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Title: St. Irvyne Author: Percy Bysshe Shelley Date: 1810 Language: en Topics: fiction, science fiction Source: http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks06/0606391h.html
Red thunder-clouds, borne on the wings of the midnight whirlwind,
floated, at fits, athwart the crimson-coloured orbit of the moon; the
rising fierceness of the blast sighed through the stunted shrubs, which,
bending before its violence, inclined towards the rocks whereon they
grew: over the blackened expanse of heaven, at intervals, was spread the
blue lightning's flash; it played upon the granite heights, and, with
momentary brilliancy, disclosed the terrific scenery of the Alps, whose
gigantic and mishapen summits, reddened by the transitory moon-beam,
were crossed by black fleeting fragments of the tempest-clouds. The
rain, in big drops, began to descend, and the thunder-peals, with louder
and more deafening crash, to shake the zenith, till the long-protracted
war, echoing from cavern to cavern, died, in indistinct murmurs, amidst
the far-extended chain of mountains. In this scene, then, at this
horrible and tempestuous hour, without one existent earthy being whom he
might claim as friend, without one resource to which he might fly as an
asylum from the horrors of neglect and poverty, stood Wolfstein;--he
gazed upon the conflicting elements; his youthful figure reclined
against a jutting granite rock; he cursed his wayward destiny, and
implored the Almighty of Heaven to permit the thunderbolt, with crash
terrific and exterminating, to descend upon his head, that a being
useless to himself and to society might no longer, by his existence,
mock Him whone'er made aught in vain. "And what so horrible crimes have
I committed," exclaimed Wolfstein, driven to impiety by desperation,
"what crimes which merit punishment like this? What, what is death?--Ah,
dissolution! thy pang is blunted by the hard hand of long-protracted
suffering--suffering unspeakable, indescribable!" As thus he spoke, a
more terrific paroxysm of excessive despair revelled through every vein;
his brain swam around in wild confusion, and, rendered delirious by
excess of misery, he started from his flinty seat, and swiftly hastened
towards the precipice, which yawned widely beneath his feet. "For what
then should I longer drag on the galling chain of existence?" cried
Wolfstein; and his impious expression was borne onwards by the hot and
sulphurous thunder-blast.
The midnight meteors danced above the gulf upon which Wolfstein
wistfully gazed. Palpable, impenetrable darkness seemed to hang upon it;
impenetrable even by the flaming thunderbolt. "Into this then shall I
plunge myself?" soliloquized the wretched outcast, "and by one rash act
endanger, perhaps, eternal happiness;--deliver myself up, perhaps, to
the anticipation and experience of never-ending torments? Art thou the
God then, the Creator of the universe, whom canting monks call the God
of mercy and forgiveness, and sufferest thou thy creatures to become the
victims of tortures such as fate has inflicted on me?--Oh! God, take my
soul; why should I longer live?" Thus having spoken, he sank on the
rocky bosom of the mountains. Yet, unheeding the exclamations of the
maddened Wolfstein, fiercer raged the tempest. The battling elements, in
wild confusion, seemed to threaten nature's dissolution; the ferocious
thunderbolt, with impetuous violence, danced upon the mountains, and,
collecting more terrific strength, severed gigantic rocks from their
else eternal basements; the masses, with sound more frightful than the
bursting thunder-peal, dashed towards the valley below. Horror and
desolation marked their track. The mountain-rills, swoln by the waters
of the sky, dashed with direr impetuosity from the Alpine summits; their
foaming waters were hidden in the darkness of midnight, or only became
visible when the momentary scintillations of the lightning rested on
their whitened waves. Fiercer still than nature's wildest uproar were
the feelings of Wolfstein's bosom; his frame, at last, conquered by the
conflicting passions of his soul, no longer was adequate to sustain the
unequal contest, but sank to the earth. His brain swam wildly, and he
lay entranced in total insensibility.
What torches are those that dispel the distant darkness of midnight, and
gleam, like meteors, athwart the blackness of the tempest? They throw a
wavering light over the thickness of the storm: they wind along the
mountains: they pass the hollow vallies. Hark! the howling of the blast
has ceased,--the thunderbolts have dispersed, but yet reigns darkness.
Distant sounds of song are borne on the breeze: the sounds approach. A
low bier holds the remains of one whose soul is floating in the regions
of eternity: a black pall covers him. Monks support the lifeless clay:
others precede, bearing torches, and chanting a requiem for the
salvation of the departed one. They hasten towards the convent of the
valley, there to deposit the lifeless limbs of one who has explored the
frightful path of eternity before them. And now they had arrived where
lay Wolfstein: "Alas!" said one of the monks, "there reclines a wretched
traveller. He is dead; murdered, doubtlessly, by the fell bandits who
infest these wild recesses."
They raised from the earth his form: yet his bosom throbbed with the
tide of life: returning animation once more illumed his eye: he started
on his feet, and wildly inquired why they had awakened him from that
slumber which he had hoped to have been eternal. Unconnected were his
expressions, strange and impetuous the fire darting from his restless
eyeballs. At length, the monks succeeded in calming the desperate
tumultuousness of his bosom, calming at least in some degree; for he
accepted their proffered tenders of a lodging, and essayed to lull to
sleep, for a while, the horrible idea of dereliction which pressed upon
his loaded brain.
While thus they stood, loud shouts rent the air, and, before Wolfstein
and the monks could well collect their scattered faculties, they found
that a troop of Alpine bandits had surrounded them. Trembling, from
apprehension, the monks fled every way. None, however, could escape.
"What! old greybeards," cried one of the robbers, "do you suppose that
we will permit you to evade us: you who feed upon the strength of the
country, in idleness and luxury, and have compelled many of our noble
fellows, who otherwise would have been ornaments to their country in
peace, thunderbolts to their enemies in war, to seek precarious
subsistence as Alpine bandits? If you wish for mercy, therefore, deliver
unhesitatingly your joint riches." The robbers then despoiled the monks
of whatever they might adventitiously have taken with them, and, turning
to Wolfstein, the apparent chieftain told him to yield his money
likewise. Unappalled, Wolfstein advanced towards him. The chief held a
torch; its red beams disclosed the expression of stern severity and
unyielding loftiness which sate upon the brow of Wolfstein. "Bandit!" he
answered fearlessly, "I have none,--no money--no hope--no friends; nor
do I care for existence! Now judge if such a man be a fit victim for
fear! No! I never trembled!"
A ray of pleasure gleamed in the countenance of the bandit as Wolfstein
spoke. Grief, in inerasible traces, sate deeply implanted on the front
of the outcast. At last, the chief, advancing to Wolfstein, who stood at
some little distance, said, "My companions think that so noble a fellow
as you appear to be, would be no unworthy member of our society; and, by
Heaven, I am of their opinion. Are you willing to become one of us?"
Wolfstein's dark gaze was fixed upon the grounds his contracted eyebrow
evinced deep thought: he started from his reverie, and, without
hesitation, consented to their proposal.
Long was it past the hour of midnight when the banditti troop, with
their newly-acquired associate, advanced along the pathless Alps. The
red glare of the torches which each held, tinged the rocks and
pine-trees, through woods of which they occasionally passed, and alone
dissipated the darkness of night. Now had they arrived at the summit of
a wild and rocky precipice, but the base indeed of another which mingled
its far-seen and gigantic outline with the clouds of heaven. A door,
which before had appeared part of the solid rock, flew open at the
chieftain's touch, and the whole party advanced into the spacious
cavern. Over the walls of the lengthened passages putrefaction had
spread a bluish clamminess; damps hung around, and, at intervals, almost
extinguished the torches, whose glare was scarcely sufficient to
dissipate the impenetrable obscurity. After many devious windings they
advanced into the body of the cavern: it was spacious and lofty. A
blazing wood fire threw its dubious rays upon the mishapen and
ill-carved walls. Lamps suspended from the roof, dispersed the
subterranean gloom, not so completely however, but that ill-defined
shades lurked in the arched distances, whose hollow recesses led to
different apartments.
The gang had sate down in the midst of the cavern to supper, which a
female, whose former loveliness had left scarce any traces on her cheek,
had prepared. The most exquisite and expensive wines apologized for the
rusticity of the rest of the entertainment, and induced freedom of
conversation, and wild boisterous merriment, which reigned until the
bandits, overcome by the fumes of the wine which they had drank, sank to
sleep. Wolfstein, left again to solitude and silence, reclining on his
mat in a corner of the cavern, retraced, in mental, sorrowing review,
the past events of his life: ah! that eventful existence whose fate had
dragged the heir of a wealthy potentate in Germany from the lap of
luxury and indulgence, to become a vile associate of viler bandits, in
the wild and trackless deserts of the Alps. Around their dwelling, lofty
inaccessible acclivities reared their barren summits; they echoed to no
sound save the wild hoot of the night-raven, or the impatient yelling of
the vulture, which hovered on the blast in quest of scanty sustenance.
These were the scenes without: noisy revelry and tumultuous riot reigned
within. The mirth of the bandits appeared to arise independently of
themselves: their hearts were void and dreary. Wolfstein's limbs
pillowed on the flinty bosom of the earth: those limbs which had been
wont to recline on the softest, the most luxurious sofas. Driven from
his native country by an event which imposed upon him an insuperable
barrier to ever again returning thither, possessing no friends, not
having one single resource from which he might obtain support, where
could the wretch, the exile, seek for an asylum but with those whose
fortunes, expectations, and characters were desperate, and marked as
darkly, by fate, as his own?
Time fled, and each succeeding day inured Wolfstein more and more to the
idea of depriving his fellow-creatures of their possessions. In a short
space of time the high-souled and noble Wolfstein, though still
high-souled and noble, became an experienced bandit. His magnanimity and
courage, even whilst surrounded by the most threatening dangers, and the
unappalled expression of countenance with which he defied the dart of
death, endeared him to the robbers: whilst with him they all asserted
that they felt, as it were, instinctively impelled to deeds of horror
and danger, which, otherwise, must have remained unattempted even by the
boldest. His was every daring expedition, his the scheme which demanded
depth of judgment and promptness of execution. Often, whilst at midnight
the band lurked perhaps beneath the overhanging rocks, which were
gloomily impended above them, in the midst, perhaps, of one of those
horrible tempests whereby the air, in those Alpine regions, is so
frequently convulsed, would the countenance of the bandits betray some
slight shade of alarm and awe; but that of Wolfstein was fixed,
unchanged, by any variation of scenery or action. One day it was when
the chief communicated to the banditti, notice which he had received by
means of spies, that an Italian Count of immense wealth was journeying
from Paris to his native country, and, at a late hour the following
evening, would pass the Alps near this place; "They have but few
attendants," added he, "and those few will not come this way; the
postillion is in our interest, and the horses are to be overcome with
fatigue when they approach the destined spot: you understand."
The evening came. "I," said Wolfstein, "will roam into the country, but
will return before the arrival of our wealthy victim." Thus saying, he
left the cavern, and wandered out amidst the mountains.
It was autumn. The mountain-tops, the scattered oaks which occasionally
waved their lightning-blasted heads on the summits of the far-seen piles
of rock, were gilded by the setting glory of the sun; the trees,
yellowed by the waning year, reflected a glowing teint from their thick
foliage; and the dark pine-groves which were stretched half way up the
mountain sides, added a more deepened gloom to the shades of evening,
which already began to gather rapidly above the scenery.
It was at this dark and silent hour, that Wolfstein, unheeding the
surrounding objects,--objects which might have touched with awe, or
heightened to devotion, any other breast,--wandered alone--pensively he
wandered--dark images for futurity possessed his soul: he shuddered when
he reflected upon what had passed; nor was his present situation
calculated to satisfy a mind eagerly panting for liberty and
independence. Conscience too, awakened conscience, upbraided him for the
life which he had selected, and, with silent whisperings, stung his soul
to madness. Oppressed by thoughts such as these, Wolfstein yet
proceeded, forgetful that he was to return before the arrival of their
destined victim--forgetful indeed was he of every external existence;
and absorbed in himself, with arms folded, and eyes fixed upon the
earth, he yet advanced. At last he sank on a mossy bank, and, guided by
the impulse of the moment, inscribed on a tablet the following lines;
for the inaccuracy of which, the perturbation of him who wrote them, may
account; he thought of past times while he marked the paper with--
Overcome by the wild retrospection of ideal horror, which these
swiftly-written lines excited in his soul, Wolfstein tore the paper, on
which he had written them, to pieces, and scattered them about him. He
arose from his recumbent posture, and again advanced through the forest.
Not far had he proceeded, ere a mingled murmur broke upon the silence of
night--it was the sound of human voices. An event so unusual in these
solitudes, excited Wolfstein's momentary surprise; he started, and
looking around him, essayed to discover whence those sounds
proceeded.--What was the astonishment of Wolfstein, when he found that a
detached party, who had been sent in pursuit of the Count, had actually
overtaken him, and, at this instant, were dragging from the carriage the
almost lifeless form of a female, whose light symmetrical figure, as it
leant on the muscular frame of the robber who supported it, afforded a
most striking contrast.--They had, before his arrival, plundered the
Count of all his riches, and, enraged at the spirited defence which he
had made, had inhumanly murdered him, and cast his lifeless body adown
the yawning precipice. Transfixed by a jutting point of granite rock, it
remained there to be devoured by the ravens. Wolfstein joined the
banditti: and, although he could not recall the deed, lamented the
wanton cruelty which had been practised upon the Count. As for the
female, whose grace and loveliness made so strong an impression upon
him, he demanded that every soothing attention should be paid to her,
and his desire was enforced by the commands of the chief, whose dark eye
wandered wildly over the beauties of the lovely Megalena de Metastasio,
as if he had secretly destined them for himself.
At last they arrived at the cavern; every resource which the cavern of a
gang of lawless and desperate villains might afford, was brought forward
to restore the fainted Megalena to life: she soon recovered--she slowly
opened her eyes, and started with surprise to behold herself surrounded
by a rough set of desperadoes, and the gloomy walls of the cavern, upon
which darkness hung, awfully visible. Near her sate a female, whose
darkened expression of countenance seemed perfectly to correspond with
the horror prevalent throughout the cavern; her face, though bearing the
marks of an undeniable expression of familiarity with wretchedness, had
some slight remains of beauty.
It was long past midnight when each of the robbers withdrew to repose.
But his mind was too much occupied by the events of the evening to allow
the unhappy Wolfstein to find quiet;--at an early hour he arose from his
sleepless couch, to inhale the morning breeze. The sun had but just
risen; the scene was beautiful; every thing was still, and seemed to
favour that reflection, which even propinquity to his abandoned
associates imposed no indefinably insuperable bar to. In spite of his
attempts to think upon other subjects, the image of the fair Megalena
floated in his mind. Her loveliness had made too deep an impression on
it to be easily removed; and the hapless Wolfstein, ever the victim of
impulsive feeling, found himself bound to her by ties, more lasting than
he had now conceived the transitory tyranny of woe could have imposed.
For never had Wolfstein beheld so singularly beautiful a form;--her
figure cast in the mould of most exact symmetry; her blue and
love-beaming eyes, from which occasionally emanated a wild expression,
seemingly almost superhuman; and the auburn hair which hung in
unconfined tresses down her damask cheek--formed a resistless tout
ensemble.
Heedless of every external object, Wolfstein long wandered.--The
protracted sound of the bandits' horn struck at last upon his ear, and
aroused him from his reverie. On his return to the cavern, the robbers
were assembled at their meal; the chief regarded him with marked and
jealous surprise as he entered, but made no remark. They then discussed
their uninteresting and monotonous topics, and the meal being ended,
each villain departed on his different business.
Megalena, finding herself alone with Agnes (the only woman, save
herself, who was in the cavern, and who served as an attendant on the
robbers), essayed, by the most humble entreaties and supplications, to
excite pity in her breast: she conjured her to explain the cause for
which she was thus imprisoned, and wildly inquired for her father. The
guilt-bronzed brow of Agnes was contracted by a sullen and malicious
frown: it was the only reply which the inhuman female deigned to return.
After a pause, however, she said, "Thou thinkest thyself my superior,
proud girl; but time may render us equals.--Submit to that, and you may
live on the same terms as I do."
There appeared to lurk a meaning in these words, which Megalena found
herself incompetent to develope; she answered not, therefore, and
suffered Agnes to depart unquestioned. The wretched Megalena, a prey to
despair and terror, endeavoured to revolve in her mind the events which
had brought her to this spot, but an unconnected stream of ideas pressed
upon her brain. The sole light in her cell was that of a dismal lamp,
which, by its uncertain flickering, only dissipated the almost palpable
obscurity, in a sufficient degree more assuredly to point out the
circumambient horrors. She gazed wistfully around, to see if there were
any outlet; none there was, save the door whereby Agnes had entered,
which was strongly barred on the outside. In despair she threw herself
on the wretched pallet.--"For what cause, then, am I thus entombed
alive?" soliloquized the hapless Megalena; "would it not be preferable
at once to annihilate the spark of life which burns but faintly within
my bosom?--O my father! where art thou? Thy tombless corse, perhaps, is
torn into a thousand pieces by the fury of the mountain
cataract.--Little didst thou presage misfortunes such as these!--little
didst thou suppose that our last journey would have caused thy immature
dissolution--my infamy and misery, not to end but with my hapless
existence!--Here there is none to comfort me, none to participate my
miseries!" Thus speaking, overcome by a paroxysm of emotion, she sank on
the bed, and bedewed her fair face with tears.
Whilst, oppressed by painful retrospection, the outcast orphan was yet
kneeling, Agnes entered, and, not evén noticing her distress, bade her
prepare to come to the banquet where the troop of bandits was assembled.
In silence, along the vaulted and gloomy passages, she followed her
conductress, from whose stern and forbidding gaze her nature shrunk back
enhorrored, till they reached that apartment of the cavern where the
revelry waited but for her arrival to commence. On her entering,
Cavigni, the chief, led her to a seat on his right hand, and paid her
every attention which his froward nature could stoop to exercise towards
a female: she received his civilities with apparent complacency; but her
eye was frequently fascinated, as it were, towards the youthful
Wolfstein, who had caught her attention the evening before. His
countenance, spite of the shade of woe with which the hard hand of
suffering had marked it, was engaging and beautiful; not that beauty
which may be freely acknowledged, but inwardly confessed by every
beholder with sensations penetrating and resistless; his figure majestic
and lofty, and the fire which flashed from his expressive eye,
indefinably to herself, penetrated the inmost soul of the isolated
Megalena. Wolfstein regarded Cavigni with indignation and envy; and,
though almost ignorant himself of the dreadful purpose of his soul,
resolved in his own mind an horrible deed. Cavigni was enraptured with
the beauty of Megalena, and secretly vowed that no paius should be
spared to gain to himself the possession of an object so lovely. The
anticipated delight of gratified voluptuousness revelled in every vein,
as he gazed upon her; his eye flashed with a triumphant expression of
lawless love, yet he determined to defer the hour of his happiness till
he might enjoy more free, unrestrained delight, with his adored fair
one. She gazed on the chief, however, with an ill-concealed aversion;
his dark expression of countenance, the haughty severity, and
contemptuous frown, which habitually sate on his brow, invited not, but
rather repelled a reciprocality of affection, which the haughty chief,
after his own attachment, entertained not the most distant doubt of. He
was, notwithstanding, conscious of her coldness, but attributing it to
virgin modesty, or to the novel situation into which she had suddenly
been thrown, paid her every attention; nor did he omit to promise her
every little comfort which might induce her to regard him with esteem.
