Though disinherited, Mithridata was not destitute. She had secured a
particle of the philosopher’s stone—a slender outfit for a magician’s
daughter! yet ensuring her a certain portion of wealth. What should she
do now? The great object of her life must henceforth be to avoid
committing murder, especially murdering any handsome young man. It
would have seemed most natural to retire into a convent, but, not to
speak of her lack of vocation, she felt that her father would justly
consider that she had disgraced her family, and she still looked
forward to reconciliation with him. She might have taken a hermitage,
but her instinct told her that a fair solitary can only keep young men
off by strong measures; and she disliked the character of a hermitess
with a bull-dog. She therefore went straight to the great city, took a
house, and surrounded herself with attendants. In the choice of these
she was particularly careful to select those only whose personal
appearance was such as to discourage any approach to familiarity or
endearment. Never before or since was youthful beauty surrounded by
such moustached duennas, squinting chambermaids, hunchbacked pages, and
stumpy maids-of-all-work. This was a real sorrow to her, for she loved
beauty; it was a still sadder trial that she could no longer feel it
right to indulge herself in the least morsel of arsenic; she sighed for
strychnia, and pined for prussic acid. The change of diet was of course
at first most trying to her health, and in fact occasioned a serious
illness, but youth and a sound constitution pulled her through.
Reader, hast thou known what it is to live with a heart inflamed by
love for thy fellow-creatures which thou couldst manifest neither by
word nor deed? To pine with fruitless longings for good? and to consume
with vain yearnings for usefulness? To be misjudged and haply reviled
by thy fellows for failing to do what it is not given thee to do? If
so, thou wilt pity poor Mithridata, whose nature was most ardent,
expansive, and affectionate, but who, from the necessity under which
she laboured of avoiding as much as possible all contact with human
beings, saw herself condemned to a life of solitude, and knew that she
was regarded as a monster of pride and exclusiveness. She dared bestow
no kind look, no encouraging gesture on any one, lest this small
beginning should lead to the manifestation of her fatal power. Her own
servants, whose minds were generally as deformed as their bodies, hated
her, and bitterly resented what they deemed her haughty disdain of
them. Her munificence none could deny, but bounty without tenderness
receives no more gratitude than it deserves. The young of her own sex
secretly rejoiced at her unamiability, regarding it as a providential
set-off against her beauty, while they detested and denounced her as
a—well, they would say viper in the manger, who spoiled everybody
else’s lovers and would have none of her own. For with all Mithridata’s
severity, there was no getting rid of the young men, the giddy moths
that flew around her brilliant but baleful candle. Not all the cold
water thrown upon them, literally as well as figuratively, could keep
them from her door. They filled her house with bouquets and billets
doux; they stood before the windows, they sat on the steps, they ran
beside her litter when she was carried abroad, they assembled at night
to serenade her, fighting desperately among themselves. They sought to
gain admission as tradesmen, as errand boys, even as scullions male and
female. To such lengths did they proceed, that a particularly audacious
youth actually attempted to carry her off one evening, and would have
succeeded but for the interposition of another, who flew at him with a
drawn sword, and after a fierce contest smote him bleeding to the
ground. Mithridata had fainted, of course. What was her horror on
reviving to find herself in the arms of a young man of exquisite beauty
and princely mien, sucking death from her lips with extraordinary
relish! She shrieked, she struggled; if she made any unfeminine use of
her hands, let the urgency of the case plead her apology. The youth
reproached her bitterly for her ingratitude. She listened in silent
misery, unable to defend herself. The shaft of love had penetrated her
bosom also, and it cost her almost as much for her own sake to dismiss
the young man as it did to see him move away, slowly and languidly
staggering to his doom.
For the next few days messages came continually, urging her to haste to
a youth dying for her sake, whom her presence would revive effectually.
She steadily refused, but how much her refusal cost her! She wept, she
wrung her hands, she called for death and execrated her nurture. With
that strange appetite for self-torment which almost seems to diminish
the pangs of the wretched, she collected books on poisons, studied all
the symptoms described, and fancied her hapless lover undergoing them
all in turn. At length a message came which admitted of no evasion. The
King commanded her presence. Admonished by past experience, she
provided herself with a veil and mask, and repaired to the palace.
The old King seemed labouring under deep affliction; under happier
circumstances he must have been joyous and debonair. He addressed her
with austerity, yet with kindness.
“Maiden,” he began, “thy unaccountable cruelty to my son——”
“Thy son!” she exclaimed, “The Prince! O father, thou art avenged for
my disobedience!”
“Surpasses what history hath hitherto recorded of the most obdurate
monsters. Thou art indebted to him for thy honour, to preserve which he
has risked his life. Thou bringest him to the verge of the grave by thy
cruelty, and when a smile, a look from thee would restore him, thou
wilt not bestow it.”
“Alas! great King,” she replied, “I know too well what your Majesty’s
opinion of me must be. I must bear it as I may. Believe me, the sight
of me could effect nothing towards the restoration of thy son.”
“Of that I shall judge,” said the King, “when thou hast divested
thyself of that veil and mask.”
Mithridata reluctantly complied.
“By Heaven!” exclaimed the King, “such a sight might recall the
departing soul from Paradise. Haste to my son, and instantly; it is not
yet too late.”
“O King,” urged Mithridata, “how could this countenance do thy son any
good? Is he not suffering from the effects of seventy-two poisons?”
“I am not aware of that,” said the King.
“Are not his entrails burned up with fire? Is not his flesh in a state
of deliquescence? Has not his skin already peeled off his body? Is he
not tormented by incessant gripes and vomitings?”
“Not to my knowledge,” said the King. “The symptoms, as I understand,
are not unlike those which I remember to have experienced myself, in a
milder form, certainly. He lies in bed, eats and drinks nothing, and
incessantly calls upon thee.”
“This is most incomprehensible,” said Mithridata. “There was no drug in
my father’s laboratory that could have produced such an effect.”
“The sum of the matter is,” continued the King, “that either thou wilt
repair forthwith to my son’s chamber, and subsequently to church; or
else unto the scaffold.”
“If it must be so, I choose the scaffold,” said Mithridata resolutely.
“Believe me, O King, my appearance in thy son’s chamber would but
destroy whatever feeble hope of recovery may remain. I love him beyond
everything on earth, and not for worlds would I have his blood on my
soul.”
“Chamberlain,” cried the monarch, “bring me a strait waistcoat.”
Driven into a corner, Mithridata flung herself at the King’s feet,
taking care, however, not to touch him, and confided to him all her
wretched history.
The venerable monarch burst into a peal of laughter. “À bon chat bon
rat!” he exclaimed, as soon as he had recovered himself. “So thou art
the daughter of my old friend the magician Locusto! I fathomed his
craft, and, as he fed his child upon poisons, I fed mine upon
antidotes. Never did any child in the world take an equal quantity of
physic: but there is now no poison on earth can harm him. Ye are
clearly made for each other; haste to his bedside, and, as the spell
requires, rid thyself of thy venefic properties in his arms as
expeditiously as possible. Thy father shall be bidden to the wedding,
and an honoured guest he shall be, for having taught us that the kiss
of Love is the remedy for every poison.”