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THE
TREASURE HOUSE OF TALES
BY
GREAT AUTHORS
-------
MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT SHELLEY
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Of this Volume, Fifty-five Copies have been printed
on Dutch Handmade Paper; of which this is—
No. ..41..
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[Illustration: Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
TALES AND STORIES
BY
MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT SHELLEY
NOW FIRST COLLECTED
WITH AN INTRODUCTION
BY
RICHARD GARNETT, LL.D.
KEEPER OF THE PRINTED BOOKS, BRITISH MUSEUM
LONDON
WILLIAM PATERSON & CO.
1891
------------------------------------------------------------------------
INTRODUCTION.
-------
IT is customary to regard Mary Shelley’s claims to literary distinction
as so entirely rooted and grounded in her husband’s as to constitute a
merely parasitic growth upon his fame. It may be unreservedly admitted
that her association with Shelley, and her care of his writings and
memory after his death, are the strongest of her titles to remembrance.
It is further undeniable that the most original of her works is also
that which betrays the strongest traces of his influence. _Frankenstein_
was written when her brain, magnetized by his companionship, was capable
of an effort never to be repeated. But if the frame of mind which
engendered and sustained the work was created by Shelley, the conception
was not his, and the diction is dissimilar to his. Both derive from
Godwin, but neither is Godwin’s. The same observation, except for an
occasional phrase caught from Shelley, applies to all her subsequent
work. The frequent exaltation of spirit, the ideality and romance, may
well have been Shelley’s—the general style of execution neither repeats
nor resembles him.
Mary Shelley’s voice, then, is not to die away as a mere echo of her
illustrious husband’s. She has the _prima facie_ claim to a hearing due
to every writer who can assert the possession of a distinctive
individuality; and if originality be once conceded to _Frankenstein_, as
in all equity it must, none will dispute the validity of a title to fame
grounded on such a work. It has solved the question itself—it is famous.
It is full of faults venial in an author of nineteen; but, apart from
the wild grandeur of the conception, it has that which even the maturity
of mere talent never attains—the insight of genius which looks below the
appearances of things, and perhaps even reverses its own first
conception by the discovery of some underlying truth. Mary Shelley’s
original intention was probably that which would alone have occurred to
most writers in her place. She meant to paint Frankenstein’s monstrous
creation as an object of unmitigated horror. The perception that he was
an object of intense compassion as well imparted a moral value to what
otherwise would have remained a daring flight of imagination. It has
done more: it has helped to create, if it did not itself beget, a type
of personage unknown to ancient fiction. The conception of a character
at once justly execrable and truly pitiable is altogether modern.
Richard the Third and Caliban make some approach towards it; but the
former is too self-sufficing in his valour and his villainy to be deeply
pitied, and the latter too senseless and brutal. Victor Hugo has made
himself the laureate of pathetic deformity, but much of his work is a
conscious or unconscious variation on the original theme of
_Frankenstein_.
None of Mary Shelley’s subsequent romances approached _Frankenstein_ in
power and popularity. The reason may be summed up in a word—Languor.
After the death of her infant son in 1819, she could never again command
the energy which had carried her so vigorously through _Frankenstein_.
Except in one instance, her work did not really interest her. Her heart
is not in it. _Valperga_ contains many passages of exquisite beauty; but
it was, as the authoress herself says, “a child of mighty slow growth;”
“laboriously dug,” Shelley adds, “out of a hundred old chronicles,” and
wants the fire of imagination which alone could have interpenetrated the
mass and fused its diverse ingredients into a satisfying whole. Of the
later novels, _The Last Man_ excepted, it is needless to speak, save for
the autobiographic interest with which Professor Dowden’s fortunate
discovery has informed the hitherto slighted pages of _Lodore_. But _The
Last Man_ demands great attention, for it is not only a work of far
higher merit than commonly admitted, but of all her works the most
characteristic of the authoress, the most representative of Mary Shelley
in the character of pining widowhood which it was her destiny to support
for the remainder of her life. It is an idealized version of her sorrows
and sufferings, made to contribute a note to the strain which celebrates
the final dissolution of the world. The languor which mars her other
writings is a beauty here, harmonizing with the general tone of sublime
melancholy. Most pictures of the end of the world, painted or penned,
have an apocalyptic character. Men’s imaginations are powerfully
impressed by great convulsions of nature; fire, tempest, and earthquake
are summoned to effect the dissolution of the expiring earth. In _The
Last Man_ pestilence is the sole agent, and the tragedy is purely human.
The tale consequently lacks the magnificence which the subject might
have seemed to invite, but, on the other hand, gains in pathos—a pathos
greatly increased when the authoress’s identity is recollected, and it
is observed how vividly actual experience traverses her web of fiction.
None can have been affected by Mary Shelley’s work so deeply as Mary
Shelley herself; for the scenery is that of her familiar haunts, the
personages are her intimates under thin disguises, the universal
catastrophe is but the magnified image of the overthrow of her own
fortunes; and there are pages on pages where every word must have come
to her fraught with some unutterably sweet or bitter association. Yet,
though her romance could never be to the public what it was to the
author, it is surprising that criticism should have hitherto done so
little justice either to its pervading nobility of thought or to the
eloquence and beauty of very many inspired passages.
