you have shown me since this sad misfortune befell. Tell my uncle how
much I have felt and feel for him. Addio, Signor Fortini. If anything
new should turn up you will not fail to let me know it? Think of what I
said about the friar; and mind, once more, and once for all, I will not
come scatheless, as you say, out of this business and leave Paolina to
be held guilty."
"Addio, Signor Marchese."
CHAPTER IV
What Ravenna thought of it
Signor Fortini had rather mitigated than exaggerated the truth in
speaking to the Marchese Ludovico of his uncle's state of mind. During
all these days his condition was truly deplorable. He had never, in all
this time, left the Palazzo, and had scarcely left his own chamber. He
absolutely refused to see anybody save Signor Fortini. He could not
sleep by night, or remain at rest in the same place for half-an-hour
together during the day.
Of course he could attend to none of the numerous duties--mostly labours
of benevolence--that usually occupied his time. His servants thought
that he was losing his reason; yet, in the midst of all the terrible
distress that was weighing him down, the usual kindness and considerate
benevolence of his nature and habitual conduct had shone out. The only
one thing that he had given any attention to was the gratification of
the wishes, and the promotion of the welfare, of an old servant.
Niccolo, the old groom who was mentioned, as the reader may, perhaps,
remember, on the occasion of a certain conversation which Lawyer Fortini
had with him, as having been all his life in the service of the
Marchese, and of his father before him, was getting, as he had himself
remarked to the lawyer, almost too old for his work. He had always
hitherto absolutely refused, with the masterful obstinacy of an old
favourite, all proposals of retirement; but, on the next morning but one
after the fatal Ash Wednesday, while the Marchese had been in such a
state of painful agitation that he could hardly bear to be addressed by
his own servant, he had, to the great surprise of all the household,
sent for old Niccolo, who had remained with him more than an hour.
On coming out from the interview the old groom said that he had himself
asked for the audience his master had given him; but it did not seem at
all clear to the other servants when or how he could have done so. He
said that he had spoken to his master on the subject long before; and
how kind and good it was of the Marchese to think of his old servant's
affairs in all his trouble. His master had arranged for him, he said,
what he had long wished for, though it seemed to all the household that
old Niccolo had always rejected any proposal of the sort. He was to have
a pension, and go to live with a niece of his who was married in Rome.
It was odd that none of his fellow-servants had ever heard anything of
any such niece. But old Niccolo was not a man of a communicative turn;
and perhaps nothing had ever chanced to lead him to speak of her. Now he
was to join her at once; he was to start for Faenza that very afternoon,
so as to catch there the diligence from Bologna to Rome.
But why such a sudden start? Why should he go off and leave them all, at
a few hours' notice.
Well, the fact was, that the day after the morrow was his niece's
birthday. And he thought he should like to give her the joyful surprise
of seeing her old uncle and learning the new arrangements on that day.
And his dear thoughtful master, who was always so kind to everybody, had
entered into his scheme, and so arranged it.
And so it was; old Niccolo was gone to Rome as he had said. But he had
given nobody any address by which to find him in the Eternal City. And a
little jealousy, perhaps, was felt at the good fortune which had thus
befallen one out of several who would have liked the same. But all
admitted that it was a remarkable proof of the thoughtful kindness of
the Marchese in the midst of his own troubles.
And how terribly those troubles pressed on him was evident to the whole
household; and, by means of their reports, to the entire city. Everybody
in Ravenna knew with how heavy a hand affliction had fallen upon the
Marchese Lamberto. And everybody talked of it. Sympathizing pity and
blame were mingled in the judgments which were being passed on the
Marchese every hour, and in every place where men or women met; and the
proportions in which they were mingled differed greatly. None, however,
could fail to see and to admit that the fall from the high pinnacle, on
which the Marchese had stood, had been a very terrible one. It was felt
that it was a fall from which he could never, under any circumstances,
entirely recover.
The women were, for the most part, more indulgent to him than the men.
As for the unfortunate Bianca, they held that a righteous and deserved
judgment had fallen upon her, in which the operation of the finger of
Providence was distinctly visible. To be sure it was a signal warning to
all men, as to the evils which might be expected to flow from any
sipping of the Circean cup which such creatures proffered to their lips.
But what fate could be too bad for the Siren herself? To think of the
audacity, the shameless effrontery of such an one in daring to spread
her lures, and wind her enchantments around such a man as the Marchese
di Castelmare. Of course he, poor man, could not but feel her death as a
terrible shock. What he had set his heart on had been violently and
awfully taken away from him. And how true it is that the blessed Saints
know what is most truly for our good! But what is all that to the
dreadful accusation hanging over the Marchese Ludovico? A Castelmare in
the prison of Ravenna under accusation of murder! And if it really were
the case, that the unfortunate young man, driven by the prospect of
being hurled down from his position and robbed of his inheritance, had
done this deed, how great, how terrible, must be the remorse of the
Marchese Lamberto!
It was curiously characteristic of the moral nature and habits of
thought of the people, that the Marchese Ludovico, even on the
hypothesis that he had committed the murder, was very leniently judged
for his share in the tragedy.
The men were more inclined to bear hard on the Marchese Lamberto. An old
fool! at his time of life, to offer marriage to such a woman as La
Bianca. To disgrace his name; to cover himself with ridicule; and above
all, and worst of all, to behave with such infamous injustice to his
nephew. Nevertheless the tragedy was so shocking and so complete, that
even those who were disposed to condemn his conduct the most severely,
could not but feel compassion for so crushing a weight of misfortune.
As the opinion, however, began to gain ground in the city, that the
Marchesino Ludovico had, after all, not been the author of the murder;
that the first impression, however clearly the circumstances seemed, at
the first blush of the thing, to point to it, was a mistaken one; and
that the far more probable opinion was that the Venetian girl, Paolina
Foscarelli, was the murderess, and jealousy the incentive to her crime,
the compassion for the Marchese Lamberto became proportionably less. The
feeling was rather, that as far as he was concerned he had got nothing
worse than what he richly deserved. And who should say that all was not
upon the whole for the best as it had pleased heaven to cause it to fall
out? The Marchese Lamberto was saved, despite his own folly, from a
disgraceful and degrading marriage; and Ludovico was saved from the ruin
which threatened him.
Nor, muttered the more cynical, was that all the good that was involved
in what, at first sight, seemed so great a misfortune. Ludovico, too,
was prevented from doing a foolish thing. It was a very different matter
in his case from that of his uncle: he would be doing no wrong to any
heir; and he was at that time of life when men do fall in love, and are
excusable if they are led by it into doing foolish things; not to
mention that, after all, the marriage he had proposed to make was a very
different one from such a monstrous alliance as the Marchese Lamberto
had meditated.
But still was it not a great blessing that the Marchesino should be
prevented from throwing himself away in that manner? The first match in
Ravenna to be carried off by an obscure and plebeian Venetian artist.
Truly it was all for the best as it was.
In their different degree these two stranger women were both noxious,
dangerous, and had done more mischief in Ravenna than the lives of
either of them were worth. And if Providence had in its wisdom decreed
that they should mutually counteract and abolish each other--why it
would behove them to see in it a signal instance of the overruling
wisdom of Heaven.
In the meantime, however, while every imaginable variety and
modification of the above ideas and opinions were forming the staple of
every conversation in every street, house, cafe, and piazza of Ravenna,
the two men, whose conduct was thus canvassed, were assuredly suffering
no light measure of retribution for aught that they had done amiss.
To Ludovico the tidings which reached him of the favourable turn matters
were taking as to the probability of his having himself to answer for
the murder of the singer, were neutralized in any effect they might
otherwise have had of bringing him happiness, by the fact that he was
exculpated only in exact proportion to the increasing probability that
Paolina might be held guilty of the crime.