Still, though veiled beneath the most artful dissimulation, did the fair
Megalena pant ardently for liberty--for, oh! liberty is sweet, sweeter
even than all the other pleasures of life, to full satiety, without it.
Cavigni essayed, by every art, to gain her over to his desires; but
Megalena, regarding him with aversion, answered with an haughtiness
which she was unable to conceal, and which his proud spirit might ill
brook. Cavigni could not disguise the vexation which he felt, when,
increased by resistance, Megalena's dislike towards him remained no
longer a secret: "Megalena," said he, at last, "fair girl, thou shalt be
mine--we will be wedded tomorrow, if you think the bands of love not
sufficiently forcible to unite us."
"No bands shall ever unite me to you!" exclaimed Megalena. "Even though
the grave were to yawn beneath my feet, I would willingly precipitate
myself into its gulf, if the alternative of that, or an union with you,
were proposed to me."
Rage swelled Cavigni's bosom almost to bursting--the conflicting
passions of his soul were too tumultuous for utterance;--in an hurried
tone, he commanded Agnes to show Megalena to her cell: she obeyed, and
they both quitted the apartment.
Wolfstein's soul, sublimed by the most infuriate paroxysms of contending
emotions, battled wildly. His countenance retained, however, but one
expression,--it was of dark and deliberate revenge. His stern eye was
fixed upon Cavigni;--he decided at this instant to perpetrate the deed
he had resolved on. Leaving his seat, he intimated his intention of
quitting the cavern for an instant.
Cavigni had just filled his goblet--Wolfstein, as he passed, dexterously
threw a little white powder into the wine of the chief.
When Wolfstein returned, Cavigni had not yet quaffed the deadly draught:
rising, therefore, he exclaimed aloud, "Fill your goblets, all." Every
one obeyed, and sat in expectation of the toast which he was about to
propose.
"Let us drink," he exclaimed, "to the health of the chieftain's
bride--let us drink to their mutual happiness." A smile of pleasure
irradiated the countenance of the chief:--that he whom he had supposed
to be a dangerous rival, should thus publicly forego any claim to the
affections of Megalena, was indeed pleasure.
"Health and mutual happiness to the chieftain and his bride!" re-echoed
from every part of the table.
Cavigni raised the goblet to his lips: he was about to quaff the tide of
death, when Ginotti, one of the robbers, who sat next to him, upreared
his arm, and dashed the cup of destruction to the earth. A silence, as
if in expectation of some terrible event, reigned throughout the cavern.
Wolfstein turned his eyes towards the chief;--the dark and mysterious
gaze of Ginotti arrested his wandering eyeball; its expression was too
marked to be misunderstood;--he trembled in his inmost soul, but his
countenance yet retained its unchangeable expression. Ginotti spoke not,
nor willed he to assign any reason for his extraordinary conduct; the
circumstance was shortly forgotten, and the revelry went on undisturbed
by any other event.
Ginotti was one of the boldest of the robbers; he was the distinguished
favourite of the chief, and, although mysterious and reserved, his
society was courted with more eagerness, than such qualities might,
abstractedly considered, appear to deserve. None knew his history--that
he concealed within the deepest recesses of his bosom; nor could the
most suppliant entreaties, or threats of the most horrible punishments,
have wrested from him one particular concerning it. Never had he once
thrown off the mysterious mask, beneath which his character was veiled,
since he had become an associate of the band. In vain the chief required
him to assign some reason for his late extravagant conduct; he said it
was mere accident, but with an air, which more than convinced every one,
that something lurked behind which yet remained unknown. Such, however,
was their respect for Ginotti, that the occurrence passed almost without
a comment.
Long now had the hour of midnight gone by, and the bandits had retired
to repose. Wolfstein retired too to his couch, but sleep closed not his
eyelids; his bosom was a scene of the wildest anarchy; the conflicting
passions revelled dreadfully in his burning brain:--love, maddening,
excessive, unaccountable idolatry, as it were, which possessed him for
Megalena, urged him on to the commission of deeds which conscience
represented as beyond measure wicked, and which Ginotti's glance
convinced him were by no means unsuspected. Still so unbounded was his
love for Megalena (madness rather than love), that it overbalanced every
other consideration, and his unappalled soul resolved to persevere in
its determination even to destruction!
Cavigni's commands respecting Megalena had been obeyed:--the door of her
cell was fastened, and the ferocious chief resolved to let her lie there
till the suffering and confinement might subdue her to his will.
Megalena endeavoured, by every means, to soften the obdurate heart of
her attendant; at length, her mildness of manner induced Agnes to regard
her with pity; and before she quitted the cell, they were so far
reconciled to each other, that they entered into a comparison of their
mutual situations; and Agnes was about to relate to Megalena the
circumstances which had brought her to the cavern, when the fierce
Cavigni entered, and, commanding Agnes to withdraw, said, "Well, proud
girl, are you now in a better humour to return the favour with which
your superior regards you?"
"No!" heroically answered Megalena.
"Then," rejoined the chief, "if within four-and-twenty hours you hold
yourself not in readiness to return my love, force shall wrest the jewel
from its casket." Thus having said, he abruptly quitted the cell.
So far had Wolfstein's proposed toast, at the banquet, gained on the
unsuspecting ferociousness of Cavigni, that he accepted the former's
artful tender of service, in the way of persuasion with Megalena,
supposing, by Wolfstein's manner, that they had been cursorily
acquainted before. Wolfstein, therefore, entered the apartment of
Megalena.
At the sight of him Megalena arose from her recumbent posture, and
hastened joyfully to meet him; for she remembered that Wolfstein had
rescued her from the insults of the banditti, on the eventful evening
which had subjected her to their control.
"Lovely, adored girl," he exclaimed, "short is my time: pardon,
therefore, the abruptness of my address. The chief has sent me to
persuade you to become united to him; but I love you, I adore you to
madness. I am not what I seem. Answer me!--time is short."
An indefinable sensation, unfelt before, swelled through the
passion-quivering frame of Megalena. "Yes, yes," she cried, "I will--I
love you--" At this instant the voice of Cavigni was heard in the
passage. Wolfstein started from his knees, and pressing the fair hand
presented to his lips with exulting ardour, departed hastily to give an
account of his mission to the anxious Cavigni; who restrained himself in
the passage without, and, slightly mistrusting Wolfstein, was about to
advance to the door of the cell to listen to their conversation, when
Wolfstein quitted Megalena.
Megalena, again in solitude, began to reflect upon the scenes which had
been lately acted. She thought upon the words of Wolfstein, unconscious
wherefore they were a balm to her mind: she reclined upon her wretched
pallet. It was now night: her thoughts took a different turn; the
melancholy wind sighing along the crevices of the cavern, and the dismal
sound of rain which pattered fast, inspired mournful reflection. She
thought of her father,--her beloved father;--a solitary wanderer on the
face of the earth; or, most probably, thought she, his soul rests in
death. Horrible idea If the latter, she envied his fate; if the former,
she even supposed it preferable to her present abode. She again thought
of Wolfstein; she pondered on his last words:--an escape from the
cavern: oh delightful idea! Again her thoughts recurred to her father:
tears bedewed her cheeks; she took a pencil, and, actuated by the
feelings of the moment, inscribed on the wall of her prison these lines:
Whilst a wreath of dark vapour encircles his head. Here she paused, and,
ashamed of the exuberance of her imagination, obliterated from the wall
the characters which she had traced: the wind still howled dreadfully:
in fearful anticipation of the morrow, she threw herself on the bed,
and, in sleep, forgot the misfortunes which impended over her.
Meantime, the soul of Wolfstein was disturbed by ten thousand
conflicting passions; revenge and disappointed love agonized his soul to
madness; and he resolved to quench the rude feelings of his bosom in the
blood of his rival. But, again he thought of Ginotti; he thought of the
mysterious intervention which his dark glances proved not to be
accidental. To him it was an inexplicable mystery; which the more he
reflected upon, the less able was he to unravel. He had mixed the
poison, unseen, as he thought, by any one; certainly unseen by Ginotti,
whose back was unconcernedly turned at the time. He planned, therefore,
a second attempt, unawed by what had happened before, for the
destruction of Cavigni, which he resolved to put into execution this
night.
Before he had become an associate with the band of robbers, the
conscience of Wolfstein was clear; clear, at least, from the commission
of any wilful and deliberate crime: for, alas! an event almost too
dreadful for narration, had compelled him to quit his native country, in
indigence and disgrace. His courage was equal to his wickedness; his
mind was unalienable from its purpose; and whatever his will might
determine, his boldness would fearlessly execute, even though hell and
destruction were to yawn beneath his feet, and essay to turn his
unappalled soul from the accomplishment of his design. Such was the
guilty Wolfstein; a disgraceful fugitive from his country, a vile
associate of a band of robbers, and a murderer, at least in intent, if
not in deed. He shrunk not at the commission of crimes; he was now the
hardened villain; eternal damnation, tortures inconceivable on earth,
awaited him. "Foolish, degrading idea!" he exclaimed, as it momentarily
glanced through his mind; "am I worthy of the celestial Megalena, if I
shrink at the price which it is necessary I should pay for her
possession?" This idea banished every other feeling from his heart; and,
smothering the stings of conscience, a decided resolve of murder took
possession of him--the determining, within himself, to destroy the very
man who had given him an asylum, when driven to madness by the horrors
of neglect and poverty. He stood in the night-storm on the mountains; he
cursed the intervention of Ginotti, and secretly swore that nor heaven
nor hell again should dash the goblet of destruction from the mouth of
the detested Cavigni. The soul of Wolfstein too, insatiable in its
desires, and panting for liberty, ill could brook the confinement of
idea, which the cavern of the bandits must necessarily induce. He longed
again to try his fortune; he longed to re-enter that world which he had
never tried but once, and that indeed for a short time; sufficiently
long, however, to blast his blooming hopes, and to graft on the stock,
which otherwise might have produeed virtue, the fatal seeds of vice.
It was midnight; and all the robbers were assembled in the banquet-hall,
amongst whom, bearing in his bosom a weight of premeditated crime, was
Wolfstein; he sat by the chief. They discoursed on indifferent subjects;
the sparkling goblet went round; loud laughter succeeded. The ruffians
were rejoicing over some plunder which they had taken from a traveller,
whom they had robbed of immense wealth; they had left his body a prey to
the vultures of the mountains. The table groaned with the pressure of
the feast. Hilarity reigned around: reiterated were the shouts of
merriment and joy; if such could exist in a cavern of robbers.
It was long past midnight: another hour, and Megalena must be Cavigni's.
This idea rendered Wolfstein callous to every sting of conscience; and
he eagerly awaited an opportunity when he might, unperceived, infuse
poison into the goblet of one who confided in him. Ginotti sat opposite
to Wolfstein: his arms were folded, and his gaze rested fixedly upon the
fearless countenance of the murderer. Wolfstein shuddered when he beheld
the brow of the mysterious Ginotti contracted, his marked features
wrapped in inexplicable mystery.
All were now heated by wine, save the wily villain who destined murder;
and the awe-inspiring Ginotti, whose reservedness and mystery, not even
the hilarity of the present hour could dispel.
Conversation appearing to flag, Cavigni exclaimed, "Steindolph, you know
some old German stories; cannot you tell one, to deceive the lagging
hours?"
Steindolph was famed for his knowledge of metrical spectre tales, and
the gang were frequently wont to hang delighted on the ghostly wonders
which he related.
"Excuse, then, the mode of my telling it," said Steindolph, "and I will
with pleasure. I learnt it whilst in Germany; my old grandmother taught
it me, and I can repeat it as a ballad."--"Do, do," re-echoed from every
part of the cavern.--Steindolph thus began:
As Steindolph concluded, an universal shout of applause echoed through
the cavern. Every one had been so attentive to the recitation of the
robber, that no opportunity of perpetrating his resolve had appeared to
Wolfstein. Now all again was revelry and riot, and the wily designer
eagerly watched for the instant when universal confusion might favour
his attempt to drop, unobserved, the powder into the goblet of the
chief. With a gaze of insidious and malignant revenge was the eye of
Wolfstein fixed upon the chieftain's countenance. Cavigni perceived it
not; for he was heated with wine, or the unusual expression of his
associate's face must have awakened suspicion, or excited remark. Yet
was Ginotti's gaze fixed upon Wolfstein, who, like a sanguinary and
remorseless ruffian, sat expectantly waiting the instant of death. The
goblet passed round:--at the moment when Wolfstein mingled the poison
with Cavigni's wine, the eyes of Ginotti, which before had regarded him
with the most dazzling scrutiny, were intentionally turned away: he then
arose from the table, and, complaining of sudden indisposition, retired.
Cavigni raised the goblet to his lips--
"Now, my brave fellows," he exclaimed, "the hour is late; but before we
retire, I here drink success and health to every one of you."
Wolfstein involuntarily shuddered.--Cavigni quaffed the liquor to the
dregs!--the cup fell from his trembling hand. The chill dew of death sat
upon his forehead: in terrific convulsion he fell headlong; and,
inarticulately uttering "I am poisoned," sank seemingly lifeless on the
earth. Sixty robbers at once rushed forward to raise him; and, reclining
in their arms, with an horrible and harrowing shriek, the spark of life
fled from his body for ever. A robber, skilled in surgery, opened a
vein; but no blood followed the touch of the lancet.--Wolfstein advanced
to the body, unappalled by the crime which he had committed, and tore
aside the vest from its bosom: that bosom was discoloured by large spots
of livid purple, which, by their premature appearance, declared the
poison which had been used to destroy him, to be excessively powerful.
Every one regretted the death of the brave Cavigni; every one was
surprised at the mode of his death: and, by his abruptly quitting the
apartment, the suspicion fell upon Ginotti, who was consequently sent
for by Ardolph, a robber whom they had chosen chieftain, Wolfstein
having declined the proffered distinction.
Ginotti arrived.--His stern countenance was changed not by the
execrations showered on him by every one. He yet remained unmoved, and
apparently careless what sentiments others might entertain of him: he
deigned not even to deny the charge. This coolness seemed to have
convinced every one, the new chief in particular, of his innocence.
"Let every one," said Ardolph, "be searched; and if his pockets contain
poison which could have effected this, let him die." This method was
universally applauded. As soon as the acclamations were stilled,
Wolfstein advanced forwards, and spoke thus:
"Any longer to conceal that it was I who perpetrated the deed, were
useless. Megalena's loveliness inflamed me:--I envied one who was about
to possess it.--I have murdered him!"
Here he was interrupted by the shouts of the bandits; and he was about
to be delivered to death, when Ginotti advanced. His superior and
towering figure inspired awe even in the hearts of the bandits. They
were silent.
"Suffer Wolfstein," he exclaimed, "to depart unhurt. I will answer for
his never publishing our retreat: I will promise that never more shall
you behold him."
Every one submitted to Ginotti: for who could resist the superior
Ginotti? From the gaze of Ginotti Wolfstein's soul shrank, enhorrored,
in confessed inferiority: he who had shrunk not at death, had shrunk not
to avow himself guilty of murder, and had prepared to meet its reward,
started from Ginotti's eye-beam as from the emanation of some superior
and preter-human being.
"Quit the cavern!" said Ginotti.--"May I not remain here until the
morrow?" inquired Wolfstein.--"If tomorrow's rising sun finds you in
this cavern," returned Ginotti, "I must deliver you up to the vengeance
of those whom you have injured."
Wolfstein retired to his solitary cell, to retrace, in his mind, the
occurrences of this eventful night. What was he now?--an isolated wicked
wanderer; not a being on earth whom he could call a friend, and carrying
with him that never-dying tormentor--conscience. In half-waking dreams
passed the night: the ghost of him whom he had so inhumanly destroyed,
seemed to cry for justice at the throne of God; bleeding, pale, and
ghastly, it pressed on his agonized brain; and confused, inexplicable
visions flitted in his imagination, until the freshness of the morning
breeze warned him to depart. He collected together all those valuables
which had fallen to his share as plunder, during his stay in the cavern:
they amounted to a large sum. He rushed from the cavern; he
hesitated,--he knew not whither to fly. He walked fast, and essayed, by
exercise, to smother the feelings of his soul; but the attempt was
fruitless. Not far had he proceeded, ere, stretched on the earth
apparently lifeless, he beheld a female form. He advanced towards it--it
was Megalena!
A tumult of exulting and inconceivable transport rushed through his
veins as he beheld her--her for whom he had plunged into the abyss of
crime. She slept, and, apparently overcome by the fatigues which she had
sustained, her slumber was profound. Her head reclined upon the jutting
root of a tree: the tint of health and loveliness sat upon her cheek.
When the fair Megalena awakened, and found herself in the arms of
Wolfstein, she started; yet, turning her eyes, she beheld it was no
enemy, and the expression of terror gave way to pleasure. In the general
confusion had Megalena escaped from the abode of the bandits. The
destinies of Wolfstein and Megalena were assimilated by similarity of
situations; and, before they quitted the spot, so far had this
reciprocal feeling prevailed, that they swore mutual affection. Megalena
then related her escape from the cavern, and showed Wolfstein jewels, to
an immense amount, which she had secreted.
"At all events, then," said Wolfstein, "we may defy poverty; for I have
about me jewels to the value of ten thousand zechins."
"We will go to Genoa," said Megalena. "We will, my fair one. There,
entirely devoted to each other, we will defy the darts of misery."
Megalena returned no answer, save a look of else inexpressible love.
It was now the middle of the day; neither Wolfstein nor Megalena had
tasted food since the preceding night; and faint, from fatigue, Megalena
scarce could move onwards. "Courage, my love," said Wolfstein; "yet a
little way, and we shall arrive at a cottage, a sort of inn, where we
may wait until the morrow, and hire mules to carry us to Placenza,
whence we can easily proceed to the goal of our destination."
Megalena collected her strength: in a short time they arrived at the
cottage, and passed the remainder of the day in plans respecting the
future. Wearied with unusual exertions, Megalena early retired to an
inconvenient bed, which, however, was the best the cottage could afford;
and Wolfstein, lying along the bench by the fireplace, resigned himself
to meditation; for his mind was too much disturbed to let him sleep.
Although Wolfstein had every reason to rejoice at the success which had
crowned his schemes; although the very event had occurred which his soul
had so much and so eagerly panted for; yet, even now, in possession of
all he held valuable on earth, was he ill at ease. Remorse for his
crimes, tortured him: yet, steeling his conscience, he essayed to
smother the fire which burned within his bosom; to change the tenour of
his thoughts--in vain! he could not. Restless passed the night, and the
middle of the day beheld Wolfstein and Megalena far from the habitation
of the bandits.
They intended, if possible, to reach Breno that night, and thence, on
the following day, to journey towards Genoa. They had descended the
southern acclivity of the Alps. It was now hastening towards spring, and
the whole country began to gleam with the renewed loveliness of nature.