When _The Last Man_ is reprinted it will come before the world as a new
work. The same is the case with the short tales in this collection, the
very existence of which is probably unknown to those most deeply
interested in Mary Shelley. The entire class of literature to which they
belong has long ago gone into Time’s wallet as “alms for oblivion.” They
are exclusively contributions to a form of publication utterly
superseded in this hasty age—the Annual, whose very name seemed to
prophesy that it would not be perennial. For the creations of the
intellect, however, there is a way back from Avernus. Every new
generation convicts the last of undue precipitation in discarding the
work of its own immediate predecessor. The special literary form may be
incapable of revival; but the substance of that which has pleased or
profited its age, be it Crashaw’s verse, or Etherege’s comedies, or
Hoadly’s pamphlets, or what it may, always repays a fresh examination,
and is always found to contribute some element useful or acceptable to
the literature of a later day. The day of the “splendid annual” was
certainly not a vigorous or healthy one in the history of English
_belles-lettres_. It came in at the ebb of the great tide of poetry
which followed on the French Revolution, and before the insetting of the
great tide of Victorian prose. A pretentious feebleness characterizes
the majority of its productions, half of which are hardly above the
level of the album. Yet it had its good points, worthy to be taken into
account. The necessary brevity of contributions to an annual operated as
a powerful check on the loquacity so unfortunately encouraged by the
three-volume novel. There was no room for tiresome descriptions of
minutiæ, or interminable talk about uninteresting people. Being,
moreover, largely intended for the perusal of high-born maidens in
palace towers, the annuals frequently affected an exalted order of
sentiment, which, if intolerable in insincere or merely mechanical
hands, encouraged the emotion of a really passionate writer as much as
the present taste for minute delineation represses it. This perfectly
suited Mary Shelley. No writer felt less call to reproduce the society
around her. It did not interest her in the smallest degree. The bent of
her soul was entirely towards the ideal. This ideal was by no means
buried in the grave of Shelley. She aspired passionately towards an
imaginary perfection all her life, and solaced disappointment with what,
in actual existence, too often proved the parent of fresh disillusion.
In fiction it was otherwise; the fashionable style of publication, with
all its faults, encouraged the enthusiasm, rapturous or melancholy, with
which she adored the present or lamented the lost. She could fully
indulge her taste for exalted sentiment in the Annual, and the necessary
limitations of space afforded less scope for that creeping languor which
relaxed the nerve of her more ambitious productions. In these little
tales she is her perfect self, and the reader will find not only the
entertainment of interesting fiction, but a fair picture of the mind,
repressed in its energies by circumstances, but naturally enthusiastic
and aspiring, of a lonely, thwarted, misunderstood woman, who could
seldom do herself justice, and whose precise place in the contemporary
constellation of genius remains to be determined.
The merit of a collection of stories, casually written at different
periods and under different influences, must necessarily be various. As
a rule, it may be said that Mary Shelley is best when most ideal, and
excels in proportion to the exaltation of the sentiment embodied in her
tale. Virtue, patriotism, disinterested affection, are very real things
to her; and her heroes and heroines, if generally above the ordinary
plane of humanity, never transgress the limits of humanity itself. Her
fault is the other way, and arises from a positive incapacity for
painting the ugly and the commonplace. She does her best, but her
villains do not impress us. Minute delineation of character is never
attempted; it lay entirely out of her sphere. Her tales are consequently
executed in the free, broad style of the eighteenth century, towards
which a reaction is now fortunately observable. As stories, they are
very good. The theme is always interesting, and the sequence of events
natural. No person and no incident, perhaps, takes a very strong hold
upon the imagination; but the general impression is one of a sphere of
exalted feeling into which it is good to enter, and which ennobles as
much as the photography of ugliness degrades. The diction, as usual in
the imaginative literature of the period, is frequently too ornate, and
could spare a good many adjectives. But its native strength is revealed
in passages of impassioned feeling; and remarkable command over the
resources of the language is displayed in descriptions of scenes of
natural beauty. The microscopic touch of a Browning or a Meredith,
bringing the scene vividly before the mind’s eye, is indeed absolutely
wanting; but the landscape is suffused with the poetical atmosphere of a
Claude or a Danby. The description at the beginning of _The Sisters of
Albano_ is a characteristic and beautiful instance.
The biographical element is deeply interwoven with these as with all
Mary Shelley’s writings. It is of especial interest to search out the
traces of her own history, and the sources from which her descriptions
and ideas may have been derived. _The Mourner_ has evident vestiges of
her residence near Windsor when _Alastor_ was written, and probably
reflects the general impression derived from Shelley’s recollections of
Eton. The visit to Pæstum in _The Pole_ recalls one of the most
beautiful of Shelley’s letters, which Mary, however, probably never saw.