If, in truth, he carried in his own bosom the consciousness of his own
guilt, it may easily be imagined how horrible to him would appear the
prospect of escaping from the consequences of it by such means. And if
that were, indeed, the dreadful truth, the repeated declarations which
he had made to Signor Fortini to the effect that, rather than see
Paolina condemned as guilty, he would confess himself to be the
murderer, would in no wise appear as mere ebullitions of his
determination to save at all price the girl he loved.
But, during those days Ludovico suffered, he either bore his sufferings
with much more of manly self-command than did his uncle, or else his
agony was (as Signor Fortini, who saw them both, could testify) much
less severe than that which seemed to be slowly dragging down the
Marchese Lamberto to the grave.
The lawyer had told Ludovico that he was then going to his uncle; and,
in fact, he did so. But the old man dreaded doing so more than he could
have himself believed that he could have feared any similar duty.
In truth, the condition of the Marchese Lamberto was pitiable.
He would see no one, save Fortini; but he was most anxious for his
visits--very naturally anxious to hear from day to day, and almost from
hour to hour, how matters were going--whether any new circumstances had
been discovered; what change there was in the probabilities as to the
final judgment respecting the crime; and there was a restless
feverishness in his anxiety, a shattered condition of the nervous system
that made the lawyer seriously fear that the Marchese's reason would
sink under the strain.
He had again and again urged him to allow a medical man to see him; and
had once mentioned the Marchese's old friend Professor Tomosarchi. But
the irritated violence with which the suffering man had rejected the
proposal, had been such as to lead the lawyer to think that he should be
doing more harm than good by reiterating it.
It was not surprising, indeed, that the Marchese should be utterly
beaten down and vanquished by the misfortunes that had fallen upon him;
they attacked him from such various and opposite sides. His love for
Bianca--or, let me say (in order to satisfy readers who are wont to
weigh the real meaning of words as well as those who are in the habit of
taking them unexamined at their current value), his longing to possess
her--was genuine and intense. The step he had determined to take gives
the measure of his eagerness in the pursuit of her--of his conviction
that he could not live without her; and the object of this great, this
intense, this all-mastering passion had been snatched away from him; the
unappeasable agony of such a bereavement can, perhaps, only be
adequately measured by those who have felt it.
Then all the evils which, despite his shrinking from them, he had faced
for the sake of gratifying this imperious passion, had fallen upon him
as fatally of though the price of his facing them had been paid to him.
All the loss of credit, of respect, of social station, which he had
found it so dreadful to contemplate, had been incurred--and for nothing.
How long and terrible had been the struggle, which of those two
incompatible objects of his intense desire--Bianca, or the social
position he held in the eyes of his fellow-citizens--he should sacrifice
to the other; it had seemed to him so impossible to give up either that
the necessity of choosing between them had almost unhinged his reason.
And now he was doomed to forego them both.
Then, again, Ludovico, and the dreadful position in which he stood! and,
if he were condemned, on whose head would fall the blame of the disgrace
which would thus overwhelm the family name? If his nephew were held to
be guilty of this crime, would not all the odium of having driven him to
it fall on him?
Truly there was wherewithal to bow down a stronger heart and head than
those of the Marchese Lamberto.
According to Fortini's view of the matter, the tidings which he had to
bring the Marchese that morning ought to have gone far to tranquillize
and comfort him. Let it be shown that the heir to the Castelmare name
and honours had not committed a terrible crime, and was not in danger of
being convicted of it, and, in his opinion, all the worst of the evils
which had fallen on the Marchese were at an end. That was the only
really irreparable mischief; the city would have its laugh at the
Marchese for his sensibility to the charms of such a charmer as the
singer. But even that would be quenched by the startling change of the
comedy into a tragedy. The Marchese had shown that he was no wiser than
many another man; and it would be but a nine days' wonder; and as to the
mere loss of the woman who had done all the mischief, the lawyer had no
patience with the mention of it as a loss at all.
Pshaw! The one really important matter was to clear the heir of the
house of all complicity in the crime of murder; and yet the lawyer had a
strong feeling, from what he had already seen of the Marchese, that the
good news of which he was the bearer in that respect would not give the
Marchese all the comfort that it ought to give him.
And the result of the visit to the Palazzo Castelmare, which he paid
immediately after leaving the Marchesino Ludovico in his prison,
perfectly responded to his anticipations in this respect.
CHAPTER V
"Miserrimus"
He found the Marchese in a state which really seemed to threaten his
life or his reason. It would scarcely be correct to say of him that he
was depressed, for that phrase is hardly consistent with the feverish
condition of excitement in which he was. There was evidence enough in
his appearance of the presence of deep-seated and torturing misery,
especially devastating in the case of men of his race, constituted as
they are with nervous systems of great delicacy, and unendowed with that
robustness of fibre which enables the more strongly-fashioned scions of
the northern peoples to stand up against misfortune, and present a bold
front to adversity.
There is no connection in the minds of this race between the repression
and control of emotion and their ideal of virile dignity. Reticence is
impossible to them. The Italian man, it is true, has been often
described as eminently reticent; and the northern popular conception
represents him as apt to seek the attainment of his object by the
concealment of it. Nor is that representation an erroneous one. But the
two statements are in no wise inconsistent. The Italian man is by
nature, habit, and training an adept at concealing his thoughts; he
rarely or never seeks to conceal his emotions.
Whether there were thoughts in the Marchese's mind, which he had no wish
or intention to disclose to his visitor, might be a matter of
speculation to the latter. But he certainly made no attempt to hide the
misery which was consuming him. The outward appearance of the man was
eloquent enough of the disorder within. He had always been wont to be
especially neat and precise in his dress; clean shaven, and with that
look of bright freshness on his clear-complexioned and well-rounded
cheeks, which is specially suggestive of health, happiness, and
well-to-do prosperity. Now his cheeks were hollow and yellow, and grisly
stubble of uncared-for beard, covered his deeply-lined jaws. He was
dressed, if dressed it could be called, in a large loose chamber
wrapper, the open neck of which, and of the shirt beneath it, allowed
the visitor's eye to mark that the emaciation which a few days of misery
and anxiety had availed to cause, was not confined to his face only.
But yet more remarkable was the terrible state of nervous restlessness
from which he was evidently suffering. He was unable to remain quiet in
his easy chair even while his visitor remained with him. He would every
now and then rise from it without reason, and pace the room for two or
three turns with the uneasy objectless manner of a wild animal confined
to a cage. Again and again he would go to the window, and gaze from it,
as though looking for some expected thing or person. He spoke and
behaved as if he had been most anxious for the coming of the lawyer, and
yet, now he was there, he seemed scarcely able to command his attention
sufficiently to take interest in the tidings Signor Fortini brought him.
"Thank God, Signor Marchese, the news I bring is good. Thank God, I am
able to express to you my conscientious opinion that the Marchese
Ludovico had no more to do with the murder of this unfortunate woman
than I had. And such is now the general opinion throughout the city."
"Is there anything new? Has any--any--discovery been made?" said the
Marchese, and his teeth chattered in his head as he spoke.
"Nothing that I can quite call a discovery," returned the lawyer; "but
small circumstances in such a case as this, when carefully put together,
form a clue, which rarely fails, when one has enough of them, to lead up
to the desired truth."
"Ah!--small circumstances, as you say--yes--but circumstances--eh?--do
they not often--must we not be very careful--eh?" and the Marchese shook
as he spoke, till the lawyer really began to think that he must be
labouring under an attack of the same illness that had seized on father
Fabiano.
"Fortunately, Signor Marchese, the circumstances all point, in the
present instance, in the direction we would wish. That is," added the
lawyer, hastily, "God forbid that I should wish such a crime to be
brought home to any human being, but in the interests of truth and
justice; and of course our first object is that the Marchese Ludovico
should be cleared."