Odoriferous orange-groves scented the air. Myrtles bloomed on the sides
of the gentle eminences which they occasionally ascended. The face of
nature was smiling and gay; so was Megalena's heart: with exulting and
speechless transport it bounded within her bosom. She gazed on him who
possessed her soul; although she felt no inclination in her bosom to
retrace the events, by means of which an obscure bandit, undefinable to
herself, had gained the eternal love of the former haughty Megalena di
Metastasio.
They soon arrived at Breno. Wolfstein dismissed the muleteer, and
conducted Megalena into the interior of the inn, ordering at the same
time a supper. Again were repeated protestations of eternal affection,
avowals of indissoluble love; but it is sufficient to conceive what
cannot be so well described.
It was near midnight; Wolfstein and Megalena sat at supper, and
conversed with that unrestrainedness and gaiety which mutual confidence
inspired, when the door was opened, and the innkeeper announced the
arrival of a man who wished to speak with Wolfstein.
"Tell him," exclaimed Wolfstein, rather surprised, and wishing to guard
against the possibility of danger, "that I will not see him."
The landlord left the room, and, in a short time, returned. A man
accompanied him: he was of gigantic stature, and masked. "He would take
no denial, Signor," said the landlord, in exculpation, as he left the
room.
The stranger advanced to the table at which Wolfstein and Megalena sat:
he threw aside his mask, and disclosed the features of--Ginotti!
Wolfstein's frame became convulsed with involuntary horror: he started.
Megalena was surprised.
Ginotti, at length, broke the terrible silence.
"Wolfstein," he said, "I saved you from, otherwise, inevitable death; by
my means alone have you gained Megalena:--what do I then deserve in
return?" Wolfstein looked on the countenance: it was stern and severe,
yet divested of the terrible expression which had before caused his
frame to shudder with excess of alarm.
"My eternal gratitude," returned Wolfstein, hesitatingly.
"Will you promise, that when, destitute and a wanderer, I demand your
protection, when I beseech you to listen to the tale which I shall
relate, you will listen to me; that, when I am dead, you will bury me,
and suffer my soul to rest in the endless slumber of annihilation? Then
will you repay me for the benefits which I have conferred upon you."
"I will," replied Wolfstein, "I will perform all that you require."
"Swear it!" exclaimed Ginotti.
"I swear."
Ginotti then abruptly quitted the apartment; the sound of his footsteps
was heard descending the stairs; and, when they were no longer audible,
a weight seemed to have been taken from the breast of Wolfstein.
"How did that man save your life?" inquired Megalena.
"He was one of our band," replied Wolfstein, evasively, "and, on a
plundering excursion, his pistol-ball entered the heart of the man,
whose sabre, lifted aloft, would else have severed my head from my
body."
"Dear Wolfstein, who are you?--whence came you?--for you were not always
an Alpine bandit?"
"That is true, my adored one; but fate presents an insuperable barrier
to my ever relating the events which occurred previously to my connexion
with the banditti. Dearest Megalena, if you love me, never question me
concerning my past life, but rest satisfied with the conviction, that my
future existence shall be devoted to you, and to you alone." Megalena
felt surprise; but although eagerly desiring to unravel the mystery in
which Wolfstein shrouded himself, desisted from inquiry.
Ginotti's mysterious visit had made too serious an impression on the
mind of Wolfstein to be lightly erased. In vain he essayed to appear
easy and unembarrassed while he conversed with Megalena. He attempted to
drown thought in wine--but in vain:--Ginotti's strange injunction
pressed, like a load of ice, upon his breast. At last, the hour being
late, they both retired to their respective rooms.
Early on the following morning, Wolfstein arose, to arrange the
necessary preparations for their journey to Genoa; whither he had sent a
servant whom he hired at Breno, to prepare accommodations for their
arrival.--Needless were it minutely to describe each trivial event which
occurred during their journey to Genoa.
On the morning of the fourth day, they found themselves within a short
distance of the city. They determined on the plan which they should
adopt, and, in a short space of time, arriving at Genoa, took up their
residence in a mansion on the outermost extremity of the city.
Whence, and what art thou, execrable shape.
That dar'st, though grim and terrible, advance
Thy miscreated front athwart my way?
Paradise Lost.
Time passed; and, settled in their new habitation, Megalena and
Wolfstein appeared to defy the arrows of vengeful destiny.
Wolfstein resolved to allow some time to elapse before he spoke of the
subject nearest to his heart, of herself, to Megalena. One evening,
however, overcome by the passion which, by mutual indulgence, had become
resistless, he cast himself at her feet, and, avowing most unbounded
love, demanded the promised return. A slight spark of virtue yet burned
in the bosom of the wretched girl; she essayed to fly from temptation;
but Wolfstein, seizing her hand, said, "And is my adored Megalena a
victim then to prejudice? Does she believe, that the Being who created
us gave us passions which never were to be satiated? Does she suppose
that Nature created us to become the tormentors of each other?"
"Ah! Wolfstein," Megalena said tenderly, "rise!--You know too well the
chain which unites me to you is indissoluble; you know that I must be
thine; where, therefore, is there an appeal?"
"To thine own heart, Megalena; for, if my image implanted there is not
sufficiently eloquent to confirm your hesitating soul, I would wish not
for a casket that contains a jewel unworthy of my possession."
Megalena involuntarily started at the strength of his expression; she
felt how completely she was his, and turned her eyes upon his
countenance, to read in it the meaning of his words.--His eyes gleamed
with excessive and confiding love.
"Yes." exclaimed Megalena, "yes, prejudice avaunt! once more reason
takes her seat, and convinces me, that to be Wolfstein's is not
criminal. O Wolfstein! if for a moment Megalena has yielded to the
imbecility of nature, believe that she yet knows how to recover herself,
to reappear in her proper character. Ere I knew you, a void in my heart,
and a tasteless carelessness of those objects which now interest me,
confessed your unseen empire; my heart longed for something which now it
has attained. I scruple not, Wolfstein, to aver that it is you:--Be
mine, then, and let our affection end not but with our existence!"
"Never, never shall it end!" enthusiastically exclaimed Wolfstein.
"Never!--What can break the bond joined by congeniality of sentiment,
cemented by an union of soul which must endure till the intellectual
particles which compose it become annihilated? Oh! never shall it end;
for when, convulsed by nature's latest ruin, sinks the fabric of this
perishable globe; when the earth is dissolved away, and the face of
heaven is rolled from before our eyes like a scroll; then will we seek
each other, and, in eternal, indivisible, although immaterial union,
shall we exist to all eternity."
Yet the love, with which Wolfstein regarded Megalena, notwithstanding
the strength of his expressions, though fervent and excessive, at first,
was not of that nature which was likely to remain throughout existence;
it was like the blaze of the meteor at midnight, which glares amid the
darkness for awhile, and then expires; yet did he love her now; at least
if heated admiration of her person and accomplishments, independently of
mind, be love.
Blessed in mutual affection, if so it may be called, the time passed
swift to Wolfstein and Megalena. No incident worthy of narration
occurred to disturb the uninterrupted tenour of their existence. Tired,
at last, even with delight, which had become monotonous from long
continuance, they began to frequent the public places. It was one
evening, nearly a month subsequent to their first residence at Genoa,
that they went to a party at the Duca di Thice. It was there that he
beheld the gaze of one of the crowd fixed upon him. Indefinable to
himself were the emotions which shook him; in vain he turned to every
part of the saloon to evade the scrutiny of the stranger's gaze; he was
not able to give formation, in his own mind, to the ideas which struck
him; they were acknowledged, however, in his heart, by sensations awful,
and not to be described. He knew that he had before seen the features of
the stranger; but he had forgotten Ginotti; for it was Ginotti--from
whose scrutinizing glance, Wolfstein turned appalled;--it was Ginotti,
of whose strangely and fearfully gleaming eyeball Wolfstein endeavoured
to evade the fascination in vain. His eyes, resistlessly attracted to
the sphere of chill horror that played around Ginotti's glance, in vain
were fixed on vacuity; in vain attempted to notice other objects.
Complaining to Megalena of sudden and violent indisposition, Wolfstein
with her retired, and they quickly reached the steps of their mansion.
Arrived there, Megalena tenderly inquired the cause of Wolfstein's
illness, but his vague answers, and unconnected exclamations, soon led
her to suppose it was not corporeal. She entreated him to acquaint her
with the reason of his indisposition; Wolfstein, however, wishing to
conceal from Megalena the true cause of his emotions, evasively told her
that he had felt excessively faint from the heat of the assembly; she
well knew, by his manner, that he had not told her truth, but affected
to be satisfied, resolving, at some future period, to develope the
mystery with which he evidently was environed. Retired to rest,
Wolfstein's mind, torn by contending paroxysms of passion, admitted not
of sleep; he ruminated on the mysterious reappearance of Ginotti; and
the more he reflected, the more did the result of his reflections lead
him astray. The strange gaze of Ginotti, and the consciousness that he
was completely in the power of so indefinable a being; the consciousness
that, wheresoever he might go, Ginotti would still follow him, pressed
upon Wolfstein's heart. Ignorant of what connexion they could have with
this mysterious observer of his actions, his crimes recurred in hideous
and disgustful array to the bewildered mind of Wolfstein; he reflected,
that, although now exulting in youthful health and vigour, the time
would come, the dreadful day of retribution, when endless damnation
would yawn beneath his feet, and he would shrink from eternal punishment
before the tribunal of that God whom he had insulted. To evade death,
unconscious why, became an idea on which he dwelt with earnestness; he
thought on it for a time, and being mournfully convinced of its
impossibility, strove to change the tenour of his reflections.
While these thoughts dwelt in his mind, sleep crept imperceptibly over
his senses; yet, in his visions, was Ginotti present. He dreamed that he
stood on the brink of a frightful precipice, at whose base, with
deafening and terrific roar, the waves of the ocean dashed; that, above
his head, the blue glare of the lightning dispelled the obscurity of
midnight, and the loud crashing of the thunder was rolled franticly from
rock to rock; that, along the cliff on which he stood, a figure, more
frightful than the imagination of man is capable of portraying, advanced
towards him, and was about to precipitate him headlong from the summit
of the rock whereon he stood, when Ginotti advanced, and rescued him
from the grasp of the monster; that no sooner had he done this, than the
figure dashed Ginotti from the precipice--his last groans were borne on
the blast which swept the bosom of the ocean. Confused visions then
obliterated the impressions of the former, and he rose in the morning
restless and unrefreshed.
A weight which his utmost efforts could not remove, pressed upon the
bosom of Wolfstein; his mind, superior and towering as it was, found all
its energies inefficient to conquer it. As a last resource, therefore,
this wretched victim of vice and folly sought the gaming-table; a scene
which alone could raise the spirits of one who required something
important, even in his pastimes, to interest him. He staked large sums;
and, although he concealed his haunts from Megalena, she soon discovered
them. For a time, fortune smiled; till one evening he entered his
mansion, desperate from ill luck, and, accusing his own hapless destiny,
could no longer conceal the truth from Megalena. She reproved him
mildly, and her tenderness had such an effect on Wolfstein that he burst
into tears, and promised her that never again would he yield to the
vicious influence of folly.
The rapid days rolled on, and each one brought the conviction to
Wolfstein more strongly, that Megalena was not the celestial model of
perfection which his warm imagination had portrayed; he began to find in
her, not the exhaustless mine of interesting converse which he had once
supposed. Possession, which, when unassisted by real, intellectual love,
clogs man, increases the ardent, uncontrollable passions of woman even
to madness. Megalena yet adored Wolfstein with most fervent
love:--although yet greatly attached to Megalena, although he would have
been uneasy were she another's, Wolfstein no longer regarded her with
that idolatrous affection which had filled his bosom towards her.
Feelings of this nature, naturally drove Wolfstein occasionally from
home to seek for employment--and what employment, save gaming, could
Genoa afford to Wolfstein?--In what other occupation was it possible
that he could engage? It was done: he broke his promise to Megalena, and
became even a more devoted votary to gambling than before.
How powerful are the attractions of delusive vice! Wolfstein soon staked
large sums--larger even than ever. With what anxiety did he watch the
dice!--How were his eyeballs strained with mingled anticipation of
wealth and poverty! Now fortune smiled; yet he concealed even his good
luck from Megalena. At length the tide changed again: he lost immense
sums; and, desperate from a series of ill success, cursed his hapless
destiny, and with wildest emotions rushed into the street. Again he
solemnly swore to Megalena, that never more would he risk their mutual
happiness by his folly.
Still, hurried away by the impulse of a burning desire of interesting
his deadened feelings, did Wolfstein, false to his promise, seek the
gaming-table; he had staked an enormous amount, and the fatal throw was
at this instant about to decide the fate of the unhappy Wolfstein.
A pause, as if some dreadful event were about to occur, ensued; each
gazed upon the countenance of Wolfstein, which, desperate from danger,
retained, however, an expressive firmness.
A stranger stood before Wolfstein on the opposite side of the table. He
appeared to have no interest in what was going forward, but, with
immoved gaze, fixed his eyes upon his countenance.
Wolfstein felt an instinctive shuddering thrill through his frame, when,
oh horrible confirmation of his wildest apprehensions! it
was--Ginotti!--the terrible, the mysterious Ginotti, whose dire
scrutiny, resting upon Wolfstein, chilled his soul with excessive
affright.
A sensation of extreme and conflicting emotions shook the inmost
recesses of Wolfstein's heart; for an instant his brain swam around in
wildest commotion, yet he steeled his resolution, even to the horrors of
hell and destruction; he gazed on the mysterious scrutineer who stood
before him, and, regardless of the sum he had staked, and which before
had engaged his whole attention, and excited his liveliest interest,
dashed the box convulsively upon the table, and followed Ginotti, who
was about to quit the apartment, resolving to clear up a fatality which
hung around him, and appeared to blast his prospects; for of the
misfortunes which had succeeded his association with the bandits, he had
not the slightest doubt, in his own mind, that Ginotti was the cause.
With reflections a scene of the wildest anarchy, Wolfstein resolved to
unravel the mystery in which he saw Ginotti was shrouded; and resolved,
therefore, to devote that night towards finding out his abode. With
feelings such as these, he rushed into the street, and followed the
gigantic form of Ginotti, who stalked onwards majestically, as if
conscious of safety, and wholly ignorant of the eager scrutiny with
which Wolfstein watched his every movement.
It was midnight--yet they continued to advance; a feeling of desperation
urged Wolfstein onwards; he resolved to follow Ginotti, even to the
extremity of the universe. They passed through many bye and narrow
streets; the darkness was complete; but the rays of the lamps, as they
fell upon the lofty form of Ginotti, guided the footsteps of Wolfstein.
They had reached the end of the Strada Nuova; the lengthened sound of
Ginotti's footsteps was all that struck upon Wolfstein's ear. On a
sudden, Ginotti's figure disappeared from Wolfstein's gaze; in vain he
looked around him, in vain he searched every recess, wherein he might
have secreted himself--Ginotti was gone!
To describe the surprise mingled with awe, which possessed Wolfstein's
bosom, is impossible. In vain he searched every part. He proceeded to
the bridge; a party of fishermen were waiting there; he inquired of
them, had they seen a man of superior stature pass? they appeared
surprised at his question, and unanimously answered in the negative.
While varying emotions tumultuously contended within his bosom,
Wolfstein, ever the victim of extraordinary events, paused awhile,
revolving the mystery both of Ginotti's appearance and disappearance.
That business of an important nature led him to Genoa, he doubted not;
his indifference at the gaming-table, his particular regard of
Wolfstein, left, in the mind of the latter, no doubt, but that he took a
terrible and mysterious interest in whatever related to him.
All now was silent. The inhabitants of Genoa lay wrapped in sleep, and,
save the occasional conversation of the fishermen who had just returned,
no sound broke on the uninterrupted stillness, and thick clouds obscured
the starbeams of heaven.
Again Wolfstein searched that part of the city which lay near Strada
Nuova; but no one had seen Ginotti; although all wondered at the wild
expressions and disordered mien of Wolfstein. The bell tolled the hour
of three ere Wolfstein relinquished his pursuit; finding, however,
further inquiry fruitless, he engaged a chair to take him to his
habitation, where he doubted not that Megalena anxiously awaited his
return.
Proceeding along the streets, the obscurity of the night was not so
great but that he observed the figure of one of the chairmen to be above
that of common men, and that he had drawn his hat forwards to conceal
his countenance. His appearance, however, excited no remark; for
Wolfstein was too much absorbed in the idea which related individually
to himself, to notice what, perhaps, at another time, might have excited
wonder. The wind sighed moaningly along the stilly colonnades, and the
grey light of morning began to appear above the eastern eminences.
They entered the street which soon led to the abode of Wolfstein, who
fixed his eyes upon the chairman. His gigantic proportions struck him
with involuntary awe: such is the unaccountable connexion of idea in the
mind of man. He shuddered. Such a man, thought he, is Ginotti: such a
man is he who watches my every action, whose power I feel within myself
is resistless, and not to be evaded. He sighed deeply when he reflected
on the terrible connexion, dreadful although mysterious, which subsisted
between himself and Ginotti. His soul sank within him at the idea of his
own littleness, when a fellowmortal might be able to gain so strong,
though sightless, an empire over him. He felt that he was no longer
independent. Whilst these thoughts agitated his mind, the chair had
stopped at his habitation. He turned round to discharge the chairman's
fare, when, casting his eyes on his countenance, which hitherto had
remained concealed, oh horrible and chilling conviction! he recognised
in his dark features those of the terrific Ginotti. As if hell had
yawned at the feet of the hapless Wolfstein, as if some spectre of the
night had blasted his straining eyeball, so did he stand transfixed. His
soul shrank with mingled awe and abhorrence from a being who, even to
himself, was confessedly superior to the proud and haughty Wolfstein.
Ere well he could calm his faculties, agitated by so unexpected an
interview, Ginotti said.
"Wolfstein! long have I known you; long have I marked you as the only
man who now exists, worthy, and appreciating the value of what I have in
store for you. Inscrutable are my intentions; seek not, therefore, to
develope them: time will do it in a far more complete manner. You shall
not now know the motive for my, to you, unaccountable actions: strive
not, therefore, to unravel them. You may frequently see me: never
attempt to speak or follow; for, if you do--" Here the eyes of Ginotti
flashed with coruscations of inexpressible fire, and his every feature
became animated by the tortures which he was about to describe; but he
suddenly checked himself, and only added, "Attend to these my
directions, but try, if possible, to forget me. I am not what I seem.
The time may come, will most probably arrive, when I shall appear in my
real character to you. You, Wolfstein, have I singled out from the whole
world to make the depositary--" He ceased, and abruptly quitted the
spot.
On Wolfstein's return to his habitation, he found Megalena in anxious
expectation of his arrival. She feared that some misfortune had befallen
him. Wolfstein related to her the events of the preceding night; they
appeared to her mysterious and inexplicable; nor could she offer any
consolation to the wretched Wolfstein.
The occurrences of the preceding evening left a load upon his breast,
which all the gaieties of Genoa were insufficient to dispel: eagerly he
longed for the visit of Ginotti. Slow dragged the hours: each day did he
expect it, and each succeeding day brought but disappointment to his
expectations.