Claire Clairmont’s fortunes seem glanced at in one or two places; and
the story of _The Pole_ may be partly founded on some experience of hers
in Russia. Trelawny probably suggested the subjects of the two Greek
tales, _The Evil Eye_, and _Euphrasia. The Mortal Immortal_ is a
variation on the theme of _St. Leon_, and _Transformation_ on that of
_Frankenstein_. These are the only tales in the collection which betray
the influence of Godwin, and neither is so fully worked out as it might
have been. Mary Shelley was evidently more at home with a human than
with a superhuman ideal; her enthusiasm soars high, but does not
transcend the possibilities of human nature. The artistic merit of her
tales will be diversely estimated, but no reader will refuse the
authoress facility of invention, or command of language, or elevation of
soul.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CONTENTS.
-------
I. THE SISTERS OF ALBANO, 1
II. FERDINANDO EBOLI, 20
III. THE EVIL EYE, 42
IV. THE DREAM, 66
V. THE MOURNER, 83
VI. THE FALSE RHYME, 103
VII. A TALE OF THE PASSIONS; OR, 112
THE DEATH OF DESPINA,
VIII. THE MORTAL IMMORTAL, 148
IX. TRANSFORMATION, 165
X. THE SWISS PEASANT, 186
XI. THE INVISIBLE GIRL, 210
XII. THE BROTHER AND SISTER, 227
XIII. THE PARVENUE, 262
XIV. THE POLE, 274
XV. EUPHRASIA, 311
XVI. THE ELDER SON, 328
XVII. THE PILGRIMS, 359
------------------------------------------------------------------------
I.
_THE SISTERS OF ALBANO._
“And near Albano’s scarce divided waves
Shine from a sister valley;—and afar
The Tiber winds, and the broad ocean laves
The Latian coast where sprang the Epic war,
‘Arms and the Man,’ whose re-ascending star
Rose o’er an empire; but beneath thy right
Tully reposed from Rome; and where yon bar
Of girdling mountains intercepts the sight
The Sabine farm was till’d, the weary bard’s delight.”
IT was to see this beautiful lake that I made my last excursion before
quitting Rome. The spring had nearly grown into summer, the trees were
all in full but fresh green foliage, the vine-dresser was singing,
perched among them, training his vines: the cicada had not yet begun her
song, the heats therefore had not commenced; but at evening the
fire-flies gleamed among the hills, and the cooing aziola assured us of
what in that country needs no assurance—fine weather for the morrow. We
set out early in the morning to avoid the heats, breakfasted at Albano,
and till ten o’clock passed our time in visiting the Mosaic, the villa
of Cicero, and other curiosities of the place. We reposed during the
middle of the day in a tent elevated for us at the hill-top, whence we
looked on the hill-embosomed lake, and the distant eminence crowned by a
town with its church. Other villages and cottages were scattered among
the foldings of mountains, and beyond we saw the deep blue sea of the
southern poets, which received the swift and immortal Tiber, rocking it
to repose among its devouring waves. The Coliseum falls and the Pantheon
decays,—the very hills of Rome are perishing,—but the Tiber lives for
ever, flows for ever, and for ever feeds the land-encircled
Mediterranean with fresh waters.
Our summer and pleasure-seeking party consisted of many: to me the most
interesting person was the Countess Atanasia D——, who was as beautiful
as an imagination of Raphael, and good as the ideal of a poet. Two of
her children accompanied her, with animated looks and gentle manners,
quiet, yet enjoying. I sat near her, watching the changing shadows of
the landscape before us. As the sun descended, it poured a tide of light
into the valley of the lake, deluging the deep bank formed by the
mountain with liquid gold. The domes and turrets of the far town flashed
and gleamed, the trees were dyed in splendour; two or three slight
clouds, which had drunk the radiance till it became their essence,
floated golden islets in the lustrous empyrean. The waters, reflecting
the brilliancy of the sky and the fire-tinted banks, beamed a second
heaven, a second irradiated earth, at our feet. The Mediterranean,
gazing on the sun,—as the eyes of a mortal bride fail and are dimmed
when reflecting her lover’s glance,—was lost, mixed in his light, till
it had become one with him.—Long (our souls, like the sea, the hills,
and lake, drinking in the supreme loveliness) we gazed, till the too
full cup overflowed, and we turned away with a sigh.
At our feet there was a knoll of ground, that formed the foreground of
our picture; two trees lay basking against the sky, glittering with the
golden light, which like dew seemed to hang amid their branches; a rock
closed the prospect on the other side, twined round by creepers, and
redolent with blooming myrtle; a brook, crossed by huge stones, gushed
through the turf, and on the fragments of rock that lay about, sat two
or three persons, peasants, who attracted our attention. One was a
hunter, as his gun, lying on a bank not far off, demonstrated, yet he
was a tiller of the soil; his rough straw hat, and his picturesque but
coarse dress, belonged to that class. The other was some contadina, in
the costume of her country, returning, her basket on her arm, from the
village to her cottage home. They were regarding the stores of a pedlar,
who with doffed hat stood near: some of these consisted of pictures and
prints—views of the country, and portraits of the Madonna. Our peasants
regarded these with pleased attention.
“One might easily make out a story for that pair,” I said: “his gun is a
help to the imagination, and we may fancy him a bandit with his
contadina love, the terror of all the neighbourhood, except of her, the
most defenceless being in it.”