"Of course, of course. Why naturally, you know--But--in what
direction--eh?--do the suspicions--that is, the opinions--you, yourself,
Signor Giovacchino--who do you think now could have done the deed?" said
the Marchese, finishing his sentence with an apparent effort.
"My notion is," said the lawyer, speaking strongly and distinctly, "that
the murder was committed by the Venetian girl, Paolina Foscarelli. You
are aware of the circumstances that first directed suspicion towards
her. Alone they are very strong; but some other little matters have come
out. She has now been examined several times; and the account she gives
of the hours that passed between the time she left the church of St.
Apollinare, and the time when she was first seen afterwards is a very
lame and unsatisfactory one. Then, my friend, Signor Logarini, of the
police, who has been most praiseworthily active in the matter, has
discovered that the old friar, who has the charge of the Basilica, and
who is a Venetian, was connected with the parents of this girl, which
renders it extremely probable that he may wish to screen her; and that
fact, taken in conjunction with the very strong reasons we have to think
that the friar has some knowledge of the deed, and his very manifest
reluctance to tell what he knows, seems to point in the same direction."
"The friar at St. Apollinare," said the Marchese, with blue trembling
lips, as he looked keenly into the lawyer's face; "why it is impossible
that he could know anything about it. The friar--"
"Impossible? why impossible, Signor Marchese? We know that he was in the
Pineta much about the time the deed must have been done."
The Marchese threw himself back in his deep easy chair, and covered his
face with his hand. The lawyer paused, and shook his head as he looked
at him.
"The friar in the Pineta!" he exclaimed, getting up from his chair after
a minute or two, and taking a few disorderly steps across the room.
"You see; Signor Giovacchino," he continued, returning to his seat, "I
have been so shaken by all the misery I have gone through, and all the
sleepless nights I have passed, that--that--that I am hardly in a fit
state to appreciate the value of the--the facts you lay before me. I
have been trying to think--I am afraid--very much afraid for my own part
that no weight is to be attributed to any testimony which may be got
from the friar of St. Apollinare."
"Why so, Signor Marchese?" asked the lawyer, shortly.
"I know the old man very well. I have often talked with him. He is not
in his right mind: certainly not in such a state of mind as would
justify the magistrates in paying any attention to his statements," said
the Marchese, in a more decided manner than he had before spoken.
"I spoke with the old man at some length the other day, and I cannot say
that that was my impression at all. In my opinion he was quite enough in
his senses to know how to withhold the information which, I suspect, he
could give us if he would. May I ask, Signor Marchese, how long it is
since you have spoken with him?"
"Oh! a long time. How could I speak to him, you know. I do not suppose
he often comes into the city. And it is ever so long--a year or
more--since I was out at St. Apollinare; as far as I can remember," said
the Marchese, with a rapid sidelong glance at the lawyer; "but I am
convinced the old man is not in his right mind," he added, not without
some vehemence; "and it is dangerous to put any faith, or to build at
all upon anything that such a person may say. Why, he is always seeing
visions; and what is such an one's account worth of anything he may
fancy himself to have seen."
"Well, Signor Marchese, the tribunal will form its own opinion upon that
point. For my own part, I cannot help feeling glad of any scrap of
evidence which tends to corroborate the opinion that the Marchese
Ludovico has been erroneously and precipitately accused."
"Of course, Signor Giovacchino, of course. A chi lo dite! And I am truly
obliged to you for coming to me with the news you have given me. But you
can understand, perhaps--in part, Signor Giovacchino, in part--not
altogether--what I have gone through in these days. My mind has been
shaken--sadly shaken, amico mio. I shall never recover it--never," said
the Marchese, letting his head fall on his bosom.
"Nay, Signor Marchese. I would fain hope it is not so bad as all that.
Let this business of the trial be over, and the Marchese Ludovico, as I
doubt not, entirely cleared and absolved, and all will yet go well. The
rest is matter of sorrow which time may be trusted to heal."
"The trial! Ay, the trial. When--eh?--when is it likely to come off,
Signor Giovacchino. Yes, as you say, it would be a good thing if that
were over," said the Marchese, with a manner that indicated a high state
of nervous irritability.
"It won't be long; there is little or no hope of any further light being
thrown on the matter; some day next week, I should say; I don't think
they will be longer than that; and the sooner the better--only, that I
am afraid you may find the ordeal a disagreeable one."
"Who? I? Why should I--? That is, of course, on Ludovico's account--"
"Excuse me, Signor Marchese; but you must feel, surely, that it will be
absolutely necessary for you to be present in court."
"I? I be present? Why, don't you see that I am unable to leave my
chamber--shall probably never leave it again; how can I be present in
court? It is out of the question."
"Your lordship will pardon me, Signor Marchese, if I point out to you
that it is quite indispensable that you should appear in court on the
occasion of the trial," returned the lawyer, firmly. "Your own excellent
judgment, and sense of what is fitting and due to your own position,
will, I am sure, put this matter in an unmistakeable light before you.
Think a little what the inferences, the remarks, the suggestions would
be to which your absence on such an occasion would give rise; not to
mention that it can hardly be doubted that the tribunal will think it
necessary to examine your lordship respecting certain points--"
"Me? What can I tell? What can it be necessary to examine me for? I know
absolutely nothing; it is impossible that I should know anything of the
matter; besides, I am too ill to leave my chamber."
"Of course, if Tomosarchi were, after visiting you by direction of the
tribunal, to certify that you were not in a fit state--"
"I won't see Tomosarchi; no testimony can be needed to the fact that I
am in no condition to leave the house; I tell you, Signor Fortini, I
will not see him; I cannot see anybody."
"I fear, Signor Marchese, that it would be impossible in any other way
to avoid complying with the request of the tribunal for your presence.
Besides that, it would be far better, in every point of view, that you
should show yourself in the court. The fact of your absence on such an
occasion could not but be unpleasantly remarked on," urged the lawyer.
"Why? What can I be wanted for? What can I tell them? It is very evident
that I am, and must needs be, utterly ignorant of the whole matter,"
returned the Marchese.
"There are various points on which the magistrates will, doubtless, wish
for the information which your lordship can give them, although you may
have no means of throwing any light on the main facts of the
assassination. They will wish, for instance, to ask respecting the
circumstances of the Marchese Ludovico's expedition to the Pineta. The
police, you must remember, Signor Marchese, are already aware that you
were cognizant of the Marchese Ludovico's intention of taking La Lalli
to the Pineta. That has been ascertained from the admission of the Conte
Leandro--"
"A thousand curses on the Conte Leandro," exclaimed the Marchese.
"His figure in the matter is a deplorable one, truly; but you can
understand, Signor Marchese, that the court will desire to ask some
questions of you on this head--nothing that you can have any difficulty
in answering or any objection to answer; but I am sure you will see, on
consideration, that it would have a very bad effect for your lordship to
show the least desire to avoid being present."
"It will be most distasteful to me--very painful, indeed--I don't think
it ought to be required of me under all the circumstances," pleaded the
unhappy man.
"Unpleasant it will be, doubtless; the whole affair has not been a
pleasant one for anybody concerned in it, Signor Marchese--for any one
in Ravenna, I may say. But you may depend upon it that it will be the
wish of the court and of everybody present to make it as little painful
to you as possible. And it is my very serious and very urgent advice to
you to make the necessary exertion, and not to express to any one either
the intention or the wish to absent yourself."
And then the lawyer took his leave--not surprised that the Marchese,
broken down and in the state in which he saw him, should feel it very
disagreeable to face his fellow citizens on the occasion of the trial;
but, perhaps, having some other thoughts in his mind besides those he
expressed as to the ill effect likely to be produced by any refusal of
the Marchese to make his appearance in the court.
CHAPTER VI
The Trial
The police authorities were longer in preparing their case than Signor
Fortini had anticipated they would be; but at length it was known
throughout the city that the day for the trial had been fixed. It was to
take place on a Monday morning towards the latter part of Lent.