Megalena too, the beautiful, the adored Megalena, was no longer what
formerly she was, the innocent girl hanging on his support, and
depending wholly upon him for defence and protection; no longer, with
mild and love-beaming eyes, she regarded the haughty Wolfstein as a
superior being, whose look or slightest word was sufficient to decide
her on any disputed point. No; dissipated pleasures had changed the
former mild and innocent Megalena. Far, far different was she than when
she threw herself into his arms on their escape from the cavern, and,
with a blush, smiled upon the first declaration of Wolfstein's
affection.
Now immersed in a succession of gay pleasures, Megalena was no longer
the gentle interesting she, whose soul of sensibility would tremble if a
worm beneath her feet expired; whose heart would sink within her at the
tale of others' woe. She had become a fashionable belle, and forgot, in
her new character, the fascinations of her old one. Still, however, was
she ardently, solely, and resistlessly attached to Wolfstein: his image
was implanted in her soul, never to be effaced by casualty, never erased
by time. No coolness apparently took place between them; but, although
unperceived and unacknowledged by each, an indifference evidently did
exist between them. Among the various families whom their residence in
Genoa had rendered familiar to Wolfstein and Megalena, none were more so
than that of il Conte della Anzasca; it consisted of himself, la
Contessa, and a daughter of exquisite loveliness, named Olympia.
This girl, mistress of every fascinating accomplishment, uniting in
herself to great brilliancy and playfulness of wit, a person alluring
beyond description, was in her eighteenth year. From habitual
indulgence, her passions, naturally violent and excessive, had become
irresistible; and when once she had fixed a determination in her mind,
that determination must either be effected, or she must cease to exist.
Such, then, was the beautiful Olympia, and as such she conceived a
violent and unconquerable passion for Wolfstein. His towering and
majestic form, his expressive and regular features, beaming with
somewhat of softness; yet pregnant with a look as if woe had beat to the
earth a mind whose native and unconfined energies aspired to
heaven--all, all told her, that, without him, she must either cease to
be, or drag on a life of endless and irremediable woe. Nourished by
restless imagination, her passion soon attained a most unbridled height:
instead of conquering a feeling which honour, generosity, virtue, all
forbade ever to be gratified, she gloried within herself at having found
one on whom she might with justice fix her burning attachment; for
although the object of them had never before been present to her mind,
the desires for that object, although unseen, had taken root long, long
ago. A false system of education, and a wrong expansion of ideas, as
they became formed, had been put in practice with respect to her
youthful mind; and indulgence strengthened the passions which it behoved
restraint to keep within proper bounds, and which might have unfolded
themselves as coadjutors of virtue, and not as promoters of vicious and
illicit love. Fiercer, nevertheless, in proportion as greater obstacles
appeared in the prosecution of her resolve, flamed the passion of the
devoted Olympia. Her brain was whirled round in the fiercest convulsions
of expectant happiness; the anticipation of gratified voluptuousness
swelled her bosom even to bursting, yet did she rein-in the boiling
emotions of her soul, and resolved to be sufficiently cool, more
certainly to accomplish her purpose.
It was one night when Wolfstein's mansion was the scene of gaiety, that
this idea first suggested itself to the mind of Olympia, and unfolded
itself to her, as it really was love for Wolfstein. In vain the
suggestions of generosity, the voice of conscience, which told her how
doubly wicked would be the attempt of alienating from her the lover of
her friend Megalena, in audible, though noiseless, accents spoke; in
vain the native modesty of her sex represented in its real and hideous
colours what she was about to do: still Olympia was resolved.
That night, in the solitude of her own chamber, in the palazzo of her
father, she retraced in her mind the various events which had led to her
present uncontrollable passion, which had employed her whole thoughts,
and rendered her, as it were, dead to every other outward existence. The
wild transports of maddening desire raved terrific within her breast:
she endeavoured to smother the ideas which presented themselves; but the
more she strove to erase them from her mind, the more vividly were they
represented in her heated and enthusiastic imagination. "And will he not
return my love?" she exclaimed: "will he not?--ah! a bravo's dagger
shall pierce his heart, and thus will I reward him for his contempt of
Olympia della Anzasca. But no! it is impossible. I will cast myself at
his feet; I will avow to him the passion which consumes me,--will swear
to be ever, ever his! Can he then cast me from him? Can he despise a
woman whose only fault is love, nay, idolatry, adoration for him?"
She paused.--The tumultuous passions of her soul were now too fierce for
utterance--too fierce for concealment or restraint. The hour was late;
the moon poured its mildlylustrous beams upon the lengthened colonnades
of Genoa, when Olympia, overcome by emotions such as these, quitted her
father's palazzo, and hastened, with rapid and unequal footsteps,
towards the mansion of Wolfstein. The streets were by no means crowded;
but those who yet lingered in them gazed with slight surprise on the
figure of Olympia, which, light and symmetrical as a celestial sylphid,
passed swiftly onwards.
She soon arrived at the habitation of Wolfstein, and sent the domestic
to announce that one wished to speak with him, whose business was
pressing and secret. She was conducted into an apartment, and there
awaited the arrival of Wolfstein. A confused expression of awe played
upon his features as he entered; but it suddenly gave place to that of
surprise. He started upon perceiving Olympia, and said.
"To what, Lady Olympia, do I owe the unforeseen pleasure of your visit?
What so mysterious business have you with me?" continued he playfully.
"But come, we had just sat down to supper; Megalena is within."--"Oh! if
you wish to see me expire in horrible torments at your feet, inhuman
Wolfstein, call for Megalena! and then will your purpose be
accomplished."--"Dearest Lady Olympia, compose yourself, I beseech you,"
said Wolfstein: "what, what agitates you?"--"Oh! pardon, pardon me," she
exclaimed, with maniac wildness: "pardon a wretched female who knows not
what she does! Oh! resistlessly am I impelled to this avowal;
resistlessly am I impelled to declare to you, that I love you! adore you
to distraction!--Will you return my affection? But, ah! I rave!
Megalena, the beloved Megalena, claims you as her own; and the wretched
Olympia must moan the blighted prospects which were about to open fair
before her eyes."
"For Heaven's sake, dear lady, compose yourself; recollect who you are;
recollect the loftiness of birth and loveliness of form which are so
eminently yours. This, this is far beneath Olympia."
"Oh!" she exclaimed, franticly casting herself at his feet, and bursting
into a passion of tears, "what are birth, fame, fortune, and all the
advantages which are casually given to me! I swear to thee, Wolfstein,
that I would sacrifice not only these, but even all my hopes of future
salvation, even the forgiveness of my Creator, were it required from me.
O Wolfstein, kind, pitying Wolfstein, look down with an eye of
indulgence on a female whose only crime is resistless, unquenchable
adoration of you."
She panted for breath, her pulses beat with violence, her eyes swam,
and, overcome by the conflicting passions of her soul, the frame of
Olympia fell, sickening with faintness, on the ground. Wolfstein raised
her, and tenderly essayed to recall the senses of the hapless girl.
Recovering, and perceiving her situation, Olympia started, seemingly
horrified, from the arms of Wolfstein. The energies of her high mind
instantly resumed their functions, and she exclaimed, "Then, base and
ungrateful Wolfstein, you refuse to unite your fate with mine? My love
is ardent and excessive, but the revenge which may follow the despiser
of it is far more impetuous; reflect well then ere you drive Olympia
della Anzasca to despair."--"No reflection, in the present instance, is
needed, Lady," replied Wolfstein, coolly, yet determinedly. "What man of
honour needs a moment's rumination to discover what nature has so
inerasibly implanted in his bosom--the sense of right and wrong? I am
connected with a female whom I love, who confides in me; in what manner
should I merit her confidence, if I join myself to another? Nor can the
loveliness, the exquisite, the unequalled loveliness of the beautiful
Olympia della Anzasca compensate me for breaking an oath sworn to
another."
He paused.--Olympia spake not, but appeared to be awaiting the dreadful
fiat of her destiny.
"Olympia," Wolfstein continued, "pardon me! Were I not irrevocably
Megalena's, I must be thine: I esteem you, I admire you, but my love is
another's."
The passion which before had choked Olympia's utterance, appeared to
give way to the impetuousness of her emotions.
"Then," she said, as a solemnity of despair toned her voice to firmness,
"then you are irrevocably another's?"
"I am compelled to be explicit; I am compelled to say, I am another's
for ever!" fervently returned Wolfstein.
Again fainting from the excess of painful feeling which vibrated through
her frame, Olympia fell at Wolfstein's feet: again he raised her, and,
in anxious solicitude, watched her varying countenance. At the critical
instant when Olympia had just recovered from the faintness which had
oppressed her, the door burst open, and disclosed to the view of the
passion-grieving Olympia, the detested form of Megalena. A silence,
resembling that when a solemn pause in the midnight-tempest announces
that the elements only hesitate to collect more terrific force for the
ensuing explosion, took place, while Megalena surveyed Olympia and
Wolfstein. Still she spoke not; yet the silence, even more terrible than
the commotion which followed, continued to prevail. Olympia dashed by
Megalena, and faintly articulating "Vengeance!" rushed into the street,
and bent her rapid flight to the Palazzo di Anzasca.
"Wolfstein," said Megalena, her voice quivering with excessive emotion,
"Wolfstein, how have I deserved this? How have I deserved a dereliction
so barbarous and so unprovoked? But no!" she added in a firmer tone;
"no! I will leave you! I will show that I can bear the tortures of
disappointed love, better than you can evade the scrunity of one who did
adore thee."
In vain Wolfstein put in practice every soothing art of tranquillize the
agitation of Megalena. Her frame trembled with violent shuddering; yet
her soul, as it were, superior to the form which enshrined it, loftily
towered, and retained its firmness amidst the frightful chaos which
battled within.
"Now," said she to Wolfstein, "I will leave you!"
"O God! Megalena, dearest, adored Megalena!" exclaimed Wolfstein,
passionately, "stop--I love you, must ever love you: deign, at least, to
hear me."--"What good would accrue from that?" gloomily inquired
Megalena.
Wolfstein rushed towards her; he threw himself at her feet, and
exclaimed, "If ever, for one instant, my soul was alienated from
thee--if ever it swerved from the affection which I have sworn to
thee--may the red right hand of God instantaneously dash me beneath the
lowest abyss of hell! O Megalena! is it as a victim of groundless
jealousy that I have immolated myself at the altar of thy perfections?
Have I only raised myself to this summit of happiness to feel more
deeply the fall of which thou art the cause? O Megalena! if yet one
spark of thy former love lingers in thy breast, oh! believe one who
swears that he must be thine even till the particles which compose the
soul devoted to thee, become annihilated."--He paused.
Megalena heard his wildly enthusiastic expressions in sullen silence.
She looked upon him with a stern and severe gaze:--he yet lay at her
feet, and, hiding his face upon the earth, groaned deeply. "What proof,"
exclaimed Magalena, impatiently, "what proof will Wolfstein, the
deceiver, bring to satisfy me that his love is still mine?"
"Seek for proof in my heart," returned Wolfstein; "that heart which yet
is bleeding from the thorns which thou, cruel girl, hast implanted in
it: seek it in my every action, and then will the convinced Megalena
know that Wolfstein is hers irrevocably--body and soul, for ever!"
"Yet, I believe thee not!" said Mega lena; "for the haughty Olympia
della Anzasca would scarcely recline in the arms of a man who was not
entirely devoted to her."
Yet were the charms of Megalena unfaded; yet their empire over Wolfstein
excessive and complete.
"Still I believe thee not," continued she, as a smile of expectant
malice sat upon her cheek. "I require some proof which will assuredly
convince me, that I am yet beloved: give me proof, and Megalena will
again be Wolfstein's."--"Oh!" said Wolfstein, mournfully, "what farther
proof can I give, but my oath, that never in soul or body have I broken
the allegiance that I formerly swore to thee?"
"The death of Olympia!" gloomily returned Megalena.
"What mean you?" said Wolfstein, starting.
"I mean," continued Megalena, collectedly, as if what she was about to
utter had been the result of serious cogitation; "I mean that, if ever
you wish again to possess my affections, ere to-morrow morning, Olympia
must expire!"
"Murder the innocent Olympia?"
"Yes!"
A pause ensued; during which the mind of Wolfstein, torn by ten thousand
warring emotions, knew not on what to resolve. He gazed upon Megalena;
her symmetrical form shone with tenfold loveliness to his enraptured
imagination: again he resolved to behold those eyes beam with affection
for him, which were now gloomily fixed upon the ground. "Will nothing
else convince Megalena that Wolfstein is eternally hers?"
"Nothing."
"'T is done then," exclaimed Wolfstein, "'t is done. Yet," he muttered,
"I may suffer for this premeditated act tortures now inconceivable; I
may writhe, convulsed, in immaterial agony for ever and for ever--ah! I
cannot. No!" he continued; "Megalena, I am again yours; I will immolate
the victim which thou requirest as a sacrifice to our love. Give me a
dagger, which may sweep off from the face of the earth, one who is
hateful to thee! Adored creature, give me the dagger, and I will restore
it to thee dripping with Olympia's hated blood; it shall have first been
buried in her heart."
"Then, then again art thou mine own! again art thou the idolized
Wolfstein, whom I was wont to love!" said Megalena, enfolding him in her
embrace. Perceiving her returning softness, Wolfstein essayed to induce
her to spare him the frightful proof of the ardour of his attachment;
but she started from his arms as he spoke, and exclaimed.
"Ah! base deceiver, do you hesitate?"
"Oh, no! I do not hesitate, dearest Megalena;--give me a dagger, and I
go."
"Here, follow me then," returned Megalena. He followed her to the
supper-room.
"It is useless to go yet, it has but yet struck one; the inhabitants of
il Palazzo della Anzasca will, about two, be nearly all retired to rest;
till then, let us converse on what we were about to do." So far did
Megalena's seductive blandishment, her artful selection of converse, win
upon Wolfstein, that, when the destined hour approached, his sanguinary
soul thirsted for the blood of the comparatively innocent Olympia.
"Well!" he cried, swallowing down an overflowing goblet of wine, "now
the time is come; now suffer me to go, and tear the soul of Olympia from
her hated body." His fury amounted almost to delirium, as, masked, and
having a dagger, which Megalena had given him, concealed beneath his
garments, he proceeded rapidly along the streets towards the Palazzo
della Anzasca. So eager was he to shed the lifeblood of Olympia, that he
flew, rather than ran, along the silent streets of Genoa. The colonnades
of the lofty Palazzo della Anzasca resounded to his rapid footsteps; he
stopped at its lofty portal:--it was open; unperceived he entered, and,
hiding himself behind a column, according to the directions of Megalena,
waited there. Soon advancing through the hall, he saw the sylphlike
figure of the lovely Olympia; with silent tread he followed it,
experiencing not the slightest sentiment of remorse within his bosom for
the deed which he was about to perpetrate. He followed her to her
apartment, and secreting himself until Olympia might have sunk into
sleep, with sanguinary and remorseless patience, when her loud breathing
convinced him that her slumber was profound, he arose from his place of
concealment, and advanced to the bed, wherein Olympia lay. Her light
tresses, disengaged from the band which had confined them, floated
around a countenance, superhumanly beautiful, and whose expression, even
in slumber, appeared to be tinted by Wolfstein's refusal; convulsive
sighs heaved her fair bosom, and tears, starting from under her eyelids,
fell profusely down her damask cheek. Wolfstein gazed upon her in
silence. "Cruel, inhuman Megalena!" he mentally soliloquized; "could
nothing but immolation of this innocence appease thee?" Again he stifled
the stings of rebelling conscience; again the unquenchable and
resistless ardour of his love for Megalena stimulated him to the wildest
pitch of fury: he raised high the dagger, and, drawing aside the
covering which veiled her alabaster bosom, paused an instant, to decide
in which place it were most instantaneously destructive to strike. Again
a mournful smile irradiated her lovely features; it played with a sweet
softness on her countenance: it seemed as though she smiled in defiance
of the arrows of destiny, but that her soul, nevertheless, lingered with
the wretch who sought her life. Maddened by the sight of so much
beauteous innocence, even the desperate Wolfstein, forgetful of the
danger which he must thereby incur, hurled the dagger from him. The
sound awakened Olympia: she started up in surprise; but her alarm was
changed into ecstacy when she beheld the idolized possessor of her soul
standing before her.
"I was dreaming of you," said Olympia, scarcely knowing whether this
were not a dream; but, impulsively following the first emotions of her
soul, "I dreamed that you were about to murder me. It is not so,
Wolfstein, no! you would not murder one who adores you?"
"Murder Olympia! O God! no!--I take Heaven to witness, that I never now
could do it!"
"Nor could you ever, I hope, dear Wolfstein; but drive away thoughts
like these, and remember that Olympia lives but for thee; and the moment
which takes from her your affections, seals the death-like fiat of her
destiny." These asseverations, strengthened by the most solemn and
deadly vows that he would return to Megalena the destroyer of Olympia,
flashed across Wolfstein's mind. Perpetrate the deed, now, he could not;
his soul became a scene of most terrific agony. "Wilt thou be mine?"
exclaimed the enraptured Olympia, as a ray of hope arose in her mind.
"Never! never can I," groaned the agitated Wolfstein; "I am irrevocably,
indissolubly another's." Maddened by this death-blow to all expectations
of happiness, which the deluded Olympia had so fondly anticipated, she
leaped wildly from the bed. A light and flowing night-dress alone veiled
her form: her alabaster bosom was shaded by the light ringlets of her
hair which rested unconfined upon it. She threw herself at the feet of
Wolfstein. On a sudden, as if struck by some thought, she started
convulsively from the earth: for an instant she paused.
The rays of a lamp, which stood in a recess of the apartment, fell full
upon the dagger of Wolfstein. Eagerly Olympia sprung towards it; and,
ere Wolfstein was aware of her dreadful intent, plunged it into her
bosom. Weltering in purple gore she fell: no groan, no sigh escaped her
lips. A smile, which the pangs of dissolution could not dispel, played
on her convulsed countenance; it irradiated her features with
celestially awful, although terrific expression. "Ineffectually have I
endeavoured to conquer the ardent feelings of my soul; now I overcome
them," were her last words. She utterred them in a tone of firmness,
and, falling back, expired in torments, which her fine, her expressive
features declared that she gloried in.
All was silent in the chamber of death: the stillness was frightful. The
agonies which Wolfstein endured were past description: for a time he
neither moved nor spoke. The pale glare of the lamp fell upon the
features of Olympia, from which the tinge of life had fled for ever.
Suddenly, and in despite of himself, were the affections of Wolfstein
turned from Megalena: he could not but now regard her as a fiend, who
had been the cause of Olympia's destruction; who had urged him to a deed
from which his nature now shrunk as from annihilation. A wild paroxysm
of awful alarm seized upon him: he knelt by the side of Olympia's
corpse; he kissed it, bathed it with his tears, and imprecated a
thousand curses on himself. Her features, although convulsed by the
agonies of violent dissolution, retained an unchanging image of
loveliness, which never might fade away. Her beautiful bosom, in which
her hand yet held the fatal dagger, was discoloured with blood, and
those affection-beaming orbs were now closed in the never-ending slumber
of the grave. Unable longer to endure a sight of so much horror,
Wolfstein started up, and, forgetful of every thing save the frightful
deed which he had witnessed, rushed from the Palazzo della Anzasca, and
mechanically retraced his way towards his own habitation.