“You speak lightly of such a combination,” said the lovely countess at
my side, “as if it must not in its nature be the cause of dreadful
tragedies. The mingling of love with crime is a dread conjunction, and
lawless pursuits are never followed without bringing on the criminal,
and all allied to him, ineffable misery. I speak with emotion, for your
observation reminds me of an unfortunate girl, now one of the Sisters of
Charity in the convent of Santa Chiara at Rome, whose unhappy passion
for a man, such as you mention, spread destruction and sorrow widely
around her.”
I entreated my lovely friend to relate the history of the nun. For a
long time she resisted my entreaties, as not willing to depress the
spirit of a party of pleasure by a tale of sorrow. But I urged her, and
she yielded. Her sweet Italian phraseology now rings in my ears, and her
beautiful countenance is before me. As she spoke, the sun set, and the
moon bent her silver horn in the ebbing tide of glory he had left. The
lake changed from purple to silver, and the trees, before so splendid,
now in dark masses, just reflected from their tops the mild moonlight.
The fire-flies flashed among the rocks; the bats circled round us:
meanwhile thus commenced the Countess Atanasia:—
The nun of whom I speak had a sister older than herself; I can remember
them when as children they brought eggs and fruit to my father’s villa.
Maria and Anina were constantly together. With their large straw hats to
shield them from the scorching sun, they were at work in their father’s
_podere_ all day, and in the evening, when Maria, who was the elder by
four years, went to the fountain for water, Anina ran at her side. Their
cot—the folding of the hill conceals it—is at the lake-side opposite;
and about a quarter of a mile up the hill is the rustic fountain of
which I speak. Maria was serious, gentle, and considerate; Anina was a
laughing, merry little creature, with the face of a cherub. When Maria
was fifteen, their mother fell ill, and was nursed at the convent of
Santa Chiara at Rome. Maria attended her, never leaving her bedside day
or night. The nuns thought her an angel, she deemed them saints: her
mother died, and they persuaded her to make one of them; her father
could not but acquiesce in her holy intention, and she became one of the
Sisters of Charity, the nun-nurses of Santa Chiara. Once or twice a year
she visited her home, gave sage and kind advice to Anina, and sometimes
wept to part from her; but her piety and her active employments for the
sick reconciled her to her fate. Anina was more sorry to lose her
sister’s society. The other girls of the village did not please her: she
was a good child, and worked hard for her father, and her sweetest
recompense was the report he made of her to Maria, and the fond praises
and caresses the latter bestowed on her when they met.
It was not until she was fifteen that Anina showed any diminution of
affection for her sister. Yet I cannot call it diminution, for she loved
her perhaps more than ever, though her holy calling and sage lectures
prevented her from reposing confidence, and made her tremble lest the
nun, devoted to heaven and good works, should read in her eyes, and
disapprove of the earthly passion that occupied her. Perhaps a part of
her reluctance arose from the reports that were current against her
lover’s character, and certainly from the disapprobation and even hatred
of him that her father frequently expressed. Ill-fated Anina! I know not
if in the north your peasants love as ours; but the passion of Anina was
entwined with the roots of her being, it was herself: she could die, but
not cease to love. The dislike of her father for Domenico made their
intercourse clandestine. He was always at the fountain to fill her
pitcher, and lift it on her head. He attended the same mass; and when
her father went to Albano, Velletri, or Rome, he seemed to learn by
instinct the exact moment of his departure, and joined her in the
_podere_, labouring with her and for her, till the old man was seen
descending the mountain-path on his return. He said he worked for a
contadino near Nemi. Anina sometimes wondered that he could spare so
much time for her; but his excuses were plausible, and the result too
delightful not to blind the innocent girl to its obvious cause.
Poor Domenico! the reports spread against him were too well founded: his
sole excuse was that his father had been a robber before him, and he had
spent his early years among these lawless men. He had better things in
his nature, and yearned for the peace of the guiltless. Yet he could
hardly be called guilty, for no dread crime stained him. Nevertheless,
he was an outlaw and a bandit; and now that he loved Anina, these names
were the stings of an adder to pierce his soul. He would have fled from
his comrades to a far country, but Anina dwelt amid their very haunts.
At this period also the police established by the French Government,
which then possessed Rome, made these bands more alive to the conduct of
their members; and rumours of active measures to be taken against those
who occupied the hills near Albano, Nemi, and Velletri, caused them to
draw together in tighter bonds. Domenico would not, if he could, desert
his friends in the hour of danger.
On a _festa_ at this time—it was towards the end of October—Anina
strolled with her father among the villagers, who all over Italy make
holiday by congregating and walking in one place. Their talk was
entirely of the _ladri_ and the French, and many terrible stories were
related of the extirpation of banditti in the kingdom of Naples, and the
mode by which the French succeeded in their undertaking was minutely
described. The troops scoured the country, visiting one haunt of the
robbers after the other, and dislodging them, tracked them as in those
countries they hunt the wild beasts of the forest, till, drawing the
circle narrower, they enclosed them in one spot. They then drew a cordon
round the place, which they guarded with the utmost vigilance,
forbidding any to enter it with provisions, on pain of instant death.