It had been rumoured in the city that the delay had been occasioned by
hopes which the authorities had conceived that the female prisoner would
be induced to make confession of the crime. The imprisonment and the
repeated interrogatories she had undergone had produced a great effect
upon her. She had become downcast to a very much greater degree than she
had been in the days immediately following her arrest. She was very
silent, refraining even from the earnest and frequent protestations of
her innocence, which, during the early days of her imprisonment, she had
seized every opportunity of making. She passed many hours apparently
plunged in deep introspective thought; she wept much, and passed much of
her time in prayer.
And the judgment of the experienced people about her led them to
interpret these manifestations as signs of an approaching confession.
When at length the day for the trial was fixed, it was reported that
Paolina Foscarelli had confessed. But the criminal authorities keep the
secrets of their prison house in such matters; and nothing certain was
known upon the subject.
The very general impression, however, throughout the city was that,
whether she confessed or not, she was the real criminal, and that such
would be declared by the tribunal to be the case. And such a solution of
the mystery was readily accepted by the Ravenna world as the most
satisfactory that under the unhappy circumstances could be arrived at.
The disgrace that rested on the city in consequence of the perpetration
of so foul a crime, and on such a victim, had been felt throughout the
city to a degree, that can be duly appreciated only by those, who are
acquainted with the strength and the exclusiveness of Italian municipal
patriotism. And it was a matter of general congratulation that the
perpetrator of it should turn out to be no Ravennata citizen, but an
unknown stranger from Venice. It would have been dreadful indeed if such
a deed should have been brought home to the door of a scion of the
oldest and most distinguished noble family in Ravenna. Of course
everybody had all along known, and had said from the beginning, that
whatever might turn out to be the truth, this at least was impossible
and altogether out of the question.
To many minds the guilt of the Venetian girl seemed so clear that it
appeared altogether superfluous to spend time and trouble in bringing
her to confess it. Her hatred of the victim she had confessed; and the
confession of it was in evidence. The motive for that hatred was
perfectly well known and understood. It was a motive that many a time
ere now had led to similar deeds. She was close at hand when the crime
must have been committed. She could give no satisfactory account of her
reasons for going thither, or of the occupation of her time during the
hours, which must have comprised the moment of the assassination. And
the manner of the murder rendered it infinitely probable that it must
have been the deed of a female. What more could be wanted? It was rarely
that a murder had ever been brought home to the murderer by
circumstantial evidence of a more conclusive and irresistible character.
Signor Fortini was among those who thought and reasoned thus. But in the
several interviews which he had had with the Marchese Ludovico, he had
not judged it judicious to enlarge to him on this part of the subject.
While assuring him that he might make himself perfectly easy, and that
his innocence in the matter would beyond all doubt be fully recognised,
he had preferred to lead him to imagine that the result of the trial
would be altogether negative; that it would be found that no case that
would warrant a conviction should be made out against any party.
Signor Logarini had meanwhile made one or two more excursions to the
Basilica of St. Apollinare. But he had gained nothing by his pains. The
padre Fabiano was on each occasion found in bed, no whit better to all
appearance than he had been on that day when the police Commissary and
Signor Fortini visited him together. Nor had Signor Logarini's
persevering cross-examinations availed to obtain anything more from the
aged friar than repetitions of his first statements. Nevertheless the
Commissary was confirmed more than ever in his opinion that the friar
knew something; if he could only be made to speak. Still it had been
determined not to attempt to bring the old man by force before the
tribunal. There was every reason to think that nothing would be obtained
from him in addition to what he had already said. In all probability he
was really ill, more or less, as Signor Logarini said, and living under
the government of the Holy Father, it was necessary to treat
ecclesiastical personages with a greater degree of consideration than
might have been accorded to such under similar circumstances on the
other side of the frontier between the territory of the church and
Austria.
Despite the friar's illness, however, Fra Simone, the lay-brother, had
once or twice been observed lately in Ravenna. He was seen sauntering
through the streets with his long linen wallet over his shoulder,
stopping at a corner for a little gossip here, and receiving a
contribution to the store in his bag from some friar-loving devout old
woman there. There was nothing remarkable in such a sight in the streets
of Ravenna in any way. Only Fra Simone was very rarely seen there. And
when Signor Pietro Logarini, without whose knowledge scarcely a cat
stirred abroad in Ravenna, was told of the circumstance, he said to
himself that the Padre Fabiano was interested in knowing what people
said and thought of the coming trial.
Signor Fortini had in the meantime, not without infinite difficulty
succeeded in persuading the Marchese that he must bring himself to
submit to the ordeal of being present in the court on the occasion of
the trial. The Marchese's extreme dislike to appearing thus publicly had
been in no degree overcome or diminished. And it was only the lawyer's
positive and repeated declaration, that he would assuredly be sent for,
if he did not spontaneously present himself, that had availed to induce
him to say at length that he would go. Every possible attention, the
lawyer had assured him, would be paid to him, and everything done to
make his attendance as little disagreeable to him as possible. Of
course, as Fortini urged, it was well known, through the city how
dreadfully he must have been affected by the sad circumstances that had
happened--people would be prepared to see him looking ill and changed.
Curious? Yes, of course people were curious--it was impossible to
prevent them from being so; but he, Fortini, would take care that their
curiosity should not be manifested in any way that could be offensive to
the Marchese.
Thus, an unwilling consent to attend the sitting of the court on the
morning of the trial had been forced from the unhappy Marchese,--from
him who, so few weeks ago before the fatal coming of the fascinating
singer to Ravenna, had been the happiest, the most prosperous, and the
most secure of men; and it had been arranged that Signor Fortini should,
on that morning; call for him at the Palazzo and accompany him to the
tribunal.
When the morning came it seemed to Signor Fortini as if he should have
to do all his work over again. He found the Marchese up and dressed. He
had not shaved himself, however,--declaring, with abundant appearance of
truth, that, in the state he then was, it was utterly beyond his power
to do so, and he absolutely refused to allow it to be done for him; and
the effect of the stubbly grisled beard of a week's growth or so on the
hollow lantern jaws, which all the city had been accustomed to see clean
shaved, and plump, and florid with health,--was such as to render him
barely recognizable as the same man by the eyes that had known him all
his life. It seemed, too, to the lawyer that the shocking change which
had taken place in him was even more painfully marked by his attempt to
dress himself in his usual manner than it had been in his chamber
wrapper. His clothes, which were wont to fit so well, and set off to
advantage his well-made and stalwart figure, hung about him in bags and
pantaloon-like folds, a world too wide for his shrunken form.
On the first entrance of the lawyer he protested that the effort was
altogether beyond his strength,--that it was impossible for him to go
through the ordeal. Did they want him to die before their eyes on the
benches of the court?
A renewed suggestion by Fortini to the effect that the only means by
which the necessity could be avoided would be by a certificate from the
medical authority trusted in such matters by the court--his own old
friend the Professor Tomosarchi, produced only a reiterated and violent
declaration that he would not receive any visit from the Professor.
Eventually, the strong representations made by the lawyer of the much
greater unpleasantness, and the very much to be deprecated effect, of
entering the court as an unwilling witness in forced obedience to a
mandate from the tribunal, decided the wretched Marchese to allow
himself to be led down to the carriage.
Even as he came, bent and shaking, down the great staircase of the
Palazzo leaning on Fortini's arm, and had to pass, in crossing the hall
to the carriage, all the servants of his household, most of whom had not
seen him since the evening of the last day of Carnival, and who were
urged by curiosity to take this opportunity of looking at their
terribly-changed master, it seemed to him that his martyrdom had
commenced.
He passed through the streets of the city with the blinds of the
carriage drawn down, and with his eyes closed as he lay thrown back into
the corner of it: but, as he felt it draw up at the entrance to the
"prefettura," he suddenly grasped the lawyer's hand, and Fortini felt,
with a shudder, that his hand was as cold as that of a corpse. He was
altogether in such a state that Signor Fortini began to fear that there
really would be some catastrophe in the court before the business of the
day could be concluded.