Not once that night had Megalena closed her eyes. Her infuriate passions
had wound her soul up to a deadly calmness of expectation. She had not,
during the whole of the night, retired to rest, but sat, with sanguinary
patience, cursing the lagging hours that they passed so slowly, and
waiting to hear tidings of death. Morning had begun to streak the
eastern sky with gray, when Wolfstein hurried into the supper-room,
where Megalena still sat, wildly exclaiming "The deed is done!" Megalena
entreated him to be calm, and, more collectedly, to communicate the
events which had occurred during the night.
"In the first place," he said in an accent of feigned horror, "the
officers of justice are alarmed!"
Deadly affright chilled the soul of Megalena: she turned pale, and,
gasping for breath, inquired eagerly respecting the success of his
attempt.
"O God!" exclaimed Wolfstein, "that has succeeded but too well! the
hapless Olympia welters in her life-blood!"
"Joy! joy!" franticly exclaimed Megalena, her eagerness for revenge
overcoming, for the moment, every other feeling.
"But, Megalena," continued Wolfstein, "she fell not by my hand: no, she
smiled on me in her sleep, and, when she awoke, finding me deaf to her
solicitations, snatched my dagger, and buried it in her bosom."
"Did you wish to prevent the deed?" inquired Megalena.
"Oh! good God of Heaven! thou knowest my heart: I would sacrifice every
remaining earthly good were Olympia again alive!"
Megalena spoke not, but a smile of exquisitely gratified malice
illumined her features with terrific flame.
"We must instantly quit Genoa," said Wolfstein: "the name on the mask
which I left in the Palazzo della Anzasca, will remove all doubt that I
was the murderer of Olympia. Yet indeed I care not much for death; if
you will it so, Megalena, we will even, as it is, remain in Genoa."
"Oh! no, no!" eagerly cried Megalena: "Wolfstein, I love you beyond
expression, and Genoa is destruction; let us seek, therefore, some
retired spot, where we may for a while at least secrete ourselves. But,
Wolfstein, are you persuaded that I love you? need there more proof be
required than that I wished the death of another for thee? it was on
that account alone that I desired the destruction of Olympia, that thou
mightest be more completely and irresistibly mine."
Wolfstein answered not: the feelings of his soul were far different; the
expression of his countenance plainly evinced them: and Megalena
regretted that her effervescent passions should have led her to so rash
an avowal of her contempt of virtue. They then separated to arrange
their affairs, prior to their departure, which, on account of the
pressing necessity of the case, must take place immediately. They took
with them but two domestics, and, collecting all their stock of money,
they were soon far from pursuit and Genoa.
How sweet are the scenes endeared to us by ideas which we have cherished
in the society of one we have loved! How melancholy to wander amongst
them again after an absence, perhaps of years; years which have changed
the tenour of our existence,--have changed even the friend, the dear
friend, for whose sake alone the landscape lives in the memory, for
whose sake tears flow at the each varying feature of the scenery, which
catches the eye of one who has never seen them since he saw them with
the being who was dear to him!
Dark, autumnal, and gloomy was the hour; the winds whistled hollow, and
over the expanse of heaven was spread an unvarying sombreness of vapour:
nothing was heard save the melancholy shriekings of the night-bird,
which, soaring on the evening blast, broke the stillness of the scene,
interrupting the meditations of frenzied enthusiasm; mingled with the
sighing of the wind, which swept in languid and varying cadence amidst
the leafless boughs.
Ah! of whom shall the poor outcast wanderer demand protection? Far, far
has she wandered. The vice and unkindness of the world hath torn her
tender heart. In whose bosom shall she repose the secret of her
sufferings? Who will listen with pity to the narrative of her woe, and
heal the wounds which the selfish unkindness of man hath made, and then
sent her with them, unbound, on the wide and pitiless world? Lives there
one whose confidence the sufferer might seek?
Cold and dreary was the night: November's blast had chilled the air. Is
the blast so pitiless as ingratitude and selfishness? Ah, no! thought
the wanderer; it is unkind indeed, but not so unkind as that. Poor
Eloise de St. Irvyne! many, many are in thy situation; but few have a
heart so full of sensibility and excellence for the demoniac malice of
man to deform, and then glut itself with hellish pleasure in the
conviction of having ravaged the most lovely of the works of their
Creator. She gazed upon the sky: the moon had just risen; its full orb
was occasionally shaded by a passing cloud: it rose from behind the
turrets of le Chateau de St. Irvyne. The poor girl raised her eyes
towards it, streaming with tears: she scarce could recognise the
once-loved building. She thanked God for permitting her again to behold
it; and hastened on with steps tottering from fatigue, yet nerved with
the sanguineness of anticipation.
Yes, St. Irvyne was the same as when she had left it five years ago. The
same ivy mantled the western tower; the same jasmine which bloomed so
luxuriantly when she left it, was still there, though leafless from the
season. Thus was it with poor Eloise: she had left St. Irvyne, blooming,
and caressed by every one; she returned to it pale, downcast, and
friendless. The jasmine encircled the twisted pillars which supported
the portal. Alas! whose assistance had prevented Eloise from sinking to
the earth?--no one's. She knocked at the door--it was opened, and an
instant's space beheld her in the arms of a beloved sister. Needless
were it to describe the mutual pleasure, needless to describe the
delight, of recognition; suffice it to say, that Eloise once more
enjoyed the society of her dearest friend; and, in the happiness of her
society, forgot the horrors which had preceded her return to St. Irvyne.
Now were it well for a while to leave Eloise at St. Irvyne, and retrace
the events which, since five years, had so darkly tinged the fate of the
unsuspecting female, who trusted to the promises of man. It was a
beautiful morning in May, and the loveliness of the season had spread a
deeper shade of gloom over the features of Eloise, for she knew that not
long would her mother live. They journeyed on towards Geneva, whither
the physicians had ordered Madame de St. Irvyne to repair, as the last
resort of a hope that she might, thereby, escape a rapid decline. On
account of the illness of her mother, they proceeded slowly; and ere
long they had entered the region of the Alps, the shades of evening,
which rapidly began to increase, announced approaching night. They had
expected, before this time, to have reached a town; but, either owing to
a miscalculation of their route, or the remissness of the postillion,
they had not yet done so. The majestic moon which hung above their
heads, tinged with silver the fleecy clouds which skirted the far-seen
horizon; and, borne on the soft wing of the evening zephyr, shadowy
lines of vapour, at intervals, crossed her orbit; then vanishing into
the dark blue expansiveness of ether, their fantastic forms, like the
phantoms of midnight, became invisible. Now might we almost suppose,
that the sightless spirits of the departed good, enthroned on the genial
breeze of night, watched over those whom they had loved on earth, and
poured into the bosom, to the dictates of which, in this world, they had
listened with idolatrous attention, that tranquillity and confidence in
the goodness of the Creator, which is necessary for us to experience ere
we go to the next. Such tranquillity felt Madame de St. Irvyne: she
tried to stifle the ideas which arose within her mind; but the more she
strove to repress them, in the more vivid characters were they imprinted
on the imagination.
Now had they gained the summit of the mountain, when, suddenly, a crash
announced that the carriage had given way.
"What is to be done?" inquired Eloise. The postillion appeared to take
no notice of her question. "What is to be done?" again she inquired.
"Why, I scarcely know," answered the postillion; "but 't is impossible
to proceed."
"Is there no house nearer than--"
"Oh yes," replied he; "here is a house quite near, but a little out of
the way; and, perhaps, Ma'am'selle will not--"
"Oh, lead on, lead on to it," quickly rejoined Eloise.
They followed the postillion, and soon arrived at the house. It was
large and plain; and although there were lights in some of the windows,
it bore an indefinable appearance of desolation.
In a large hall sat three or four men, whose marked countenances almost
announced their profession to be bandits. One of superior and commanding
figure whispering to the rest, and himself advancing with the utmost and
most unexpected politeness, accosted the travellers. For the ideas with
which the countenance of this man inspired Eloise she in vain
endeavoured to account. It appeared to her that she had seen him before;
that the deep tone of his voice was known to her; and that eye,
scintillating with a coruscation of mingled sternness and surprise,
found some counterpart in herself. Of gigantic stature, yet formed in
the mould of exactest symmetry, was the figure of the stranger who sate
before Eloise. His countenance of excessive beauty even, but dark,
emanated with an expression of superhuman loveliness; not that grace
which may freely be admired, but acknowledged in the inmost soul by
sensations mysterious, and before unexperienced. He tenderly inquired,
whether the night air had injured the ladies, and pressed them to
partake of a repast which the other three men had prepared; he appeared
to unbend a severity, which evidently was habitual, and by extreme
brilliancy and playfulness of wit, joined to talents for conversation,
possessed by few, made Madame de St. Irvyne forget that she was dying;
and her daughter, as in rapturous attention she listened to each accent
of the stranger, remembered no more that she was about to lose her
mother.
In the stranger's society, they almost forgot the lapse of time: a pause
in the conversation at last occurred.
"Can Ma'am'selle sing?" inquired the stranger.
"I can," replied Eloise; "and with pleasure."
She ceased;--the thrilling accents of her interestingly sweet voice died
away in the vacancy of stillness;--yet listened the charmed auditors;
their imaginations prolonged the tender strain; the uncouth attendants
of the stranger were chained in silence, and the enthusiastic gaze of
their host was fixed upon the timid countenance of Eloise with wild and
mysterious expression. It seemed to say to Eloise, "We meet
again;"--and, as the idea struck her imagination, convulsed by a feeling
of indescribable and excessive awe, she started.
At last, the hour being late, they all retired. Eloise sought the couch
prepared for her; her mind, perturbed by emotions, the cause of which
she in vain essayed to develope, could bring its intellectual energies
to act on no one particular point; her imagination was fertile, and,
under its fantastic guidance, she felt her judgment and reason
irresistibly fettered. The image of the fascinating, yet awful stranger,
dwelt on her mind. She sank on her knees to return thanks to her Creator
for his mercies; yet even then, faithless to the task on which it was
employed, her mind returned to the stranger. She felt no particular
affection or esteem for him;--no, she rather feared him; and, when she
endeavoured to connect the chain of ideas which pressed upon her mind,
tears started into her eyes, and she looked around the apartment with
the timid terror of a person who converses at midnight on a subject at
once awful and interesting: but poor Eloise was no philosopher; and to
explain sensations like these, were even beyond the power of the wisest
of them. She felt alarmed, herself, at the violence of the feelings
which shook her bosom, and attempted to compose herself to sleep. Yet
even in her dream was the stranger present. She thought that she met him
on a flowery plain; that the feelings of her bosom, whether she would or
not, impelled her towards him; that before she had been enfolded in his
arms, a torrent of scintillating flame, accompanied by a terrific crash
of thunder, made the earth yawn beneath her feet;--the gay vision
vanished from her fancy, and, in place of the flowery plain, a rugged
and desolate heath extended far before her; its monotonous solitude
unbroken, save by the low and barren rocks which rose occasionally from
its surface. From dreams such as these, dreams which left on her mind
painful presentiments of her future life, Eloise arose, restless and
unrefreshed from slumber.
Why gleams that dark eyeball upon the countenance of Eloise, as she
tenderly inquired for the health of her mother? Why did an hidden
expression of exulting joy light up that demoniac gaze, when Madame de
St. Irvyne said to her daughter, "I feel rather faint to-day, my
child:--'Would we were at Geneva!"--It beams with hell and
destruction!--Let me look again: that, when I see another eye which
gleams so fiendishly, I may know that it is a villain's.--Thus might
have thought the sightless minister of the beneficence of God, as it
hovered round the spotless Eloise. But, hush! what was that scream which
was heard by the ear of listening enthusiasm? It was the shriek of the
fair Eloise's better genius; it screamed to see the foe of the innocent
girl so near--it is fled fast to Geneva. "There, Eloise, will we meet
again," methought it whispered; whilst a low hollow tone, hoarse from
the dank vapours of the grave, seemed lowly to howl in the ear of rapt
Fancy, "We meet again likewise."
Their courteous host conducted Madame de St. Irvyne and Eloise to their
chaise, which was now repaired, and ready for the journey; the stranger
bowed respectfully as they went away. The expression of his dark eye, as
he beheld them for the last time, was even stronger than ever; it seemed
not to affect her mother; but the mystic feelings which it excited in
the bosom of Eloise were beyond description powerful. The paleness of
Madame de St. Irvyne's cheek, on which the only teint was an occasional
and hectic flush, announced that the illness which consumed her, rapidly
increased, and would soon lead her gently to the gates of death. She
talked calmly of her approaching dissolution, and only regretted, that
to no one protector could she entrust the care of her orphaned
daughters. Marianne, her eldest daughter, had, by her mother's
particular desire, remained at the chateau; and, though much wishing to
accompany her mother, she urged it no longer, when she knew Madame de
St. Irvyne to be resolved against it. Now had the illness which had
attacked her assumed so serious and so decided an appearance, that she
could no longer doubt the event;--could no longer doubt that she was
quickly about to enter a better world.
"My daughter," said she, "there is a banker at Geneva, a worthy man, to
whom I shall bequeath the guardianship of my child; on that head are all
my doubts quieted. But, Eloise, my child, you are yet young; you know
not the world; but bear in mind these words of your dying mother, so
long as you remember herself:--When you see a man enveloped in deceit
and mystery; when you see him dark, reserved, and suspicious, carefully
avoid him. Should such a man seek your friendship or affection, should
he seek, by any means, to confer an obligation upon you, or make you
confer one on him, spurn him from you as you would a serpent; as one who
aimed to lure your unsuspecting innocence to the paths of destruction."
The affecting solemnity of her voice, as thus she spoke, touched Eloise
deeply; she wept. "I must remember my mother for ever," was her almost
inarticulate reply; deep sobs burst from her agitated bosom; and the
varying crowds of imagery which followed each other in her mind, were
too complicated to be defined. Still, though deeply grieved at the
approaching death of her mother, was the mysterious stranger uppermost
in her thoughts; his image excited ideas painful and unpleasant. She
wished to turn the tide of them; but the more she attempted it, with the
more painful recurrence of almost mechanical force, did his recollection
press upon her disturbed intellect.
Eloise de St. Irvyne was a girl, whose temper and disposition was most
excellent; she was, indeed, too, possessed of uncommon sensibility; yet
was her mind moulded in an inferior degree of perfection. She was
susceptible of prejudice, to a great degree; and resigned herself,
careless of the consequences which might follow, to the feelings of the
moment. Every accomplishment, it is true, she enjoyed in the highest
excellence; and the very convent at which she was educated, which
afforded the adventitious advantages so highly esteemed by the world,
prevented her mind from obtaining that degree of expansiveness and
excellence, which, otherwise, might have rendered Eloise nearer
approaching to perfection; the very routine of a convent education gave
a false and pernicious bias to the ideas, as, luxuriant in youth, they
unfolded themselves; and those sentiments which, had they been allowed
to take the turn which nature intended, would have become coadjutors of
virtue, and strengtheners of that mind, which now they had rendered
comparatively imbecile. Such was Eloise, and as such she required
unexampled care to prevent those feelings which agitate every mind of
sensibility, to get the better of the judgment which had, by an
erroneous system of education, become relaxed. Her mother was about to
die--who now would care for Eloise?
They entered Geneva at the close of a fine, yet sultry day. The illness
of Madame de St. Irvyne had increased so as now to threaten instant
danger: she was conveyed to bed. A deadly paleness sat on her cheek; it
was flushed, however, as she spoke, with momentary hectics; and, as she
conversed with her daughter, a fire, which almost partook of
etheriality, shone in her sunken eye. It was evening; the yellow beams
of the sun, as his orb shed the parting glory on the verge of the
horizon, penetrated the bed-curtains; and by their effulgence contrasted
the deadliness of her countenance. The poor Eloise sat, watching, with
eyes dimmed by tears, each variation in the countenance of her mother.
Silent, from an ecstacy of grief, she gazed fixedly upon her, and felt
every earthly hope die within her, when the conviction of a
fast-approaching dissolution pressed upon her disturbed brain. Madame de
St. Irvyne, at length exhausted, fell into a quiet slumber; Eloise
feared to disturb her, but, motionless with grief, sate behind the
curtain. Now had sunk the orb of day, and the shades of twilight began
to scatter duskiness through the chamber of death; all was silent; and,
save by the catchings of breath in her mother's slumber, the stillness
was uninterrupted. Yet even in this awful, this terrific crisis of her
existence, the mind of Eloise seemed compelled to exert its intellectual
energies but on one subject;--in vain she essayed to pray;--in vain she
attempted to avert the horror of her meditations, by contemplating the
pallid features of her dying mother: her thoughts were not within her
own control, and she trembled as she reflected on the appalling and
mysterious influence which the image of a man, whom she had seen but
once, and whom she neither loved nor cared for, had gained over her
mind. With the indefinable terror of one who dreads to behold some
phantom, Eloise fearfully cast her eyes around the gloomy apartment;
occasionally she shrank from the ideal form which an unconnected
imagination had conjured up, and could scarcely but suppose that the
stranger's gaze, as last he had looked upon her, met her own with an
horrible and mixed scintillation of mysterious cunning and interest. She
felt no prepossession in his favour; she rather detested him, and gladly
would never have again beheld him; yet, were the circumstances which
introduced him to their notice alluded to, she would turn pale, and
blush, by turns; and Jeanette, their maid, was fully persuaded in her
own mind, and prided herself on her penetration in the discovery, that
Ma'am'selle was violently in love with the hospitable Alpine hunter.
Madame de St. Irvyne had now awakened; she beckoned her daughter to
approach: Eloise obeyed; and, kneeling, kissed the chill hand of her
mother, in a transport of sorrow, and bathed it with her tears.
"Eloise," said her mother, her voice trembling from excessive weakness,
"Eloise, my child, farewell--farewell for ever. I feel, I am about to
die; but, before I die, willingly would I say much to my dearest
daughter. You are now left on the hardhearted, pitiless world; and
perhaps, oh! perhaps, about to become an immolated victim of its
treachery. Oh!--" Here, overcome by extreme pain, she fell backwards; a
transient gleam of animation lighted up her expressive countenance; she
smiled, and--expired. All was still; and over the gloomy chamber reigned
silence and horror. The yellow moonbeam, with sepulchral effulgence,
gleamed on the countenance of her who had expired, and lighted her
features, sweet even in death, with a dire and horrible contrast to the
dimness which prevailed around!--Ah! such was the contrast of the peace
enjoyed by the spirit of the departed one, with the misery which awaited
the wretched Eloise. Poor Eloise! she had now lost almost her only
friend!
