamed on the sunny bosom
of the sea! My fond impatience increased as we neared the coast.
The ship seemed to lag lazily over the billows; I could almost
have sprung into the sea and swam to the desired shore.
The shadows of evening gradually shrouded the scene, but the moon
arose in all her fullness and beauty and shed the tender light so
dear to lovers, over the romantic coast of Sestri. My whole soul
was bathed in unutterable tenderness. I anticipated the heavenly
evenings I should pass in wandering with Bianca by the light of
that blessed moon.
It was late at night before we entered the harbor. As early next
morning as I could get released from the formalities of landing I
threw myself on horseback and hastened to the villa. As I
galloped round the rocky promontory on which stands the Faro, and
saw the coast of Sestri opening upon me, a thousand anxieties and
doubts suddenly sprang up in my bosom. There is something fearful
in returning to those we love, while yet uncertain what ills or
changes absence may have effected. The turbulence of my agitation
shook my very frame. I spurred my horse to redoubled speed; he
was covered with foam when we both arrived panting at the gateway
that opened to the grounds around the villa. I left my horse at a
cottage and walked through the grounds, that I might regain
tranquillity for the approaching interview. I chid myself for
having suffered mere doubts and surmises thus suddenly to
overcome me; but I was always prone to be carried away by these
gusts of the feelings.
On entering the garden everything bore the same look as when I
had left it; and this unchanged aspect of things reassured me.
There were the alleys in which I had so often walked with Bianca;
the same shades under which we had so often sat during the
noontide. There were the same flowers of which she was fond; and
which appeared still to be under the ministry of her hand.
Everything around looked and breathed of Bianca; hope and joy
flushed in my bosom at every step. I passed a little bower in
which we had often sat and read together. A book and a glove lay
on the bench. It was Bianca’s glove; it was a volume of the
Metestasio I had given her. The glove lay in my favorite passage.
I clasped them to my heart. “All is safe!” exclaimed I, with
rapture, “she loves me! she is still my own!”
I bounded lightly along the avenue down which I had faltered so
slowly at my departure. I beheld her favorite pavilion which had
witnessed our parting scene. The window was open, with the same
vine clambering about it, precisely as when she waved and wept me
an adieu. Oh! how transporting was the contrast in my situation.
As I passed near the pavilion, I heard the tones of a female
voice. They thrilled through me with an appeal to my heart not to
be mistaken. Before I could think, I _felt_ they were Bianca’s.
For an instant I paused, overpowered with agitation. I feared to
break in suddenly upon her. I softly ascended the steps of the
pavilion. The door was open. I saw Bianca seated at a table; her
back was towards me; she was warbling a soft melancholy air, and
was occupied in drawing. A glance sufficed to show me that she
was copying one of my own paintings. I gazed on her for a moment
in a delicious tumult of emotions. She paused in her singing; a
heavy sigh, almost a sob followed. I could no longer contain
myself. “Bianca!” exclaimed I, in a half smothered voice. She
started at the sound; brushed back the ringlets that hung
clustering about her face; darted a glance at me; uttered a
piercing shriek and would have fallen to the earth, had I not
caught her in my arms.
“Bianca! my own Bianca!” exclaimed I, folding her to my bosom; my
voice stifled in sobs of convulsive joy. She lay in my arms
without sense or motion. Alarmed at the effects of my own
precipitation, I scarce knew what to do. I tried by a thousand
endearing words to call her back to consciousness. She slowly
recovered, and half opening her eyes—“where am I?” murmured she
faintly. “Here,” exclaimed I, pressing her to my bosom. “Here!
close to the heart that adores you; in the arms of your faithful
Ottavio!”
“Oh no! no! no!” shrieked she, starting into sudden life and
terror—“away! away! leave me! leave me!”
She tore herself from my arms; rushed to a corner of the saloon,
and covered her face with her hands, as if the very sight of me
were baleful. I was thunderstruck—I could not believe my senses.
I followed her, trembling, confounded. I endeavored to take her
hand, but she shrunk from my very touch with horror.
“Good heavens, Bianca,” exclaimed I, “what is the meaning of
this? Is this my reception after so long an absence? Is this the
love you professed for me?”
At the mention of love, a shuddering ran through her. She turned
to me a face wild with anguish. “No more of that! no more of
that!” gasped she—“talk not to me of love—I—I—am married!”
I reeled as if I had received a mortal blow. A sickness struck to
my very heart. I caught at a window frame for support. For a
moment or two, everything was chaos around me. When I recovered,
I beheld Bianca lying on a sofa; her face buried in a pillow, and
sobbing convulsively. Indignation at her fickleness for a moment
overpowered every other feeling.
“Faithless—perjured—” cried I, striding across the room. But
another glance at that beautiful being in distress, checked all
my wrath. Anger could not dwell together with her idea in my
soul.
“Oh, Bianca,” exclaimed I, in anguish, “could I have dreamt of
this; could I have suspected you would have been false to me?”
She raised her face all streaming with tears, all disordered with
emotion, and gave me one appealing look—“False to you!—they told
me you were dead!”
“What,” said I, “in spite of our constant correspondence?”
She gazed wildly at me—“correspondence!—what correspondence?”
“Have you not repeatedly received and replied to my letters?”
She clasped her hands with solemnity and fervor—“As I hope for
mercy, never!”
A horrible surmise shot through my brain—“Who told you I was
dead?”
“It was reported that the ship in which you embarked for Naples
perished at sea.”
“But who told you the report?”