With the aid of a servant on one side and of the lawyer on the other,
however, he was got out of the carriage, and, almost supporting him, the
lawyer, who had made all his arrangements previously, led him into the
building by a private door and to the chamber in which the tribunal was
sitting by a private passage used only by the magistrates, and opening
into the court in the immediate vicinity of the seats occupied by them,
by the side of which a chair had been assigned to the Marchese.
Nor had Signor Fortini's cares and preparations ended there. He had
spoken with each one of the magistrates who were to try the case, in no
wise telling them of the Marchese's unwillingness to appear, but
representing the terrible state of mental and bodily prostration to
which the dreadful nature of the late events had very naturally reduced
him, and which would have rendered it utterly impossible for him to
appear in court, but for his indomitable will, and the high sense of
duty, which had led him to think it, under the circumstances his duty to
do so.
To no soul had he whispered a word of the Marchese's very marked
reluctance to attend at the trial, save to his old and intimate friend
of many years standing, the Professor Tomosarchi, whom he had thought it
advisable to consult as to the desirability of his seeing the Marchese
before he was called on to make the effort. To his surprise he had found
Tomosarchi almost as unwilling to see the Marchese, as the Marchese had
been to see him. He did not say at once, as the latter had done, that he
would not see him, But while admitting the strong desirability that the
Marchese should be present at the trial, he yet manifested a strong
reluctance, which the lawyer could not understand, to taking any share
in the task of persuading and preparing him to do so.
The magistrates, who were all of them old friends of Signor Fortini, and
to each of whom he had spoken, separately on the subject, had seemed to
find no difficulty in understanding, that it was very natural under all
the circumstances, that the Marchese should have been terribly affected,
both in body and mind, by the late events. It had been suggested to them
by the lawyer, that it would be well to avoid, as far as possible,
anything that should make it necessary for the Marchese to speak at all,
even in saluting him on his entrance. When therefore, just after the
court had assembled, the Marchese, trembling and shivering in every
limb, was led in by the little door that opened close behind the seat he
was to occupy, the magistrates contented themselves with rising and
bowing to him in silence. The court, as might have been expected, was
very full; and it was impossible to prevent a very marked and audible
manifestation of the shock produced upon the spectators by the changed
appearance of one so well known to them from running through the crowd.
Even in the territories of the Pope, a criminal court is in these days
an open and public one. There is no jury, and the criminal, or suspected
person, may be subjected to any amount of examination on oath. But, in
other respects, the method of procedure is not very dissimilar from our
own. The prosecution is conducted by an officer analogous to our
attorney-general, or by his substitute; and is defended by any advocate
of the court whom he may employ for the purpose. The appreciation of the
credibility of testimony, the greater or lesser value of circumstantial
evidence, the application and interpretation of the law, and the award
of sentence, remain with the judges, subject to appeal to a higher
court. Moreover, in the present case, the inquiry assumed more of the
form of a general attempt to ascertain the solution of an unexplained
mystery, than would have been compatible with the forms of our criminal
courts, inasmuch as there were two prisoners to be tried for the crime,
whom no theory of the circumstances had suggested to be accomplices, and
the conviction of either of whom, according to the hypothesis which had
been started, involved the absolution of the other.
The judicial oath is administered not as with us, but by requiring the
accused person, or the witness, to assert that he is speaking the truth,
while placing the extended hand on a carved representation of the
crucified Redeemer. And there can be no doubt that this ceremony has a
very strong effect on the imagination and nervous system among the
easily moved races of the south. Many a crime has been avowed, because
the paralyzed lips of the criminal were absolutely incapable of
pronouncing the lie he fully purposed to speak, while he thus openly
appealed to the material figure which had the power of enabling the
sluggish southern imagination to realize the presence of the Creator.
There would be little interest in detailing at length the proceedings of
the trial; since nothing was elicited that would be in any way new to
the reader, or that was calculated to throw any fresh light on the
circumstances to be inquired into, until the business in hand was nearly
concluded.
Every tenderness had been shown to the misfortunes and to the terrible
state of suffering of the Marchese. A full statement of his own conduct
at the ball, and on the following morning, had been extracted, with very
little indulgence in the process, from the Conte Leandro, from whose
white and pasty face the perspiration had rained beyond the power of any
handkerchief to control it, while he described himself as an
eavesdropper, an informer, and a spy. And all that had been required
from the Marchese Lamberto was the admission that the Conte Leandro's
statements, as far as regarded what had taken place at the ball, were
correct.
But the fact was that the case was well-nigh prejudged before the
professed trial began. All Ravenna, including the police authorities,
who had investigated the matter, and the judges who came into court well
instructed in all that had been done, and all that could be known upon
the subject, had made up their minds that the stranger girl was and must
have been the criminal. It was infinitely more agreeable to everybody
concerned to suppose that such should be the case rather than that such
a damning blot should fall on the noblest house in the city, and that in
the person of one of the most popular men in it; and, at the same time,
it must be owned that the case was so strong against Paolina that a
prejudice against her could hardly be called a corrupt one.
Her own conduct during the trial had tended yet farther to impress the
minds of all present against her. Not that there was anything in her
appearance and manner that was otherwise than calculated to conciliate
pity and favourable opinion. Her entrance into the court had excited the
greatest interest. She had on a black silk dress made in the simplest
and plainest possible fashion; and the colour of it, where the neckband
encircled her slender throat, made an absolutely startling contrast with
the utterly colourless whiteness of her skin. Her manner was very
subdued, very quiet; nor did she exhibit any signs of fear; or much of
emotion, save to those who were near enough to her to perceive a quiet,
silent, and undemonstrative tear steal occasionally down her dead-white
cheek.
But when examined as to her disposal of herself after leaving the church
of Apollinare--as to her motives for changing her purpose, if it were
true, as she stated, that she did change her purpose of entering the
Pineta--she became embarrassed and failed to give any satisfactory
reply.
Ludovico had, at an early stage of the proceedings, been removed from
the court, after having been in vain again and again requested by the
judges to abstain from interfering with the progress of the case against
Paolina.
At last, when almost everybody in the court had made up their minds that
there could, in truth, be no doubt that the young Venetian, goaded to
frenzy by her jealousy, had been the author of the murder, and quite
everybody was convinced that such would be the decision of the judges,
the latter were on the point of retiring from the court to confer, and
consider their sentence, more as a matter of form, probably, than
anything else, when an incident occurred that made a change in the
aspect of matters.
CHAPTER VII
The Friar's Testimony
In a criminal trial in the states of His Holiness the Pope, there is
none of that absolute and inflexible adherence to certain rigid forms
and rules which gives to many of the proceedings of our courts that
character of an inevitable destiny-like march which is so dramatic in
its operations--that sense of the presence there of a power greater than
that of the greatest of the men concerned in the administration of it,
which constitutes on large element in an Englishman's respect for the
law. At times this automatic power, which has been thus created
Faust-like, by reason of the impossibility of pre-adapting its mechanism
to the exigences of every case, works to unforseen and undesired
ends--sometimes even to absurd ones. And, with thinkers of a certain
phase of modern thought, it has been a favourite taunt against the
average British mind, that it rather delights in the contemplation of
such abnormal workings of the great automatic law in which it has
created. Some manifest mistake or error has occurred. The man supposed
to be murdered walks into court; but it is a minute too late; the
verdict has been given--the sentence pronounced. All the court judges,
witnesses, counsel--look at each other in dismay; the great law
automaton cannot be made to swerve in its path by any power there. And
the average Englishman likes the contemplation of such a case, it is
sneered; and the sneer may be joined in by those who, under other
systems, have the immediate power of setting any such mistakes right by
a word. But the sneer, let the Englishman be assured, would by no means
be joined in by the population, who are subject to the action of courts
and judges thus able by superior word to direct the course of justice.