In excessive and silent grief, knelt the mourning girl; she spoke not,
she wept-not; her sorrow was toavo violent for tears, but, oh! her heart
was torn by pangs of unspeakable acuteness. But even amid the alarm
which so melancholy an event must have excited, the idea of the stranger
in the Alps sublimed the soul of Eloise to the highest degree of horror,
and despair the most infuriate. For the ideas which crowded into her
mind at this crisis, so eventful, so terrific, she endeavoured to
account; but, alas! her attempt was fruitless! Still knelt she; still
did she press to her burning lips the lifeless hand of departed
excellence, when the morning's ray announced to her, that longer
continuing there might excite suspicion of intellectual derangement. She
arose, therefore, and, quitting the apartment, announced the melancholy
event which had taken place. She gave orders for the funeral; it was to
be solemnized as soon as decency would permit, as the poor friendless
Eloise wished speedily to quit Geneva. She wrote to announce the fatal
event to her sister. Slowly dragged the time. Eloise followed to its
latest bed, the corpse of her mother, and was returning from the
convent, when a stranger put into her hand a note, and quickly
disappeared:--
"Will Eloise de St. Irvyne meet her friend at--Abbey, to-morrow night,
at ten o'clock?"
Yes;--they fled from Genoa; they had eluded pursuit and justice, but
could not escape the torments of an outraged and avenging conscience,
which, with stings the most acute, pursued them whithersoever they might
go. Fortune even seemed to favour them; for fortune will, sometimes, in
this world, appear to side with the wicked. Wolfstein had received
notice, that an uncle, possessed of immense wealth, had died in Bohemia,
and bequeathed to him the whole of his estate. Thither then, with
Megalena, went Wolfstein. Their journey produced no event of
consequence; suffice it to say, that they arrived at the spot where
Wolfstein's new possessions were situated.
Dark and desolate were the scenes which surrounded the no less desolate
castle. Gloomy heaths, in unvarying sadness of immensity, stretched far
and wide. A scathed pine or oak, blasted by the thunderbolts of heaven,
alone broke the monotonous sameness of the imagery. Needless were it to
describe the castle, built like all those of the Bohemian barons, in
mingled Gothic and barbarian architecture. Over the dark expanse the dim
moon beaming, and faintly, with its sepulchral radiance, dispersing the
thickness of the vapours which lowered around (for her waning horn,
which hung low above the horizon, added but tenfold horror to the
terrific desolation of the scene); the night-raven pouring on the dull
ear of evening her frightful screams, and breaking on the otherwise
uninterrupted stillness,--were the melancholy greetings to their new
habitation.
They alighted at the antique entrance, and, passing through a vast and
comfortless hall, were conducted into a saloon not much less so. The
coolness of the evening, for it was late in the autumn, made the wood
fire, which had been lighted, disperse a degree of comfort; and
Wolfstein, having arranged his domestic concerns, continued talking with
Megalena until midnight.
"But you have never yet correctly explained to me," said Megalena, "the
mystery which encircled that strange man whom we met at the inn at
Breno. I think I have seen him once since, or I should not now have
thought of the circumstance."
"Indeed, Megalena, I know of no mystery. I suppose the man was mad, or
wished to make us think so; for my part, I have never thought of him
since; nor ever intend to think of him."
"Do you not?" exclaimed a voice, which enchained motionless to his seat
the horror-struck Wolfstein--when turning round, and starting in
agonized frenzy from his chair, Ginotti himself--Ginotti--from whose
terrific gaze never had he turned unappalled, stood in cool and fearless
contempt before him!
"Do you not?" continued the mysterious stranger." Never again intendest
thou to think of me?--me! who have watched each expanding idea,
conscious to what I was about to apply them, conscious of the great
purpose for which each was formed. Ah! Wolfstein, by my agency shalt
thou--" He paused, assuming a smile expressive of exultation and
superiority.
"Oh! do with me what thou wilt, strange, inexplicable being!--Do with me
what thou wilt!" exclaimed Wolfstein, as an ecstacy of frenzied terror
overpowered his astonished senses. Megalena still sat unmoved: she was
surprised, it is true; but most was she surprised, that an event like
this should have power so to shake Wolfstein; for even then he stood
gazing in enhorrored silence on the majestic figure of Ginotti.
"Fool, then, that thou art, to deny me!" continued Ginotti, in a tone
less solemn, but more severe. "Wilt thou promise me that, when I come to
demand what thou covenantedst with me at Breno, I meet no fears, no
scruples, but that, then, thou wilt perform what there thou didst swear,
and that this oath shall be inviolable?"
"It shall," replied Wolfstein.
"Swear it."
"As I keep my vows with you, may God reward me hereafter!"
"'Tis done then," returned Ginotti. "Ere long shall I claim the
performance of this covenant--now farewell." Speaking thus, Ginotti
dashed away; and, mounting a horse which stood at the gate, sped swiftly
across the heath. His form lessened in the clear moonlight; and, when it
was no longer visible to the straining eyeballs of Wolfstein, he felt,
as it were, a spell which had enthralled him, to be dissolved.
Reckless of Megalena's earnest entreaties, he threw himself into a
chair, in deep and gloomy melancholy; he answered them not, but,
immersed in a train of corroding ideas, remained silent. Even when
retired to repose, and he could, occasionally, sink into a transitory
slumber, would he again start from it, as he thought that Ginotti's
majestic form leaned over him, and that the glance which, last, his
fearful eye had thrown, chilled his breast with indescribable agony.
Slowly lagged the time to Wolfstein; Ginotti, though now gone, and far
away perhaps, dwelt in his disturbed mind; his image was there imprinted
in characters terrific and indelible. Oft would he wander along the
desolate heath; on every blast of wind which sighed over the scattered
remnants of what was once a forest, Ginotti's, the terrific Ginotti's
voice seemed to float; and in every dusky recess, favoured by the
descending shades of gloomy night, his form appeared to lurk, and, with
frightful glare, his eye to penetrate the conscience-stricken Wolfstein
as he walked. A falling leaf, or a hare starting from her heathy seat,
caused him to shrink with affright; yet, though dreading loneliness, he
was irresistibly compelled to seek for solitude. Megalena's charms had
now no longer power to speak comfort to his soul: ephemeral are the
friendships of the wicked, and involuntary disgust follows the
attachment founded on the visionary fabric of passion or interest. It
sinks in the merited abyss of ennui, or is followed by apathy and
carelessness, which amply its origin deserved.
The once ardent and excessive passion of Wolfstein for Megalena, was now
changed into disgust and almost detestation; he sought to conceal it
from her, but it was evident, in spite of his resolution. He regarded
her as a woman capable of the most shocking enormities; since, without
any adequate temptation to vice, she had become sufficiently depraved to
consider an inconsequent crime the wilful and premeditated destruction
of a fellow-creature; still, whether it were from the indolence which he
had contracted, or an indefinably sympathetic connexion of soul, which
forbade them to part during their mortal existence, was Wolfstein
irremediably linked to his mistress, who was as depraved as himself,
though originally of a better disposition. He likewise had, at first,
resisted the allurements of vice; but, overpowered by its incitements,
had resigned himself, indeed reluctantly, to its influence. But Megalena
had courted its advances, and endeavoured to conquer neither the
suggestions of crime, nor the dictates of a nature prone to the attacks
of appetite--let me not call it passion.
Fast advanced winter: cheerless and solitary were the days. Wolfstein,
occasionally, followed the chase; but even that was wearisome: and the
bleeding image of the murdered Olympia, or the still more dreaded idea
of the terrific Ginotti, haunted him in the midst of its tumultuous
pleasures, and embittered every instant of his existence. The pale
corpse too of Cavigni, blackened by poison, reigned in his chaotic
imagination, and stung his soul with tenfold remorse, when he reflected
that he had murdered one who never had injured him, for the sake of a
being whose depraved society every succeeding day rendered more
monotonous and insipid.
It was one evening when, according to his custom, Wolfstein wandered
late: it was in the beginning of December, and the weather was
peculiarly mild for the season and latitude. Over the cerulean expanse
of ether the dim moon, shrouded in the fleeting fragments of vapour,
which, borne on the pinions of the northern blast, crossed her pale orb;
at intervals, the dismal hooting of the owl, which, searching for prey,
flitted her white wings over the dusky heath; the silver beams which
slept on the outline of the far-seen forests, and the melancholy
stillness, uninterrupted save by these concomitants of gloom, conduced
to sombre reflection. Wolfstein reclined upon the heath; he retraced, in
mental review, the past events of his life, and shuddered at the
darkness of his future destiny. He strove to repent of his crimes; but,
though conscious of the connexion which existed between the ideas, as
often as repentance presented itself to his mind, Ginotti rushed upon
his troubled imagination, and a dark veil seemed to separate him for
ever from contrition, notwithstanding he was constantly subjected to the
tortures inflicted by it. At last, wearied with the corroding
recollections, the acme of which progressively increased, he bent his
steps again towards his habitation.
As he was entering the portal, a grasp of iron arrested his arm, and,
turning round, he recognised the tall figure of Ginotti, which enveloped
in a mantle, had leaned against a jutting buttress. Amazement, for a
time, chained the faculties of Wolfstein in motionless surprise: at last
he recollected himself, and, in a voice trembling from agitation,
inquired, did he now demand the performance of the promise?
"I come," he said, "I come to demand it, Wolfstein! Art thou willing to
perform what thou hast promised?--but come--"
A degree of solemnity, mixed with concealed fierceness, toned his voice
as he spoke; yet was he fixed in the attitude in which first he had
addressed Wolfstein. The pale ray of the moon fell upon his dark
features, and his coruscating eye fixed on his trembling victim's
countenance, flashed with almost intolerable brilliancy. A chill horror
darted through Wolfstein's sickening frame; his brain swam around
wildly, and most appalling presentiments of what was about to happen,
pressed upon his agonized intellect. "Yes, yes, I have promised, and I
will perform the covenant I have entered into," said Wolfstein; "I swear
to you that I will!" and as he spoke, a kind of mechanical and inspired
feeling steeled his soul to fortitude; it seemed to arise independently
of himself; nor could he, though he eagerly desired to do so, control,
in the least, his own resolves. Such an impulse as this had first
induced him to promise at all. Ah! how often in Ginotti's absence had he
resisted it! but when the mysterious disposer of the events of his
existence was before him, a consciousness of the inutility of his
refusal compelled him to submit to the mandates of a being, whom his
heart sickening to acknowledge, it unwillingly confessed as a superior.
"Come," continued Ginotti; "the hour is late, I must dispatch."
Unresisting, yet speaking not, Wolfstein conducted Ginotti to an
apartment.
"Bring wine, and light a fire," said he to the servant, who quickly
obeyed him. Wolfstein swallowed an overflowing goblet, hoping thereby to
acquire courage; for he found that, with every moment of Ginotti's stay,
the visionary and awful terrors of his mind augmented.
"Do you not drink?"
"No," replied Ginotti, sullenly.
A pause ensured; during which the eyes of Ginotti, glaring with
demoniacal scintillations, spoke tenfold terrors to the soul of
Wolfstein. He knitted his brows and bit his lips, in vain attempting to
appear unembarrassed. "Wolfstein!" at last said Ginotti, breaking the
fearful silence; "Wolfstein!"
The colour fled from the cheek of his victim, as thus Ginotti spoke: he
moved his posture, and awaited, in anxious and horrible solicitude, the
declaration which was, as he supposed, to ensue. "My name, my family,
and the circumstances which have attended my career through existence,
it neither boots you to know, nor me to declare."
"Does it not?" said Wolfstein, scarcely knowing what to say; yet
convinced, from the pause, that something was expected.
"No! nor canst thou, nor any other existing being, even attempt to dive
into the mysteries which envelope me. Let it be sufficient for you to
know, that every event in your life has not only been known to me, but
has occurred under my particular machinations."
Wolfstein started. The terror which had blanched his cheek now gave way
to an expression of fierceness and surprise; he was about to speak, but
Ginotti, noticing not his motion, thus continued:
"Every opening idea which has marked, in so decided and so eccentric an
outline, the fiat of your future destiny, has not been unknown to or
unnoticed by me. I rejoiced to see in you, whilst young, the progress of
that genius which in mature time would entitle you to the reward which I
destine for you, and for you alone. Even when far, far away, when the
ocean perhaps has roared between us, have I known your thoughts,
Wolfstein; yet have I known them neither by conjecture nor inspiration.
Never would your mind have attained that degree of expansion or
excellence had not I watched over its every movement, and taught the
sentiment, as it unfolded itself, to despise contented vulgarity. For
this, and for an event far more important than any your existence yet
has been subjected to, have I watched over you: say, Wolfstein, have I
watched in vain?"
Each feeling of resentment vanished from Wolfstein's bosom, as the
mysterious intruder spoke: his voice at last died, in a clear and
melancholy cadence, away; and his expressive eye, divested of its
fierceness and mystery, rested on Wolfstein's countenance with a mild
benignity.
"No, no; thou hast not watched in vain, mysterious disposer of my
existence. Speak! I burn with curiosity and solicitude to learn for what
thou hast thus superintended me:" and as thus he spoke, a feeling of
resistless anxiety to know what would be the conclusion of the night's
adventure, took place of horror. Inquiringly he gazed on the countenance
of Ginotti, the features of whom were brightened with unwonted
animation. "Wolfstein," said Ginotti, "often hast thou sworn that I
should rest in the grave in peace:--now listen."
CHAP. IX.
Ah! poor, unsuspecting innocence! and is that fair flower about to
perish in the blasts of dereliction and unkindness? Demon indeed must he
be who could gaze on those mildly-beaming eyes, on that perfect form,
the emblem of sensibility, and yet plunge the spotless mind of which it
was an index, into a sea of repentance and unavailing sorrow. I should
scarce suppose even a demon would act so, were there not many with
hearts more depraved even than those of fiends, who first have torn some
unsophisticated soul from the pinnacle of excellence, on which it sat
smiling, and then triumphed in their hellish victory when it writhed in
agonized remorse, and strove to hide its unavailing regret in the dust
from which the fabric of her virtues had arisen. "Ah! I fear me, the
unsuspecting girl will go;" she knows not the malice and the wiles of
perjured man--and she is gone!
It was late in the evening, and Eloise had returned from her mother's
funeral, sad and melancholy; yet even amidst the oppression of grief,
surprise and astonishment, pleasure and thankfulness, that any one
should notice her, possessed her mind as she read over and over the
characters traced on the note which she still held in her hand. The hour
was late; the moon was down, yet countless stars bedecked the almost
boundless hemisphere. The mild beams of Hesper slept on the glassy
surface of the lake, as, scarcely agitated by the zephyr of evening, its
waves rolled in slow succession; the solemn umbrage of the pine-trees,
mingled with the poplar, threw their undefined shadows on the water; and
the nightingale, sitting solitary in the hawthorn, poured on the
listening stillness of evening, her grateful lay of melancholy. Hark!
her full strains swell on the silence of night, and now they die away,
with lengthened and solemn cadence, insensibly into the breeze, which
lingers, with protracted sweep, along the valley. Ah! with what
enthusiastic ecstacy of melancholy does he whose friend, whose dear
friend, is far, far away, listen to such strains as these! perhaps he
has heard them with that friend,--with one he loves: never again may
they meet his ear. Alas! 't is melancholy; I even now see him sitting on
the rock which looks over the lake, in frenzied listlessness; and
counting in mournful review, the days which are past since they fled so
quickly with one who was dear to him.
It was to the ruined abbey which stood on the southern side of the lake
that, so swiftly, Eloise is hastening. A presentiment of awe filled her
mind; she gazed, in inquiring terror, around her, and scarce could
persuade herself that shapeless forms lurked not in the gloomy recesses
of the scenery.
She gained the abbey; in melancholy fallen grandeur its vast ruins
reared their pointed casements to the sky. Masses of disjointed stone
were scattered around; and, save by the whirrings of the bats, the
stillness which reigned, was uninterrupted. Here then was Eloise to meet
the strange one who professed himself to be her friend. Alas! poor
Eloise believed him. It yet wanted an hour to the time of appointment;
the expiration of that hour Eloise awaited. The abbey brought to her
recollection a similar ruin which stood near St. Irvyne; it brought with
it the remembrance of a song which Marianne had composed soon after her
brother's death. She sang, though in a low voice:
She ceased: the melancholy cadence of her angelic voice died in faint
reverberations of echo away, and once again reigned stillness.
Now fast approached the hour; and, ere ten had struck, a stranger of
towering and gigantic proportions walked along the ruined refectory;
without stopping to notice other objects, he advanced swiftly to Eloise,
who sat on a mishapen piece of ruin, and, throwing aside the mantle
which enveloped his figure, discovered to her astonished sight the
stranger of the Alps, who of late had been incessantly present to her
mind. Amazement, for a time, chained each faculty in stupefaction; she
would have started from her seat, but the stranger, with gentle violence
grasping her hand, compelled her to remain where she was.
"Eloise," said the stranger, in a voice of the most fascinating
tenderness--"Eloise!"
The softness of his accents changed, in an instant, what was passing in
the bosom of Eloise. She felt no surprise that he knew her name; she
experienced no dread at this mysterious meeting with a person, at the
bare mention of whose name she was wont to tremble: no, the ideas which
filled her mind were indefinable. She gazed upon his countenance for a
moment, then, hiding her face in her hands, sobbed loudly.
"What afflicts you, Eloise?" said the stranger: "how cruel, that such a
breast as thine should be tortured by pain!"
"Ah!" cried Eloise, forgetting that she spoke to a stranger; "how can
one avoid sorrow, when there, perhaps, is scarce a being in the world
whom I can call my friend; when there is no one on whom I lay claim for
protection?"
"Say not, Eloise," cried the stranger, reproachfully, yet benignly; "say
not that you can claim none as a friend--you may claim me. Ah! that I
had ten thousand existences, that each might be devoted to the service
of one whom I love more than myself! Make me then the repository of your
every sorrow and secret. I love you, indeed I do, Eloise, and why will
you doubt me?"
"I do not doubt you, stranger," replied the unsuspecting girl; "why
should I doubt you? for you could have no interest in saying so, if you
did not.--I thank you for loving one who is quite, quite friendless;
and, if you will allow me to be your friend, I will love you too. I
never loved any one, before, but my poor mother and Marianne. Will you
then, if you are a friend to me, come and live with me and Marianne, at
St. Irvyne's?"
"St. Irvyne's!" exclaimed the stranger, almost convulsively, as he
interrupted her; then, as fearing to betray his emotions, he paused, yet
quitted not the grasp of Eloise's hand, which trembled within his with
feelings which her mind distrusted not.
"Yes, sweet Eloise, I love you indeed." At last he said, affectionately,
"And I thank you much for believing me; but I cannot live with you at
St. Irvyne's. Farewell, for to-night, however; for my poor Eloise has
need of sleep." He then was quitting the abbey, when Eloise stopped him
to inquire his name.
"Frederic de Nempere."
"Ah! then I shall recollect Frederio de Nempere, as the name of a
friend, even if I never again behold him."
"Indeed I am not faithless; soon shall I see you again. Farewell,
beloved Eloise." Thus saying, with rapid step he quitted the ruin.
Though he was now gone, the sound of his tender farewell yet seemed to
linger on the ear of Eloise; but with each moment of his absence, became
lessened the conviction of his friendship, and heightened the suspicions
which, though unaccountable to herself, possessed her bosom. She could
not conceive what motive could have led her to own her love for one whom
she feared, and felt a secret terror, from the conviction of the
resistless empire which he possessed within her: yet though she shrank
from the bare idea of ever becoming his, did she ardently, though
scarcely would she own it to herself, desire again to see him.