And as this menace was rigorously executed, in a short time the besieged
bandits were starved into a surrender. The French troops were now daily
expected, for they had been seen at Velletri and Nemi; at the same time
it was affirmed that several outlaws had taken up their abode at Rocca
Giovane, a deserted village on the summit of one of these hills, and it
was supposed that they would make that place the scene of their final
retreat.
The next day, as Anina worked in the _podere_, a party of French horse
passed by along the road that separated her garden from the lake.
Curiosity made her look at them; and her beauty was too great not to
attract. Their observations and address soon drove her away; for a woman
in love consecrates herself to her lover, and deems the admiration of
others to be profanation. She spoke to her father of the impertinence of
these men; and he answered by rejoicing at their arrival, and the
destruction of the lawless bands that would ensue. When in the evening
Anina went to the fountain, she looked timidly around, and hoped that
Domenico would be at his accustomed post, for the arrival of the French
destroyed her feeling of security. She went rather later than usual, and
a cloudy evening made it seem already dark; the wind roared among the
trees, bending hither and thither even the stately cypresses; the waters
of the lake were agitated into high waves, and dark masses of
thundercloud lowered over the hill-tops, giving a lurid tinge to the
landscape. Anina passed quickly up the mountain-path. When she came in
sight of the fountain, which was rudely hewn in the living rock, she saw
Domenico leaning against a projection of the hill, his hat drawn over
his eyes, his _tabaro_ fallen from his shoulders, his arms folded in an
attitude of dejection. He started when he saw her; his voice and phrases
were broken and unconnected; yet he never gazed on her with such ardent
love, nor solicited her to delay her departure with such impassioned
tenderness.
“How glad I am to find you here!” she said; “I was fearful of meeting
one of the French soldiers: I dread them even more than the banditti.”
Domenico cast a look of eager inquiry on her, and then turned away,
saying, “Sorry am I that I shall not be here to protect you. I am
obliged to go to Rome for a week or two. You will be faithful, Anina
mia; you will love me, though I never see you more?”
The interview, under these circumstances, was longer than usual. He led
her down the path till they nearly came in sight of her cottage; still
they lingered. A low whistle was heard among the myrtle underwood at the
lake-side; he started; it was repeated; and he answered it by a similar
note. Anina, terrified, was about to ask what this meant, when, for the
first time, he pressed her to his heart, kissed her roseate lips, and,
with a muttered “Carissima addio,” left her, springing down the bank;
and as she gazed in wonder, she thought she saw a boat cross a line of
light made by the opening of a cloud. She stood long absorbed in
reverie, wondering and remembering with thrilling pleasure the quick
embrace and impassioned farewell of her lover. She delayed so long that
her father came to seek her.
Each evening after this, Anina visited the fountain at the Ave Maria; he
was not there: each day seemed an age; and incomprehensible fears
occupied her heart. About a fortnight after, letters arrived from Maria.
They came to say that she had been ill of the malaria fever, that she
was now convalescent, but that change of air was necessary for her
recovery, and that she had obtained leave to spend a month at home at
Albano. She asked her father to come the next day to fetch her. These
were pleasant tidings for Anina; she resolved to disclose everything to
her sister, and during her long visit she doubted not but that she would
contrive her happiness. Old Andrea departed the following morning, and
the whole day was spent by the sweet girl in dreams of future bliss. In
the evening Maria arrived, weak and wan, with all the marks of that
dread illness about her, yet, as she assured her sister, feeling quite
well.
As they sat at their frugal supper, several villagers came in to inquire
for Maria; but all their talk was of the French soldiers and the
robbers, of whom a band of at least twenty was collected in Rocca
Giovane, strictly watched by the military.
“We may be grateful to the French,” said Andrea, “for this good deed;
the country will be rid of these ruffians.”
“True, friend,” said another; “but it is horrible to think what these
men suffer: they have, it appears, exhausted all the food they brought
with them to the village, and are literally starving. They have not an
ounce of maccaroni among them; and a poor fellow who was taken and
executed yesterday was a mere anatomy: you could tell every bone in his
skin.”
“There was a sad story the other day,” said another, “of an old man from
Nemi, whose son, they say, is among them at Rocca Giovane: he was found
within the lines with some _baccallà_ under his _pastrano_, and shot on
the spot.”
“There is not a more desperate gang,” observed the first speaker, “in
the states and the _regno_ put together. They have sworn never to yield
but upon good terms. To secure these, their plan is to waylay passengers
and make prisoners, whom they keep as hostages for mild treatment from
the Government. But the French are merciless; they are better pleased
that the bandits wreak their vengeance on these poor creatures than
spare one of their lives.”
“They have captured two persons already,” said another; “and there is
old Betta Tossi half frantic, for she is sure her son is taken: he has
not been at home these ten days.”
“I should rather guess,” said an old man, “that he went there with
good-will: the young scapegrace kept company with Domenico Baldi of
Nemi.”
“No worse company could he have kept in the whole country,” said Andrea;
“Domenico is the bad son of a bad race. Is he in the village with the
rest?”