The new incident which suddenly arose to change all the aspects of the
trial and its results would, as far as the analogy of the Roman mode of
proceeding and our own holds good, have been too late in one of our
courts to produce the results which it did produce. The judges were on
the point of retiring to consider their decision and sentence when they
were met at the little private door, by which they were about to leave
the court, by one of the ushers. And the consequence of the few words he
spoke to them was that they gave an order--turned back, and resumed
their places.
It might well have been that the new incident might have been prevented
from bringing about the result it was calculated to bring about in the
Ravenna Court; but the miscarriage would have been caused in an
altogether different way from that which has been spoken as sometimes
characterising our own courts.
It was very clear to everybody present that the judges would pronounce
Paolina to be guilty of the crime they were investigating; and to
everybody present, with one or two exceptions, this was a very agreeable
and satisfactory winding-up of the unhappy affair. Ravenna would be able
to wash her hands of the matter. It was wholly, both in conception and
execution, the work of a stranger. Since so great a misfortune had
happened, it could not be more satisfactorily accounted for.
It is probable enough, therefore, that any Tom, Jack, or Harry, who, at
that conjuncture, had presented himself at the prefettura for the avowed
purpose of bringing a new light to the solution of the mystery which had
been already so satisfactorily solved, might have experienced
considerable difficulty in obtaining for himself any access to, or
hearing from, the judges.
But the person who had now thus presented himself at the prefettura of
Ravenna belonged to a body, the very lowest and poorest members of
which, in that country, can always find, somehow or other, some means of
compassing almost any object which is not disapproved by some superior
member of their own corporation. The new-comer was a friar--old Father
Fabiano, the priest of St. Apollinare, as the reader may have
conjectured.
The police agents had been anxious to produce him there, as the reader
knows, and he had baffled their wishes. Now the result which it had been
desired that he should contribute to had been brought about, or as good
as brought about, without him. What did he want there now?
There was an old usher about the court, however, whose advancing years
were beginning to make him disagreeably conscious that the time was at
hand when a sentence to a long term of purgatory--to say nothing of any
severer doom--might make it exceedingly desirable to him to stand well
with all those who are understood to have influence with the government
in the world beyond the grave; and,--if there had been no such person,
the friar would have known somebody--some old or young woman,
probably--or he would have known some other friar who knew some such,
who would have been able to influence some brother, lover, or husband,
in the way he wished. As it was, Father Fabiano had no difficulty at all
in conveying the message he wished to communicate to the judges.
They turned back to their places in the court, to the surprise and
sudden awakening of new interest in the audience, and ordered that the
new witness who had presented himself should be admitted and heard.
And Father Fabiano, bowed with age, and his hoary head bent down on his
breast, but neither shivering nor shaking, advanced to the
witness-table. The crucifix was lying on it, and the friar, with the
manner of a man recognizing in a new employment tools which he is well
used to, at once stretched out his emaciated and claw-like hand, and
made oath that he was about to speak the truth.
The Procuratore of the court then began to examine the old man with
reference to his knowledge of the circumstances connected with the visit
of Paolina Foscarelli to the church of St. Apollinare, and her disposal
of herself after leaving it; but the friar replied that it would be
uselessly occupying the time of the court to enter into any such
particulars, inasmuch as he had come thither to prove that Paolina had
nothing whatever to do with the crime.
"But," remarked the Procuratore, "if it is in your power to do that, why
did you not give the necessary information to the Commissary of Police
when you were, on several occasions, examined at St. Apollinare?"
"Signori miei," said the old man, addressing himself to the court in
general, "it is no affair of mine to meddle with the administration of
human justice. No words that I could say could undo the deed, or bring
the murdered woman back to life. Evil enough had been done. Why should I
cause further trouble, and sorrow, and shame, to others? It was more
fitting to one of my order to leave retribution in the hands of Him who
can best award it, and whose mercy may touch the heart of the sinner
with repentance."
"But if so, frate mio," rejoined the Procuratore, "what, pray, is the
motive that now brings you here?"
"Surely, the determination that the innocent shall not suffer for the
guilty. It seemed to me that it would never be known, save to Him who
knows the secrets of all hearts, what hand had done that terrible deed;
but now I know that the fallibility of all human judgment has led questi
Signori to the conclusion that the girl Paolina is guilty, and her
condemnation would be a misfortune greater than the first--I knowing the
hand which did that deed."
"Ha, you know the murderer; you suppose you know him? You come to offer
us your guess, your suggestion?"
"I come, Signori miei, with pain and sorrow and great reluctance, to
save you from condemning an innocent person by naming him who is
guilty."
A sort of buzz and almost shiver of interest, anxiety, and expectation
ran through the court, as the old friar spoke the above words in a
stronger voice than that in which he had yet spoken.
"Friar," said the Procuratore solemnly and severely; "it is my duty,
before you speak, to warn you to take heed to what you say. You are
about, you say, to make an accusation the most tremendous that one man
can bring against another. Bethink you whether you are able to
substantiate what you are about to utter. Remember that, if you cannot
substantiate it, it would be an hundred-fold better that your suspicion
should remain unuttered."
The Procuratore, as well as every one else in the court, had little or
no doubt that the friar was about to accuse the Marchese Ludovico as the
perpetrator of the murder. And some, among whom were Signor Fortini, and
Signor Logarini the Commissary of Police, were persuaded that the old
man was going to trump up some story in the hope of saving his
countrywoman, Paolina.
"Were it not for the necessity of protecting the innocent, Signori, God
knows how much I should prefer to carry my terrible secret with me to
the grave. Signori miei, these eyes SAW the deed done, that put the
sleeping woman to death. Only God and I, the lowest of his servants! God
and I saw the Marchese Lamberto di Castelmare do that deed!"
A loud indignant murmur of incredulity was beginning to rise throughout
the crowded court, like the first getting up of a storm wind.
But it was suddenly hushed, and turned into a spasm of horror and
intense shock, that made every man hold his breath, when the sound of a
sudden heavy fall was heard; and it was seen that the Marchese Lamberto
had fallen insensible to the ground.
CHAPTER VIII
The Truth!
The Professor Tomosarchi was in the court, and had been, as it happened,
though unseen by the Marchese, fixing his eyes on him at the moment when
the catastrophe narrated in the last chapter occurred. Springing
forwards, therefore, the medical man was in a moment by the side of his
old friend.
If, according to the strict letter of the requirements of their duty,
the magistrates or the police authorities present ought, under the
circumstances, to have prevented the free departure of the accused man
to his own home, it did not occur to any one to do so. Professor
Tomosarchi and Fortini between them, got him, still insensible, to his
carriage, and took him to his home.
"Is it more than a mere fainting fit?" said the lawyer, as they both
were supporting the person of the insensible Marchese. "Could you not do
some thing to restore consciousness? Can that old friar have spoken the
truth?"
"Apoplexy," said the Professor, with a serious and almost scared look
into the other's eyes. "Apoplexy, and no mistake about it. Don't you
hear the stertorous breathing. No, nothing can be attempted till we get
him home. We shall be at the palazzo in a minute. We shall see; but I
doubt--I doubt!"
"You mean that his life is in danger?" asked the lawyer.
"In danger! I have hardly any hope that he will ever return to
consciousness or speak another word again."
"Good God! you don't mean that," cried the lawyer, much shocked.
"Indeed I do; it is possible, but very improbable that he should rally
sufficiently to survive the attack," replied the Professor.
"Perhaps," rejoined the lawyer, gravely and sadly after a few moments of
silence; "perhaps it would be best so. I fear me--I much fear me, that
this can hardly be looked on but as the confirmation of that old man's
declaration."