Eloise now returned to Geneva: she resigned herself to sleep, but even
in her dreams was the image of Nempere present to her imagination. Ah!
poor deluded Eloise, didst thou think a man would merit thy love through
disinterestedness? didst thou think that one who supposed himself
superior, yet inferior in reality, to you, in the scale of existent
beings, would desire thy society from love? yet superior as the fool
here supposes himself to be to the creature whom he injures, superior as
he boasts himself, he may howl with the fiends of darkness, in
never-ending misery, whilst thou shalt receive, at the throne of the God
whom thou hast loved, the rewards of that unsuspecting excellence, which
he who boasts his superiority, shall suffer for trampling upon. Reflect
on this, ye libertines, and, in the full career of the lasciviousness
which has unfitted your souls for enjoying the slightest real happiness
here or hereafter, tremble! Tremble! I say; for the day of retribution
will arrive. But the poor Eloise need not tremble; the victims of your
detested cunning need not fear that day: no!--then will the cause of the
broken-hearted be avenged, by Him to whom their wrongs cry for redress.
Within a few miles of Geneva, Nempere possessed a country-house: thither
did he persuade Eloise to go with him; "For," said he, "though I cannot
come to St. Irvyne's, yet my friend will live with me."
"Yes indeed I will," replied Eloise; for whatever she might feel when he
was absent, in his presence she felt insensibly softened, and a
sentiment nearly approaching to love would, at intervals, take
possession of her soul. Yet was it by no means an easy task to lure
Eloise from the paths of virtue; it is true she knew but little, nor was
the expansion of her mind such as might justify the exultations of a
fiend at a triumph over her virtue; yet was it that very timid, simple
innocence, which prevented Eloise from understanding to what the
deep-laid sophistry of her false friend tended; and, not understanding
it, she could not be influenced by its arguments. Besides, the
principles and morals of Eloise were such, as could not easily be shaken
by the allurements which temptation might throw out to her
unsophisticated innocence.
"Why," said Nempere, "are we taught to believe that the union of two who
love each other is wicked, unless authorized by certain rites and
ceremonials, which certainly cannot change the tenour of sentiments
which it is destined that these two people should entertain of each
other?"
"It is, I suppose," answered Eloise calmly, "because God has willed it
so; besides," continued she, blushing at she knew not what, "it would--"
"And is then the superior and towering soul of Eloise subjected to
sentiments and prejudices so stale and vulgar as these?" interrupted
Nempere indignantly. "Say, Eloise, do not you think it an insult to two
souls, united to each other in the irrefragable covenants of love and
congeniality; to promise, in the sight of a Being whom they know not,
that fidelity which is certain otherwise?"
"But I do know that Being!" cried Eloise with warmth; "and when I cease
to know him, may I die! I pray to him every morning, and, when I kneel
at night, I thank him for the mercy which he has shown to a poor
friendless girl like me! He is the protector of the friendless, and I
love and adore him!"
"Unkind Eloise! how canst thou call thyself friendless? Surely, the
adoration of two beings unfettered by restraint, must be most
acceptable!--But, come, Eloise, this conversation is nothing to the
purpose: I see we both think alike, although the terms in which we
express our sentiments are different. Will you sing to me, dear Eloise?"
Willingly did Eloise fetch her harp; she wished not to scrutinize what
was passing in her mind, but, after a short prelude, thus began:
"How soft is that strain!" cried Nempere, as she concluded.
"Ah!" said Eloise, sighing deeply; "It is a melancholy song; my poor
brother wrote it, I remember, about ten days before he died. 'Tis a
gloomy tale concerning him; he ill deserved the fate he met. Some future
time I will tell it you; but now, 'tis very late.--Good-night."
Time passed, and Nempere, finding that he must proceed more warily,
attempted no more to impose upon the understanding of Eloise by such
palpably baseless arguments; yet, so great and so unaccountable an
influence had he gained on her unsuspecting soul, that ere long, on the
altar of vice, pride, and malice, was immolated the innocence of the
spotless Eloise. Ah, ye proud! in the severe consciousness of
unblemished reputation, in the fallacious opinion of the world, why
turned ye away, as if fearful of contamination, when yon poor frail one
drew near? See the tears which steal adown her cheek!--She has repented,
ye have not!
And thinkest thou, libertine, from a principle of depravity--thinkest
thou that thou hast raised thyself to the level of Eloise, by trying to
sink her to thine own?--No!--Hopest thou that thy curse has passed away
unheeded or unseen? The God whom thou hast insulted has marked thee!--In
the everlasting tablets of heaven, is thine offence written!--but poor
Eloise's crime is obliterated by the mercy of Him, who knows the
innocence of her heart.
Yes--thy sophistry hath prevailed, Nempere!--'t is but blackening the
memoir of thine offences!--Hark! what shriek broke upon the enthusiastic
silence of twilight?--'T was the fancied scream of one who loved Eloise
long ago, but now is--dead. It warns thee--alas! 't is unavailing!!--'T
is fled, but not for ever.
It is evening; the moon, which rode in cloudless and unsullied majesty,
in the leaden-coloured east, hath hidden her pale beams in a dusky
cloud, as if blushing to contemplate a scene of so much wickedness.
'T is done; and amidst the vows of a transitory delirium of pleasure,
regret, horror, and misery, arise! they shake their Gorgon locks at
Eloise! appalled she shudders with affright, and shrinks from the
contemplation of the consequences of her imprudence. Beware, Eloise!--a
precipice, a frightful precipice yawns at thy feet! advance yet a step
further, and thou perishest!--No, give not up thy religion--it is that
alone which can support thee under the miseries, with which imprudence
has so darkly marked the progress of thine existence!
Yet, in an attitude of attention, Wolfstein was fixed, and, gazing upon
Ginotti's countenance, awaited his narrative.
"Wolfstein," said Ginotti, "the circumstances which I am about to
communicate to you are, many of them, you may think, trivial; but I must
be minute, and, however the recital may excite your astonishment, suffer
me to proceed without interruption."
Wolfstein bowed affirmatively--Ginotti thus proceeded:
"From my earliest youth, before it was quenched by complete satiation,
curiosity, and a desire of unveiling the latent mysteries of nature, was
the passion by which all the other emotions of my mind were
intellectually organized. This desire first led me to cultivate, and
with success, the various branches of learning which led to the gates of
wisdom. I then applied myself to the cultivation of philosophy, and the
éclât with which I pursued it, exceeded my most sanguine expectations.
Love I cared not for; and wondered why men perversely sought to ally
themselves with weakness. Natural philosophy at last became the peculiar
science to which I directed my eager inquiries; thence was I led into a
train of labyrinthic meditations. I thought of death--I shuddered when I
reflected, and shrank in horror from the idea, selfish and
self-interested as I was, of entering a new existence to which I was a
stranger. I must either dive into the recesses of futurity, or I must
not, I cannot die.--'Will not this nature--will not the matter of which
it is composed, exist to all eternity? Ah! I know it will; and, by the
exertions of the energies with which nature has gifted me, well I know
it shall.' This was my opinion at that time: I then believed that there
existed no God. Ah! at what an exorbitant price have I bought the
conviction that there is one!!! Believing that priestcraft and
superstition were all the religion which man ever practised, it could
not be supposed that I thought there existed supernatural beings of any
kind. I believed nature to be self-sufficient and excelling; I supposed
not, therefore, that there could be any thing beyond nature.
"I was now about seventeen: I had dived into the depths of metaphysical
calculations. With sophistical arguments had I convinced myself of the
non-existence of a First Cause, and, by every combined modification of
the essences of matter, had I apparently proved that no existences could
possibly be, unseen by human vision. I had lived, hitherto, completely
for myself; I cared not for others; and, had the hand of fate swept from
the list of the living every one of my youthful associates, I should
have remained immoved and fearless. I had not a friend in the world;--I
cared for nothing but self. Being fond of calculating the effects of
poison, I essayed one, which I had composed, upon a youth who had
offended me; he lingered a month, and then expired in agonies the most
terrific. It was returning from his funeral, which all the students of
the college where I received my education (Salamanca), had attended,
that a train of the strangest thought pressed upon my mind. I feared,
more than ever, now, to die; and, although I had no right to form hopes
or expectations for longer life than is allotted to the rest of mortals,
yet did I think it were possible to protract existence. And why,
reasoned I with myself, relapsing into melancholy, why am I to suppose
that these muscles or fibres are made of stuff more durable than those
of other men? I have no right to suppose otherwise than that, at the end
of the time allotted by nature, for the existence of the atoms which
compose my being, I must, like all other men, perish, perhaps
everlastingly.--Here in the bitterness of my heart, I cursed that nature
and chance which I believed in; and, in a paroxysmal frenzy of
contending passions, cast myself, in desperation, at the foot of a lofty
ash-tree, which reared its fantastic form over a torrent which dashed
below.
"It was midnight; far had I wandered from Salamanca; the passions which
agitated my brain, almost to delirium, had added strength to my nerves,
and swiftness to my feet; but after many hours' incessant walking, I
began to feel fatigued. No moon was up, nor did one star illume the
hemisphere. The sky was veiled by a thick covering of clouds; and, to my
heated imagination, the winds, which in stern cadence swept along the
night-scene, whistled tidings of death and annihilation. I gazed on the
torrent, foaming beneath my feet; it could scarcely be distinguished
through the thickness of the gloom, save at intervals, when the
white-crested waves dashed at the base of the bank on which I stood. 'T
was then that I contemplated self-destruction; I had almost plunged into
the tide of death, had rushed upon the unknown regions of eternity, when
the soft sound of a bell from a neighbouring convent, was wafted in the
stillness of the night. It struck a chord in unison with my soul; it
vibrated on the secret springs of rapture. I thought no more of suicide,
but, reseating myself at the root of the ash-tree, burst into a flood of
tears;--never had I wept before; the sensation was new to me; it was
inexplicably pleasing. I reflected by what rules of science I could
account for it: there philosophy failed me. I acknowledged its
inefficacy; and, almost at that instant, allowed the existence of a
superior and beneficent Spirit, in whose image is made the soul of man;
but quickly chasing these ideas, and, overcome by excessive and unwonted
fatigue of mind and body, I laid my head upon a jutting projection of
the tree, and, forgetful of every thing around me, sank into a profound
and quiet slumber. Quiet, did I say? No--It was not quiet. I dreamed
that I stood on the brink of a most terrific precipice, far, far above
the clouds, amid whose dark forms which lowered beneath, was seen the
dashing of a stupendous cataract: its roarings were borne to mine ear by
the blast of night. Above me rose, fearfully embattled and rugged,
fragments of enormous rocks, tinged by the dimly gleaming moon; their
loftiness, the grandeur of their mishapen proportions, and their bulk,
staggering the imagination; and scarcely could the mind itself scale the
vast loftiness of their aerial summits. I saw the dark clouds pass by,
borne by the impetuosity of the blast, yet felt no wind myself.
Methought darkly gleaming forms rode on their almost palpable
prominences.
"Whilst thus I stood, gazing on the expansive gulf which yawned before
me, methought a silver sound stole on the quietude of night. The moon
became as bright as polished silver, and each star sparkled with
scintillations of inexpressible whiteness. Pleasing images stole
imperceptibly upon my senses, when a ravishingly sweet strain of dulcet
melody seemed to float around. Now it was wafted nearer, and now it died
away in tones to melancholy dear. Whilst I thus stood enraptured, louder
swelled the strain of seraphic harmony; it vibrated on my inmost soul,
and a mysterious softness lulled each impetuous passion to repose. I
gazed in eager anticipation of curiosity on the scene before me; for a
mist of silver radiance rendered every object but myself imperceptible;
yet was it brilliant as the noon-day sun. Suddenly, whilst yet the full
strain swelled along the empyrean sky, the mist in one place seemed to
dispart, and, through it, to roll clouds of deepest crimson. Above them,
and seemingly reclining on the viewless air, was a form of most exact
and superior symmetry. Rays of brilliancy, surpassing expression, fell
from his burning eye, and the emanations from his countenance tinted the
transparent clouds below with silver light. The phantasm advanced
towards me; it seemed then, to my imagination, that his figure was borne
on the sweet strain of music which filled the circumambient air. In a
voice which was fascination itself, the being addressed me, saying,
'Wilt thou come with me? wilt thou be mine?' I felt a decided wish never
to be his. 'No, no,' I unhesitatingly cried, with a feeling which no
language can either explain or describe. No sooner had I uttered these
words than methought a sensation of deadly horror chilled my sickening
frame; an earthquake rocked the precipice beneath my feet; the beautiful
being vanished; clouds, as of chaos, rolled around, and from their dark
masses flashed incessant meteors. I heard a deafening noise on every
side; it appeared like the dissolution of nature; the blood-red moon,
whirled from her sphere, sank beneath the horizon. My neck was grasped
firmly, and, turning round in an agony of horror, I beheld a form more
hideous than the imagination of man is capable of portraying, whose
proportions, gigantic and deformed, were seemingly blackened by the
inerasible traces of the thunderbolts of God; yet in its hideous and
detestable countenance, though seemingly far different, I thought I
could recognise that of the lovely vision: 'Wretch!' it exclaimed, in a
voice of exulting thunder; 'saidst thou that thou wouldst not be mine?
Ah! thou art mine beyond redemption; and I triumph in the conviction,
that no power can ever make thee otherwise. Say, art thou willing to be
mine?' Saying this, he dragged me to the brink of the precipice: the
contemplation of approaching death frenzied my brain to the highest
pitch of horror. 'Yes, yes, I am thine,' I exclaimed. No sooner had I
pronounced these words, than the visionary scene vanished, and I awoke.
But even when awake, the contemplation of what I had suffered, whilst
under the influence of sleep, pressed upon my disordered fancy; my
intellect, wild with unconquerable emotions, could fix on no one
particular point to exert its energies; they were strained beyond their
power of exerting.
"Ever, from that day, did a deep-corroding melancholy usurp the throne
of my soul. At last during the course of my philosophical inquiries, I
ascertained the method by which man might exist for ever, and it was
connected with my dream. It would unfold a tale of too much horror to
trace, in review, the circumstances as then they occurred; suffice it to
say, that I became acquainted that a superior being really exists: and
ah! how dear a price have I paid for the knowledge! To one man, alone,
Wolfstein, may I communicate this secret of immortal life: then must I
forego my claim to it,--and oh! with what pleasure shall I forego it! To
you I bequeath the secret; but first you must swear that if--you wish
God may--"
"I swear," cried Wolfstein, in a transport of delight; burning ecstacy
revelled through his veins; pleasurable coruscations were emitted from
his eyes. "I swear," continued he; "and if ever--may God--" "Needless
were it for me," continued Ginotti, "to expatiate further upon themeans
which I have used to become master over your every action; that will be
sufficiently explained when you have followed my directions. Take,"
continued Ginotti, "--and--and--mix them according to the directions
which this book will communicate to you. Seek, at midnight, the ruined
abbey near the castle of St. Irvyne, in France; and there--I need say no
more--there you will meet with me."
The varying occurrences of time and change, which bring anticipation of
better days, brought none to the hapless Eloise. Nempere now having
gained the point which his villany had projected, felt little or no
attachment left for the unhappy victim of his baseness; he treated her
indeed most cruelly, and his unkindness added greatly to the severity of
her afflictions. One day, when, weighed down by the extreme asperity of
her woes, Eloise sat leaning her head on her hand, and mentally
retracing, in sickening and mournful review, the concatenated
occurrences which had led her to become what she was, she sought to
change the bent of her ideas, but in vain. The feelings of her soul were
but exacerbated by the attempt to quell them. Her dear brother's death,
that brother so tenderly beloved, added a sting to her sensations. Was
there any one on earth to whom she was now attracted by a wish of
pouring in the friend's bosom ideas and feelings indefinable to any one
else? Ah, no! that friend existed not; never, never more would she know
such a friend. Never did she really love any one; and now had she
sacrificed her conviction of right and wrong to a man who neither knew
how to appreciate her excellence, nor was adequate to excite other
sensation than of terror and dread.
Thus were her thoughts engaged, when Nempere entered the apartment,
accompanied by a gentleman, whom he unceremoniously announced as the
Chevalier Mountfort, an Englishman of rank, and his friend. He was a man
of handsome countenance and engaging manners. He conversed with Eloise
with an ill-disguised conviction of his own superiority, and seemed
indeed to assert, as it were, a right of conversing with her; nor did
Nempere appear to dispute his apparent assumption. The conversation
turned upon music; Mountfort asked Eloise her opinion; "Oh!" said
Eloise, enthusiastically, "I think it sublimes the soul to heaven; I
think it is, of all earthly pleasures, the most excessive. Who, when
listening to harmoniously-arranged sounds of music, exists there, but
must forget his woes, and lose the memory of every earthly existence in
the ecstatic emotions which it excites? Do you not think so, Chevalier?"
said she; for the liveliness of his manner enchanted Eloise, whose
temper, naturally elastic and sprightly, had been damped as yet by
misery and seclusion. Mountfort smiled at the energetic avowal of her
feelings; for, whilst she yet spoke, her expressive countenance became
irradiated by the emanation of sentiment.
"Yes," said Mountfort, "it is indeed powerfully efficient to excite the
interests of the soul; but does it not, by the very act of resuscitating
the feelings, by working upon theperhaps, long dead chords of secret and
enthusiastic rapture, awaken the powers of grief as well as pleasure?"
"Ah! it may do both," said Eloise, sighing.
He approached her at that instant. Nempere arose, as if intentionally,
and left the room. Mountfort pressed her hand to his heart with
earnestness: he kissed it, and then resigning it, said, "No, no,
spotless untainted Eloise; untainted even by surrounding depravity:--not
for worlds would I injure you. Oh! I can conceal it no longer--will
conceal it no longer--Nempere is a villain."
"Is he?" said Eloise, apparently resigned, now, to the severest shocks
of fortune: "then, then indeed I know not with whom to seek an asylum.
Methinks all are villains."
"Listen then, injured innocence, and reflect in whom thou hast confided.
Ten days ago, in the gaming-house at Geneva, Nempere was present. He
engaged in play with me, and I won of him considerable sums. He told me
that he could not pay me now, but that he had a beautiful girl whom he
would give to me, if I would release him from the obligation. 'Est elle
une fille de joye?' I inquired. 'Oui, et de vertu practicable.' This
quieted my conscience. In a moment of licentiousness, I acceded to his
proposal; and, as money is almost valueless to me, I tore the bond for
three thousand zechins: but did I think that an angel was to be
sacrificed to the degrading avarice of the being to whom her fate was
committed? By heavens, I will this moment seek him,--upbraid him with
his inhuman depravity,--and--" "Oh! stop, stop," cried Eloise, "do not
seek him; all, all is well--I will leave him. Oh! how I thank you,
stranger, for this unmerited pity to a wretch who is, alas! too
conscious that she deserves it not."--"Ah! you deserve every thing,"
interrupted the impassioned Mountfort; "you deserve paradise. But leave
this perjured villain; and do not say, unkind fair-one, that you have no
friend; indeed you have a most warm, disinterested friend in me."--"Ah!
but," said Eloise, hesitatingly, "what will the--"
"World say," she was about to have added; but the conviction of having
so lately and so flagrantly violated every regard to its opinion--she
only sighed. "Well," continued Mountfort, as if not perceiving her
hesitation; "you will accompany me to a cottage ornée which I possess at
some little distance hence? Believe that your situation shall be treated
with the deference which it requires; and, however I may have yielded to
habitual licentiousness, I have too much honour to disturb the sorrows
of one who is a victim to that of another." Licentious and free as had
been the career of Mountfort's life, it was by no means the result of a
nature naturally prone to vice; it had been owing to the unchecked
sallies of an imagination not sufficiently refined. At the desolate
situation of Eloise, however, every good propensity in his nature urged
him to take compassion on her. His heart, originally susceptible of the
finest feelings, was touched, and he really and sincerely--yes, a
libertine, but not one from principle, sincerely meant what he said.