“My own eyes assured me of that,” replied the other.
“When I was up the hill with eggs and fowls to the piquette there, I saw
the branches of an ilex move; the poor fellow was weak perhaps, and
could not keep his hold; presently he dropped to the ground; every
musket was levelled at him, but he started up and was away like a hare
among the rocks. Once he turned, and then I saw Domenico as plainly,
though thinner, poor lad, by much than he was,—as plainly as I now
see—Santa Virgine! what is the matter with Nina?”
She had fainted. The company broke up, and she was left to her sister’s
care. When the poor child came to herself she was fully aware of her
situation, and said nothing, except expressing a wish to retire to rest.
Maria was in high spirits at the prospect of her long holiday at home;
but the illness of her sister made her refrain from talking that night,
and blessing her, as she said good-night, she soon slept. Domenico
starving!—Domenico trying to escape and dying through hunger, was the
vision of horror that wholly possessed poor Anina. At another time, the
discovery that her lover was a robber might have inflicted pangs as keen
as those which she now felt; but this at present made a faint
impression, obscured by worse wretchedness. Maria was in a deep and
tranquil sleep. Anina rose, dressed herself silently, and crept
downstairs. She stored her market-basket with what food there was in the
house, and, unlatching the cottage-door, issued forth, resolved to reach
Rocca Giovane, and to administer to her lover’s dreadful wants. The
night was dark, but this was favourable, for she knew every path and
turn of the hills, every bush and knoll of ground between her home and
the deserted village which occupies the summit of that hill. You may see
the dark outline of some of its houses about two hours’ walk from her
cottage. The night was dark, but still; the _libeccio_ brought the
clouds below the mountain-tops, and veiled the horizon in mist; not a
leaf stirred; her footsteps sounded loud in her ears, but resolution
overcame fear. She had entered yon ilex grove, her spirits rose with her
success, when suddenly she was challenged by a sentinel; no time for
escape; fear chilled her blood; her basket dropped from her arm; its
contents rolled out on the ground; the soldier fired his gun, and
brought several others round him; she was made prisoner.
In the morning, when Maria awoke she missed her sister from her side. I
have overslept myself, she thought, and Nina would not disturb me. But
when she came downstairs and met her father, and Anina did not appear,
they began to wonder. She was not in the _podere_; two hours passed, and
then Andrea went to seek her. Entering the near village, he saw the
contadini crowding together, and a stifled exclamation of “Ecco il
padre!” told him that some evil had betided. His first impression was
that his daughter was drowned; but the truth, that she had been taken by
the French carrying provisions within the forbidden line, was still more
terrible. He returned in frantic desperation to his cottage, first to
acquaint Maria with what had happened, and then to ascend the hill to
save his child from her impending fate. Maria heard his tale with
horror; but an hospital is a school in which to learn self-possession
and presence of mind. “Do you remain, my father,” she said; “I will go.
My holy character will awe these men, my tears move them: trust me; I
swear that I will save my sister.” Andrea yielded to her superior
courage and energy.
The nuns of Santa Chiara when out of their convent do not usually wear
their monastic habit, but dress simply in a black gown. Maria, however,
had brought her nun’s habiliments with her, and, thinking thus to
impress the soldiers with respect, she now put them on. She received her
father’s benediction, and, asking that of the Virgin and the saints, she
departed on her expedition. Ascending the hill, she was soon stopped by
the sentinels. She asked to see their commanding officer, and being
conducted to him, she announced herself as the sister of the unfortunate
girl who had been captured the night before. The officer, who had
received her with carelessness, now changed countenance: his serious
look frightened Maria, who clasped her hands, exclaiming, “You have not
injured the child! she is safe!”
“She is safe—now,” he replied with hesitation; “but there is no hope of
pardon.”
“Holy Virgin, have mercy on her! What will be done to her?”
“I have received strict orders: in two hours she dies.”
“No! no!” exclaimed Maria impetuously, “that cannot be! You cannot be so
wicked as to murder a child like her.”
“She is old enough, madame,” said the officer, “to know that she ought
not to disobey orders; mine are so strict, that were she but nine years
old, she dies.”
These terrible words stung Maria to fresh resolution: she entreated for
mercy; she knelt; she vowed that she would not depart without her
sister; she appealed to Heaven and the saints. The officer, though
cold-hearted, was good-natured and courteous, and he assured her with
the utmost gentleness that her supplications were of no avail; that were
the criminal his own daughter he must enforce his orders. As a sole
concession, he permitted her to see her sister. Despair inspired the nun
with energy; she almost ran up the hill, out-speeding her guide: they
crossed a folding of the hills to a little sheep-cot, where sentinels
paraded before the door. There was no glass to the windows, so the
shutters were shut; and when Maria first went in from the bright
daylight she hardly saw the slight figure of her sister leaning against
the wall, her dark hair fallen below her waist, her head sunk on her
bosom, over which her arms were folded. She started wildly as the door
opened, saw her sister, and sprang with a piercing shriek into her arms.