The Professor looked hard into the lawyer's eyes, as he nodded his head,
without speaking, in grave assent.
They arrived in another minute at the door of the Palazzo Castelmare.
The servants ran out, and they carried him up into the chamber where,
ever since that fatal Ash Wednesday morning, he had, as Fortini now well
understood, been suffering a long agony of remorse, apprehension,
despair, all the intensity of which it was difficult to appreciate.
Life was not yet extinct when they laid him upon his bed; and the
Professor proceeded to do what the rules of his science prescribed in
the all but hopeless effort to combat the attack. But the miserable man
had suffered his last in this life, and every effort to bring him back
to further torture was unavailing. Within half-an-hour after he had been
brought back to his palace he breathed his last.
"It is all over with him," said the Professor, looking up across the bed
to the lawyer standing on the other side of it; "there was no
possibility of prolonging his life--happily for him, and happily for
everybody connected with him, and for all of us. Who would have thought
a short month ago that such a life could have so ended?"
"The 24th of March, Signor Professore, is the anniversary on which, more
fervently than on any other day of the year, I thank God for all his
mercies," said the lawyer, with grim solemnity.
"I don't understand you, Signor Dottore; what has the 24th of March to
do with this?" said Tomosarchi, staring at him.
"On the 24th of March, four-and-forty years ago, the Signora Fortini
departed this life, Signor Professore. But for that gracious disposition
of Providence, who knows that his lot, or worse, might not have been
mine? From Eve downwards, Signor Professore, from Eve downwards, it is
the same story--always the same story, in one shape or another--in one
shape or another."
The Professor, who was the lawyer's junior by some thirty years, turned
away with a shrug of the shoulders, and stepped across the room to the
small escritoire near the window. There opening, without hesitation, and
with the manner of a man familiar with the place, a small concealed
drawer, he called the lawyer to him.
"Just come here and look at the contents of this drawer, Signor Fortini.
There is a curious meaning in them."
Fortini went across from the bed to the escritoire, and the Professor
took from the drawer and showed to him a small coloured drawing of a
human form, with just such a mark on it as had been visible on the spot
of the wound which had destroyed La Bianca's life. He showed him also,
in the same secret receptacle, a long very finely tempered needle, and a
small quantity of perfectly white wax.
"Good God, Professor! Were you aware of the existence of these things
here?" cried the lawyer, aghast.
"I knew that they were where I have now found them some four or five
months ago--towards the end of last year. You do not remember, probably,
some curious details of a crime that was perpetrated a year ago or more
in the island of Sardinia. I don't know that the details were published
save in the medical journals. You know how great an interest our
unfortunate friend used to take in all such matters. We talked over that
curious case. He doubted the possibility of causing death with so little
violence, and by means which should leave so little trace behind them. I
showed him how readily and easily it might be done. You may judge then,
Signore Dottore, of the misgivings that assailed me when I discovered
how that unhappy singer had been put to death. You will understand, too,
why he so absolutely refused to see me, and how little desirous I was to
see him."
"But, Signor Professore--what should you have done if--?"
"If that girl had been condemned. You may guess that my state of mind
has not been a pleasant one. I did not know what to do: I hoped that no
conviction would have been arrived at. Of course it would have been
impossible to keep silence while that poor girl suffered the penalty of
the crime I had such strong reason to think was the work of another.
Truly it is in all ways best as it is."
"You are taking it for granted that the tribunal will give credit to the
friar's testimony; but that is not certain; nay, it is not certain--at
least, we do not yet know--we have only his assertion that he saw the
Marchese do the deed. With these evidences before us," continued the
lawyer, "we can hardly doubt that the fact was so. But stay--what is
this?--a letter addressed to me--'Al Chiarmo Signor Dottore Giovacchino
Fortini. To be opened only after my death, and in case my death shall
happen within one year from the present time!' Perhaps this may render
any further doubts as to the conduct we ought to pursue unnecessary. Let
us see."
And Signor Fortini sat down to open and read the packet; while the
Professor returned to the bed on which the dead man was lying, and
occupied himself with paying the last duties to his friend's remains.
The letter was a very long one, consisting of several sheets of
closely-written paper. It is unnecessary to add to these pages by giving
a transcript of it, because the facts which it detailed at length are
either such as the reader is already acquainted with or such as he can
readily imagine for himself.
When the narrative reached the events which had occurred at the ball in
the early hours of the Ash Wednesday morning, after mentioning the
circumstance of the information which had been conveyed to the writer by
the Conte Leandro Lombardoni as to the projected expedition to the
Pineta, the Marchese went on to describe the state of mind in which he
had left the Circolo. He protested that, although every smallest detail
of what he did had remained stamped on his memory with a vivid clearness
that would never more be obliterated, it would be unjust to judge his
conduct as that of a man in the possession of his senses. He was, he
said, mad--MAD!--and carried away by a hurricane of passions altogether
beyond his power to control. He had not formed any distinct intention of
following his nephew and La Bianca to the Pineta till he reached his own
house. He had happened to approach the Palazzo from the back, through
the stable-yard; and had there found old Niccolo, the groom, up. Then
the idea of waylaying the pair in the forest had occurred to him. He had
ordered a horse to be saddled; and had told the groom to let no one know
that he had left the palace. He then went up to his room, dismissed his
valet, and locked the door, as the servant had related to Signor
Fortini. Then descending to the stables, by one of those private doors
and stairs so frequently to be found in old Italian palaces, and
generally contrived to communicate with the principal sleeping chamber
of the dwelling, he mounted his horse, and rode furiously to the Pineta,
quitting the city, not by the Porta Nueva, but by the next gate towards
the south. He must have reached the forest before Ludovico and Bianca
had left the city. He put his steaming horse into the abandoned hovel of
a watcher of the cattle on the marshes; and then skulked about the edge
of the wood in the vicinity of the road which enters it from the city.
All this time he had, as he again and again declared in the long and
repetitive document in the lawyer's hands, no formed intention of any
sort in his mind. All he knew was that he was mad, and suffering
torments worse than any imagination had ever depicted the tortures of
the damned; the pulses were beating, and the blood was rushing in his
ears and in his eyes, he wrote, in such sort that all sounds seem to him
one universal buzzing, and all objects vague and uncertain, and tinged
with the colour of blood.
And, in this condition, he waited and waited till almost a wild hope
began to creep upon him that the Conte Leandro had lied to him.
Suddenly he saw them coming towards the edge of the wood.
With difficulty, he stood upright, resting the front of his shoulder and
his forehead against the trunk of a tree, from behind which he glared
out, while his eyes were blasted by what he saw.
Judging more sanely than the poor Marchese was able to judge, and
putting together all the circumstances and conduct and declarations of
the other parties, we may probably conclude, that though he saw enough
to madden the heart and brain of a man whose mind had already been
warped and distorted by jealousy, he did not see aught that could have
been deemed to menace the future happiness of Paolina. No doubt La
Bianca, despite her declared intention to make the Marchese Lamberto a
good and true wife, had he married her, would have preferred to become
Marchese di Castelmare by a marriage with his nephew. No doubt she had a
liking for Ludovico of a different kind from that which she had
professed to feel for his uncle. No doubt her imagination had been
fired, and her heart awakened to long for such love as she had seen
given to each other by Ludovico and Paolina, which she too well
understood to be of a kind which, despite her good resolutions, would
not be found in her union with the Marchese Lamberto. And no doubt these
feelings manifested themselves in her visible manner during the
conversation which followed her confession to him of the engagement
between her and his uncle.
It may also be suggested to those who have never been called upon to act
as Ludovico was called upon to act, under the circumstances of receiving
such a communication, so communicated from such a woman, that they would
do well not to judge too severely any such parts of his behaviour under
the ordeal, as may have been of a nature to produce a very deplorable
effect on the jaundiced mind of his uncle, though, in reality, there was
little real meaning and less serious harm in them.
Of course the unfortunate Marchese could not be expected to see or
reason on what he saw in any such mood or tone. As he said in the
writing he had left, what he saw as Ludovico and Bianca entered the
forest, side by side, in deep and close talk, made a furious madman of
him. He dodged, and watched them, as they sat down together--as they
continued to talk in close confidence--till he saw her lay herself down
on the bank to sleep, and saw him after awhile quit her side.
Then the devil entered into him, and ruled his hand with a whirlwind
power which he could no more withstand than the chaff can withstand the
tempest blast.
He came and stood over her as she lay on the turf--the beautiful,
noxious creature. She had destroyed him; body, soul, and mind, she had
destroyed him. And now--and now--ahi, ahi! After all he had suffered,
after paying all the price he had paid! Ah, how lovely as she lay there
sleeping--placidly sleeping, she! And he was to be cheated! Her beauty,
her love was to be given to another.
No, no, no, poisonous, baneful, sorceress; no, be what might, that hell
should never be!
He put his hand to the breast-pocket of his coat, and took from it a
small pocket-book.
If man will find evil passions, the devil will always find means. Surely
there must be some shadow of truth in the old legends that tell how the
fiend aids those who give themselves to him.
The Marchese had, on leaving his chamber, quickly changed the coat he
had worn at the ball for a morning one. And it so happened that in that
was a pocket-book which contained the articles needed for the
perpetration of the murder, placed there by him one day--in times that
seemed now ages ago--when he was going to ask some explanation of the
facts that had interested him from Professor Tomosarchi.
Like a balefully illumining lightning gleam, the clear memory that those
things were there at his hand flashed across his mind.
In another minute the deed was done.
And, in a few minutes more, the Marchese, looking the madman he felt
himself to be, got off his panting horse in his own stable-yard, threw
the rein to the scared old groom, and regained his room as he had left
it. Then the letter went on to speak of the terrible, the dreadful days
and hours which had elapsed since that time. It was during the hours of
that first morning, while it seemed to the excited mind of the Marchese
that every sound that was audible in the Palazzo must herald the coming
of those who had discovered the deed, that it had occurred to him to
send for his lawyer and give him instructions for the preparation of his
marriage contract. He would lose nothing by doing so, for the fact of
his offer of marriage to the murdered woman would assuredly not be kept
secret by the old man, her reputed father, and the maid-servant. And the
fact of his declaring such an intention, and giving such instructions at
that date, would very powerfully contribute to prevent any mind from
conceiving the idea that he could have been cognizant of the death of La
Bianca at the moment when he was so acting.
And in truth, as the lawyer, examining his own mind, said to himself, it
had been this fact which had mainly prevented two or three little
circumstances from pointing his suspicions in the direction of the
truth.
CHAPTER IX
Conclusion
Little more need be added to complete this story of a great singer's
Carnival engagement, and the consequences that arose out of it.
The consternation, the talk, the moralizings, of the little city may be
readily imagined.
Of course the written statement left by the unhappy Marchese made all
further judicial inquiry unnecessary. When the hand of a mightier power
than that of any earthly judge struck him down before the eyes of all
that world whose good opinion he had valued so highly, in the manner
that has been related, the tribunal, of course, declared the business
before it to be suspended. The result made it needless ever to resume
the sitting. No retarded evidence against the Marchese had been given in
court--no record of any accusation against him remained in the archives
of it: and this was deemed to be a great point among a people who do
not, by any means, hold that the law is the same "de non apparentibus et
de non existentibus."
Of course there was no further obstacle to the marriage, in due time, of
Ludovico and Paolina. A proper interval had, of course, to be allowed to
elapse before the knot was definitively tied; but it was settled, and
known to be settled by all Ravenna, and the strange and moving
circumstances which had attended the young Marchese's fortunes had the
effect of causing his marriage with the Venetian artist to be accepted
by the "Society" more tolerantly than, perhaps, might otherwise have
been the case. There was a sort of feeling that the whole affair was
exceptional; that the higher powers had visibly taken the management of
it into their own hands; that it was destined so to be, and must be, as
such, accepted. Too much of pity, of wonder, of congratulation, and of
condolence, were due from all his world to leave any space for censure
on account of his marriage.
Doubtless there were explanations between them as to that hapless
expedition to the Pineta; and doubtless they were satisfactory.
Assuredly Ludovico never in his moments of most severe self-examination,
sharpened, as such self-examination was, by the terrible nature of the
result which had seemed to grow out of his conduct on that Ash Wednesday
morning, could accuse himself of having done aught that could reasonably
be held to leave at his door the responsibility of the events that had
followed from it. Italian men are not apt to bring into any prominence
the idea that where evil or misfortune is found there fault of some kind
must exist also. They are content, for the most part, to accept the
notion that all such matters are sufficiently accounted for by
attributing them to "disgrazia"--the absence of favour, that is to
say--the want of that favour at the Heavenly Court which it is on every
occasion of life seen to be so necessary to successful well-being to
possess at the Courts of Heaven's ecclesiastical, or lay vice-gerents.
Paolina insisted on employing a part of the time which necessarily
elapsed before her marriage in completing the engagement she had
undertaken, and the promise she had made to her English patron. But she
found herself compelled to beg that some other specimen, chosen from
among the wonderful wealth of early Christian art that remains at
Ravenna, might be substituted for that in the choir of St. Apollinare.
She made the attempt to return to the scaffolding by the side of the
window, but she found that her strength was unequal to the task. She
could not bear to look on the prospect from that window. By agreement
with her employer, some further figures from the mosaics in San Vitale
were substituted for those which had originally been selected in St.
Apollinare. Her associations with the former church were of a more
pleasant character; and Paolina never visited the desolate old building
"in Classe" again. When the specimens selected in lieu of those in the
latter building had been completed, Paolina and her friend and
protectress returned with them to Venice, where it had been arranged
that they were to be delivered to the Director of the Gallery.
In the ensuing Carnival Ludovico came hither, and the marriage was there
solemnized. It is not intended to insinuate that he had not often made
the journey from Ravenna to Venice in the interval. More of his time was
probably passed there than in his native city. From Venice the newly
married couple proceeded to Rome, and it was not till three or four
years later, that the Marchese and Marchesa di Castelmare, bringing with
them their two boys Lamberto and Ludovico, and their little Violante,
the most exquisite little fairy that ever was seen, returned to make the
Marchese's ancestral palace, ancestral city, their home.
There was one other stranger in Ravenna whose lamentations over the fate
that had ever brought him thither were as loud as they were sincere. The
poor old singing-master, Quinto Lalli, was left, by the death of his
adopted daughter, as destitute of the means of support as desolate in
his home and heart. He was not worth much; but it would be unjust to
suppose of him that his violent outcry on her murderer was wholly or
mainly prompted by the former consideration. There had been a real and
strong affection between him and his adopted daughter, and her death in
truth left him utterly desolate.
Yet he never again quitted the city he so much regretted having ever
seen. His comfortable support was adequately provided for by the
Marchese Ludovico. And often in after years--on summer evenings on a
stone bench beneath a fig-tree in the garden of the cottage provided for
him, and in winter at the chimney corner of its tiny parlour--might be
seen the tall spare nun-like figure of a grave and gentle lady,
earnestly labouring at the somewhat up-hill task of consoling the old
man, and striving to shape the teachings of his Bohemian life to a
better lesson than he was apt to draw from them. It was the Contessa
Violante; and it may be concluded from her occupation both that she
succeeded in escaping the pursuit of the Duca di San Sisto, and that her
great-uncle the Cardinal did not succeed in becoming Pope at the most
recent vacancy.
After the return of the Marchese and Marchesa di Castelmare to Ravenna,
however, the greater number of the hours of the Contessa Violante were
spent in the home of her little god-daughter Violante di Castelmare, and
of her friend Paolina.
THE END