They were left alone together: Anina uttered a thousand frantic
exclamations, beseeching her sister to save her, and shuddering at the
near approach of her fate. Maria had felt herself, since their mother’s
death, the natural protectress and support of her sister, and she never
deemed herself so called on to fulfil this character as now that the
trembling girl clasped her neck,—her tears falling on her cheeks, and
her choked voice entreating her to save her. The thought—O could I
suffer instead of you! was in her heart, and she was about to express
it, when it suggested another idea, on which she was resolved to act.
First she soothed Anina by her promises, then glanced round the cot;
they were quite alone: she went to the window, and through a crevice saw
the soldiers conversing at some distance. “Yes, dearest sister,” she
cried, “I will—I can save you—quick—we must change dresses—there is no
time to be lost I—you must escape in my habit.”
“And you remain to die?”
“They dare not murder the innocent, a nun! Fear not for me—I am safe.”
Anina easily yielded to her sister, but her fingers trembled; every
string she touched she entangled. Maria was perfectly self-possessed,
pale, but calm. She tied up her sister’s long hair, and adjusted her
veil over it so as to conceal it; she unlaced her bodice, and arranged
the folds of her own habit on her with the greatest care—then more
hastily she assumed the dress of her sister, putting on, after a lapse
of many years, her native contadina costume. Anina stood by, weeping and
helpless, hardly hearing her sister’s injunctions to return speedily to
their father, and under his guidance to seek sanctuary. The guard now
opened the door. Anina clung to her sister in terror, while she, in
soothing tones, entreated her to calm herself.
The soldier said they must delay no longer, for the priest had arrived
to confess the prisoner.
To Anina the idea of confession associated with death was terrible; to
Maria it brought hope. She whispered, in a smothered voice, “The priest
will protect me—fear not—hasten to our father!”
Anina almost mechanically obeyed: weeping, with her handkerchief placed
unaffectedly before her face, she passed the soldiers; they closed the
door on the prisoner, who hastened to the window, and saw her sister
descend the hill with tottering steps, till she was lost behind some
rising ground. The nun fell on her knees—cold dew bathed her brow,
instinctively she feared: the French had shown small respect for the
monastic character; they destroyed the convents and desecrated the
churches. Would they be merciful to her, and spare the innocent? Alas!
was not Anina innocent also? Her sole crime had been disobeying an
arbitrary command, and she had done the same.
“Courage!” cried Maria; “perhaps I am fitter to die than my sister is.
Gesu, pardon me my sins, but I do not believe that I shall out live this
day!”
In the meantime, Anina descended the hill slowly and trembling. She
feared discovery,—she feared for her sister,—and above all, at the
present moment, she feared the reproaches and anger of her father. By
dwelling on this last idea, it became exaggerated into excessive terror,
and she determined, instead of returning to her home, to make a circuit
among the hills, to find her way by herself to Albano, where she trusted
to find protection from her pastor and confessor. She avoided the open
paths, and following rather the direction she wished to pursue than any
beaten road, she passed along nearer to Rocca Giovane than she
anticipated. She looked up at its ruined houses and bell-less steeple,
straining her eyes to catch a glimpse of him, the author of all her
ills. A low but distinct whistle reached her ear, not far off; she
started,—she remembered that on the night when she last saw Domenico a
note like that had called him from her side; the sound was echoed and
re-echoed from other quarters; she stood aghast, her bosom heaving, her
hands clasped. First she saw a dark and ragged head of hair, shadowing
two fiercely gleaming eyes, rise from beneath a bush. She screamed, but
before she could repeat her scream three men leapt from behind a rock,
secured her arms, threw a cloth over her face, and hurried her up the
acclivity. Their talk, as she went along, informed her of the horror and
danger of her situation.
Pity, they said, that the holy father and some of his red stockings did
not command the troops: with a nun in their hands, they might obtain any
terms. Coarse jests passed as they dragged their victim towards their
ruined village. The paving of the street told her when they arrived at
Rocca Giovane, and the change of atmosphere that they entered a house.
They unbandaged her eyes: the scene was squalid and miserable, the walls
ragged and black with smoke, the floor strewn with offals and dirt; a
rude table and broken bench was all the furniture; and the leaves of
Indian corn, heaped high in one corner, served, it seemed, for a bed,
for a man lay on it, his head buried in his folded arms. Anina looked
round on her savage hosts: their countenances expressed every variety of
brutal ferocity, now rendered more dreadful from gaunt famine and
suffering.
“Oh, there is none who will save me!” she cried. The voice startled the
man who was lying on the floor; he lept up—it was Domenico: Domenico, so
changed, with sunk cheeks and eyes, matted hair, and looks whose
wildness and desperation differed little from the dark countenances
around him. Could this be her lover?
His recognition and surprise at her dress led to an explanation. When
the robbers first heard that their prey was no prize, they were
mortified and angry; but when she related the danger she had incurred by
endeavouring to bring them food, they swore with horrid oaths that no
harm should befall her, but that if she liked she might make one of them
in all honour and equality. The innocent girl shuddered. “Let me go,”
she cried; “let me only escape and hide myself in a convent for ever!”
Domenico looked at her in agony. “Yes, poor child,” he said; “go save
yourself: God grant no evil befall you; the ruin is too wide already.”
Then turning eagerly to his comrades, he continued: “You hear her story.
She was to have been shot for bringing food to us: her sister has
substituted herself in her place. We know the French; one victim is to
them as good as another: Maria dies in their hands. Let us save her. Our
time is up; we must fall like men, or starve like dogs: we have still
ammunition, still some strength left. To arms! let us rush on the
poltroons, free their prisoner, and escape or die!”
There needed but an impulse like this to urge the outlaws to desperate
resolves. They prepared their arms with looks of ferocious
determination. Domenico, meanwhile, led Anina out of the house, to the
verge of the hill, inquiring whether she intended to go. On her saying
to Albano, he observed, “That were hardly safe; be guided by me, I
entreat you: take these piastres, hire the first conveyance you find,
hasten to Rome, to the convent of Santa Chiara: for pity’s sake, do not
linger in this neighbourhood.”
“I will obey your injunctions, Domenico,” she replied, “but I cannot
take your money; it has cost you too dear: fear not, I shall arrive
safely at Rome without that ill-fated silver.”
Domenico’s comrades now called loudly to him: he had no time to urge his
request; he threw the despised dollars at her feet.
“Nina, adieu for ever,” he said: “may you love again more happily!”
“Never!” she replied. “God has saved me in this dress; it were sacrilege
to change it: I shall never quit Santa Chiara.”
Domenico had led her a part of the way down the rock; his comrades
appeared at the top, calling to him.
“Gesu save you!” cried he: “reach the convent—Maria shall join you there
before night. Farewell!” He hastily kissed her hand, and sprang up the
acclivity to rejoin his impatient friends.
The unfortunate Andrea had waited long for the return of his children.
The leafless trees and bright clear atmosphere permitted every object to
be visible, but he saw no trace of them on the hill-side; the shadows of
the dial showed noon to be passed, when, with uncontrollable impatience,
he began to climb the hill, towards the spot where Anina had been taken.
The path he pursued was in part the same that this unhappy girl had
taken on her way to Rome. The father and daughter met: the old man saw
the nun’s dress, and saw her unaccompanied: she covered her face with
her hands in a transport of fear and shame; but when, mistaking her for
Maria, he asked in a tone of anguish for his youngest darling, her arms
fell—she dared not raise her eyes, which streamed with tears.
“Unhappy girl!” exclaimed Andrea, “where is your sister?”
She pointed to the cottage prison, now discernible near the summit of a
steep acclivity. “She is safe,” she replied: “she saved me; but they
dare not murder her.”
“Heaven bless her for this good deed!” exclaimed the old man fervently;
“but you hasten on your way, and I will go in search of her.”
Each proceeded on an opposite path. The old man wound up the hill, now
in view, and now losing sight of the hut where his child was captive: he
was aged, and the way was steep. Once, when the closing of the hill hid
the point towards which he for ever strained his eyes, a single shot was
fired in that direction: his staff fell from his hands, his knees
trembled and failed him; several minutes of dead silence elapsed before
he recovered himself sufficiently to proceed: full of fears he went on,
and at the next turn saw the cot again. A party of soldiers were on the
open space before it, drawn up in a line as if expecting an attack. In a
few moments from above them shots were fired, which they returned, and
the whole was enveloped and veiled in smoke. Still Andrea climbed the
hill, eager to discover what had become of his child: the firing
continued quick and hot. Now and then, in the pauses of musketry and the
answering echoes of the mountains, he heard a funeral chant; presently,
before he was aware, at a turning of the hill, he met a company of
priests and contadini, carrying a large cross and a bier. The miserable
father rushed forward with frantic impatience; the awe-struck peasants
set down their load—the face was uncovered, and the wretched man fell
helpless on the corpse of his murdered child.
The Countess Atanasia paused, overcome by the emotions inspired by the
history she related. A long pause ensued: at length one of the party
observed, “Maria, then, was the sacrifice to her goodness.”
“The French,” said the countess, “did not venerate her holy vocation;
one peasant girl to them was the same as another. The immolation of any
victim suited their purpose of awe-striking the peasantry. Scarcely,
however, had the shot entered her heart, and her blameless spirit been
received by the saints in Paradise, when Domenico and his followers
rushed down the hill to avenge her and themselves. The contest was
furious and bloody; twenty French soldiers fell, and not one of the
banditti escaped,—Domenico, the foremost of the assailants, being the
first to fall.”
I asked, “And where are now Anina and her father?”
“You may see them, if you will,” said the countess, “on your return to
Rome. She is a nun of Santa Chiara. Constant acts of benevolence and
piety have inspired her with calm and resignation. Her prayers are daily
put up for Domenico’s soul, and she hopes, through the intercession of
the Virgin, to rejoin him in the other world.
“Andrea is very old; he has outlived the memory of his sufferings; but
he derives comfort from the filial attentions of his surviving daughter.
But when I look at his cottage on this lake, and remember the happy
laughing face of Anina among the vines, I shudder at the recollection of
the passion that has made her cheeks pale, her thoughts for ever
conversant with death, her only wish to find repose in the grave.”
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II.
_FERDINANDO EBOLI._