"Thanks, generous stranger," said Eloise, with energy; "indeed I do
thank you." For not yet had acquaintance with the world sufficiently
bidden Eloise distrust the motives of its disciples. "I accept your
offer, and only hope that my compliance may not induce you to regard me
otherwise than I am."
"Never, never can I regard you as other than a suffering angel," replied
the impassioned Mountfort. Eloise blushed at what the energetic force of
Mountfort's manner assured her was not intended as a compliment.
"But may I ask my generous benefactor, how, where, and when am I to be
released?"
"Leave that to me," returned Mountfort: "be ready to-morrow night at ten
o'clock. A chaise will wait beneath."
Nempere soon entered; their conversation was uninterrupted, and the
evening passed away uninteresting and slow.
Swiftly fled the intervening hours, and fast advanced the moment when
Eloise was about to try, again, the compassion of the world. Night came,
and Eloise entered the chaise; Mountfort leaped in after her. For a
while her agitation was excessive. Mountfort at last succeeded in
calming her; "Why, my dearest Ma'am'selle" said he, "why will you thus
needlessly agitate yourself? I swear to hold your honour far dearer than
my own life; and my companion--"
"What companion?" Eloise interrupted him, inquiringly.
"Why," replied he, "a friend of mine, who lives in my cottage; he is an
Irishman, and so very moral, and so averse to every species of gaieté de
coeur, that you need be under no apprehensions. In short, he is a
love-sick swain, without ever having found what he calls a congenial
female. He wanders about, writes poetry, and, in short, is much too
sentimental to occasion you any alarm on that account. And, I assure
you," added he, assuming a more serious tone, "although I may not be
quite so far gone in romance, yet I have feelings of honour and humanity
which teach me to respect your sorrows as my own."
"Indeed, indeed I believe you, generous stranger; nor do I think that
you could have a friend whose principles are dishonourable."
Whilst yet she spoke, the chaise stopped, and Mountfort, springing from
it, handed Eloise into his habitation. It was neatly fitted up in the
English taste.
"Fitzeustace," said Mountfort to his friend, "allow me to introduce you
to Madame Eloise de--." Eloise blushed, as did Fitzeustace.
"Come," said Fitzeustace, to conquer mauvaise honte, "supper is ready,
and the lady doubtlessly fatigued."
Fitzeustace was finely formed, yet there was a languor which pervaded
even his whole figure; his eyes were dark and expressive, and as,
occasionally, they met those of Eloise, gleamed with excessive
brilliancy, awakened doubtlessly by curiosity and interest. He said but
little during supper, and left to his more vivacious friend the whole of
Eloise's conversation, who animated at having escaped a persecutor, and
one she hated, displayed extreme command of social powers. Yes, once
again was Eloise vivacious: the sweet spirit of social intercourse was
not dead within,--that spirit which illumes even slavery, which makes
its horrors less terrific, and is not annihilated in the dungeon itself.
At last arrived the hour of retiring--Morning came.
The cottage was situated in a beautiful valley. The odorous perfume of
roses and jasmine wafted on the zephyr's wing, the flowery steep which
rose before it, and the umbrageous loveliness of the surrounding
country, rendered it a spot the most fitted for joyous seclusion. Eloise
wandered out with Mountfort and his friend to view it; and so
accommodating was her spirit, that, ere long, Fitzeustace became known
to her as familiarly as if they had been acquainted all their lives.
Time fled on, and each day seemed only to succeed the other purposely to
vary the pleasures of this delightful retreat. Eloise sung in the summer
evenings, and Fitzeustace, whose taste for music was most exquisite,
accompanied her on his oboe.
By degrees the society of Fitzeustace, to which before she had preferred
Mountfort's, began to be more interesting. He insensibly acquired a
power over the heart of Eloise, which she herself was not aware of. She
involuntarily almost sought his society; and when, which frequently
happened, Mountfort was absent at Geneva, her sensations were
indescribably ecstatic in the society of his friend. She sat in mute, in
silent rapture, listening to the notes of his oboe, as they floated on
the stillness of evening: she feared not for the future, but, as it
were, in a dream of rapturous delight, supposed that she must ever be as
now--happy; not reflecting that, were he who caused that happiness
absent, it would exist no longer.
Fitzeustace madly, passionately doted on Eloise: in all the energy of
incontaminated nature, he sought but the happiness of the object of his
whole affections. He sought not to investigate the causes of his woe;
sufficient was it for him to have found one who could understand, could
sympathize in, the feelings and sensations which every child of nature
whom the world's refinements and luxury have not vitiated, must
feel,--that affection, that contempt of selfish gratification, which
every one whose soul towers at all above the multitude, must
acknowledge. He destined Eloise, in his secret soul, for his own. He
resolved to die--he wished to live with her; and would have purchased
one instant's happiness for her with ages of hopeless torments to be
inflicted on himself. He loved her with passionate and excessive
tenderness: were he absent from her but a moment, he would sigh with
love's impatience for her return; yet he feared to avow his flame, lest
this, perhaps, baseless dream of rapturous and enthusiastic happiness
might fade;--then, indeed Fitzeustace felt that he must die.
Yet was Fitzeustace mistaken: Eloise loved him with all the tenderness
of innocence; she confided in him unreservedly; and, though unconscious
of the nature of the love she felt for him, returned each
enthusiastically energetic prepossession of his towering mind with
ardour excessive and unrestrained. Yet did Fitzeustace suppose that she
loved him not. Ah! why did he think so?
Late one evening, Mountfort had gone to Geneva, and Fitzeustace wandered
with Eloise towards that spot which Eloise selected as their constant
evening ramble on account of its superior beauty. The tall ash and oak,
in mingled umbrage, sighed far above their heads; beneath them were
walks, artificially cut, yet imitating nature. They wandered on, till
they came to a pavilion which Mountfort had caused to be erected. It was
situated on a piece of land entirely surrounded by water, yet
peninsulated by a rustic bridge which joined it to the walk.
Hither, urged mechanically, for their thoughts were otherwise employed,
wandered Eloise and Fitzeustace. Before them hung the moon in cloudless
majesty; her orb was reflected by every movement of the crystalline
water, which, agitated by the gentle zephyr, rolled tranquilly. Heedless
yet of the beauties of nature, the loveliness of the scene, they entered
the pavilion.
Eloise convulsively pressed her hand on her forehead.
"What is the matter, my dearest Eloise?" inquired Fitzeustace, whom
awakened tenderness had thrown off his guard.
"Oh! nothing, nothing; but a momentary faintness. It will soon go off;
let us sit down."
They entered the pavilion.
"'Tis nothing but drowsiness," said Eloise, affecting gaiety; "'t will
soon go off. I sate up late last night; that I believe was the
occasion."
"Recline on this sofa, then," said Fitzeustace, reaching another pillow
to make the couch easier; "and I will play some of those Irish tunes
which you admire so much."
Eloise reclined on the sofa, and Fitzeustace, seated on the floor, began
to play; the melancholy plaintiveness of his music touched Eloise; she
sighed, and concealed her tears in her handkerchief. At length she sunk
into a profound sleep: still Fitzeustace continued playing, noticing not
that she slumbered. He now perceived that she spoke, but in so low a
tone, that he knew she slept.
He approached. She lay wrapped in sleep; a sweet and celestial smile
played upon her countenance, and irradiated her features with a tenfold
expression of etheriality. Suddenly the visions of her slumbers appeared
to have changed; the smile yet remained, but its expression was
melancholy; tears stole gently from under her eyelids:--she sighed.
Ah! with what eagerness of ecstacy did Fitzeustace lean over her form!
He dared not speak, he dared not move; but pressing a ringlet of hair
which had escaped its band, to his lips, waited silently.
"Yes, yes; I think--it may--" at last she muttered; but so confusedly,
as scarcely to be distinguishable.
Fitzeustace remained rooted in rapturous attention, listening.
"I thought, I thought he looked as if he could love me," scarcely
articulated the sleeping Eloise. "Perhaps, though he may not love me, he
may allow me to love him.--Fitzeustace!"
On a sudden, again were changed the visions of her slumbers; terrified
she started from sleep, and cried, "Fitzeustace!"
Needless were it to expatiate on their transports; they loved each
other, and that is enough for those who have felt like Eloise and
Fitzeustace.
One night, rather later indeed than it was Mountfort's custom to return
from Geneva, Eloise and Fitzeustace sat awaiting his arrival. At last it
was too late any longer even to expect him; and Eloise was about to bid
Fitzeustace good-night, when a knock at the door aroused them.
Instantly, with a hurried and disordered step, his clothes stained with
blood, his countenance convulsed and pallid as death, in rushed
Mountfort.
An involuntary exclamation of surprise burst from the terrified Eloise.
"What--what is the matter?"
"Oh, nothing, nothing!" answered Mountfort, in a tone of hurried, yet
desperate agony. The wildness of his looks contradicted his assertions.
Fitzeustace, who had been inquiring whether he was wounded, on finding
that he was not, flew to Eloise.
"Oh! go, go!" she exclaimed. "Something, I am convinced, is wrong.--Tell
me, dear Mountfort, what it is--in pity tell me."
"Nempere is dead!" replied Mountfort, in a voice of deliberate
desperation; then, pausing for an instant, he added in an under tone,
"And the officers of justice are in pursuit of me. Adieu,
Eloise!--Adieu, Fitzeustace! You know I must part with you--you know how
unwillingly.--My address is at--London.--Adieu--once again adieu!"
Saying this, as by a convulsive effort of despairing energy, he darted
from the apartment, and mounting a horse which stood at the gate,
swiftly sped away. Fitzeustace well knew the impossibility of his longer
stay; he did not seem surprised, but sighed.
"Ah! well I know," said Eloise, violently agitated, "I well know myself
to be the occasion of these misfortunes. Nempere sought for me; the
generous Mountfort would not give me up, and now is he compelled to
fly--perhaps may not even escape with life. Ah! I fear it is destined
that every friend must suffer in the fatality which environs me.
Fitzeustace!" she uttered this with such tenderness, that, almost
involuntarily, he clasped her hand, and pressed it to his bosom, in the
silent, yet expressive enthusiasm of love. "Fitzeustace! you will not
likewise desert the poor isolated Eloise?"
"Say not isolated, dearest love. Can, can you fear, my love, whilst your
Fitzeustace exists? Say, adored Eloise, shall we now be united, never,
never to part again? Say, will you consent to our immediate union?"
"Know you not," exclaimed Eloise, in a low, faltering voice, "know you
not that I have been another's?
"Oh! suppose me not," interrupted the impassioned Fitzeustace, "the
slave of such vulgar and narrow-minded prejudice. Does the frightful
vice and ingratitude of Nempere sully the spotless excellence of my
Eloise's soul?--No, no,--that must ever continue uncontaminated by the
frailty of the body in which it is enshrined. It must rise superior to
the earth: 't is that which I adore, Eloise. Say, say, was that
Nempere's?"
"Oh! no, never!" cried Eloise, with energy. "Nothing but fear was
Nempere's."
"Then why say you that ever you were his?" said Fitzeustace,
reproachfully. "You never could have been his, destined as you were for
mine, from the first instant the particles composing the soul which I
adore, were assimilated by the God whom I worship."
"Indeed, believe me, dearest Fitzeustace, I love you, far beyond any
thing existing--indeed, existence were valueless, unless enjoyed with
you!"
Eloise, though a something prevented her from avowing them, felt the
enthusiastic and sanguine ideas of Fitzeustace to be true: her soul,
susceptible of the most exalted virtue and expansion, though cruelly
nipped in its growth, thrilled with delight unexperienced before, when
she found a being who could understand and perceive the truth of her
feelings, and indeed anticipate them, as did Fitzeustace; and he, while
gazing on the index of that soul, which associated with his, and
animated the body of Eloise, but for him, felt delight, which, glowing
and enthusiastic as had been his picture of happiness, he never expected
to know. His dark and beautiful eye gleamed with tenfold luster; his
every nerve, his every pulse, confessed the awakened consciousness, that
she, on whom his soul had doted, ever since he acknowledged the
existence of his intellectuality, was present before him.
A short space of time passed, and Eloise gave birth to the son of
Nempere. Fitzeustace cherished it with the affection of a father, and,
when occasionally he necessarily must be absent from the apartment of
his beloved Eloise, his whole delight was to gaze on the child, and
trace in its innocent countenance the features of the mother who was so
beloved by him.
Time no longer dragged heavily to Eloise and Fitzeustace: happy in the
society of each other, they wished nor wanted other joys; united by the
laws of their God, and assimilated by congeniality of sentiment, they
supposed that each succeeding month must be like this, must pass like
this in the full satiety of every innocent union of mental enjoyment.
While thus the time sped in rapturous succession of delight, autumn
advanced.
The evening was late, when, at the usual hour, Eloise and Fitzeustace
took the way to their beloved pavilion. Fitzeustace was unusually
desponding, and his ideas for futurity were marked by the melancholy of
his mind. Eloise in vai, attempted to soothe him; the contention of his
mind was but too visible. She led him to the pavilion. They entered it.
The autumnal moon had risen; her dimly-gleaming orb, scarcely now
visible, was shrouded in the duskiness of the atmosphere: like a spirit
of the spotless ether, which shrinks from the obtrusive gaze of man, she
hung behind a leaden-coloured cloud. The wind in low and melancholy
whispering sighed among the branches of the towering trees; the melody
of the nightingale, which floated upon its dying cadences, alone broke
on the solemnity of the scene. Lives there, whose soul experiences no
degree of delight, is susceptible of no gradations of feelings, at
change of scenery? Lives there, who can listen to the cadence of the
evenign zephyr, and not acknowledge, in his mind, the sensations of
celestial melancholy which it awakens? for if he does, his life were
valueless, his death were undeplored. Ambition, avarice, ten thousand
mean, ignoble passions, had extinguished within him that soft, but
indefinable sensorium of unallayed delight, with which his soul, whose
susceptibility is not destroyed by the demands of selfish appetite,
thrills exultingly, and wants but the union of another, of whom the
feelings are in unison with his own, to constitute almost insupportable
delight.
Let Epicureans argue, and say, "There is no pleasure but in the
gratification of the senses." Let them enjoy their own opinion; I want
not pleasure, when I can enjoy happiness. Let Stoics say, "Every idea
that there are fine feelings, is weak; he who yields to them is even
weaker." Let those too, wise in their own conceit, indulge themselves in
sordid and degrading hypotheses; let them suppose human nature capable
of no influence from anything but materiality; so long as I enjoy the
innocent and congenial delight, which it were needless to define to
those who are strangers to it, I am satisfied.
"Dear Fitzeustace," said Eloise, "tell me what afflicts you; why are you
so melancholy?--Do not we mutually love, and have we not the
unrestrained enjoyment of each other's society?"
Fitzeustace sighed deeply; he pressed Eloise's hand. "Why does my
dearest Eloise suppose that I am unhappy?" The tone of his voice was
tremulous, and a deadly settled paleness dwelt on his cheek.
"Are you not unhappy, then, Fitzeustace?"
"I know I ought not to be so," he replied, with a faint smile;--he
paused--"Eloise," continued Fitzeustace, "I know I ought not to grieve,
but you will, perhaps, pardon me when I say, that a father's curse,
whether from the prejudice of education, or the innate consciousness of
its horror, agitates my mind. I cannot leave you, I cannot go to
England; and will you then leave your country, Eloise, to accommodate
me? No, I do not, I ought not to expect it."
"Oh! with pleasure; what is country? what is every thing without you?
Come, my love, dismiss these fears, we yet may be happy."
"But before we go to England, before my father will see us, it is
necessary that we should be married--nay, do not start, Eloise; I view
it in the light that you do; I consider it an human institution, and
incapable of furnishing that bond of union by which alone can intellect
be conjoined; I regard it as but a chain, which, although it keeps the
body bound, still leaves the soul unfettered: it is not so with love.
But still, Eloise, to those who think like us, it is at all events
harmless; 't is but yielding to the prejudices of the world wherein we
live, and procuring moral expediency, at a slight sacrifice of what we
conceive to be right.
"Well, well, it shall be done, Fitzeustace," resumed Eloise; "but take
the assurance of my promise that I cannot love you more."
They soon agreed on a point of, in their eyes, so trifling importance,
and arriving in England, tasted that happiness, which love and innocence
alone can give. Prejudice may triumph for a while, but virtue will be
eventually the conqueror.
It was night--all was still; not a breeze dared to move, not a sound to
break the stillness of horror. Wolfstein has arrived at the village near
which St. Irvyne stood; he has sped him to the château, and has entered
the edifice; the garden door was open, and he entered the vaults.
For a time, the novelty of his situation, and the painful recurrence of
past events, which, independently of his own energies, would gleam upon
his soul, rendered him too much confused to investigate minutely the
recesses of the cavern. Arousing himself, at last, however, from this
momentary suspension of faculty, he paced the vaults in eager desire for
the arrival of midnight. How inexpressible was his horror when he fell
on a body which appeared motionless and without life! He raised it in
his arms, and, taking it to the light, beheld, pallid in death, the
features of Megalena. The laugh of anguish which had convulsed her
expiring frame, still played around her mouth, as a smile of horror and
despair; her hair was loose and wild, seemingly gathered in knots by the
convulsive grasp of dissolution. She moved not; his soul was nerved by
almost superhuman powers; yet the ice of despair chilled his burning
brain. Curiosity, resistless curiosity, even in a moment such as this,
reigned in his bosom. The body of Megalena was breathless, and yet no
visible cause could be assigned for her death. Wolfstein dashed the body
convulsively on the earth, and, wildered by the suscitated energies of
his soul almost to madness, rushed into the vaults.
Not yet had the bell announced the hour of midnight. Wolfstein sate on a
projecting mass of stone; his frame trembled with a burning anticipation
of what was about to occur; a thirst of knowledge scorched his soul to
madness; yet he stilled his wild energies,--yet he awaited in silence
the coming of Ginotti. At last the bell struck; Ginotti came; his step
was rapid, and his manner wild; his figure was wasted almost to a
skeleton, yet it retained its loftiness and grandeur; still from his eye
emanated that indefinable expression which ever made Wolfstein shrink
appalled. His cheek was sunken and hollow, yet was it flushed by the
hectic of despairing exertion. "Wolfstein," he said, "Wolfstein, part is
past--the hour of agonizing horror is past; yet the dark and icy gloom
of desperation braces this soul to fortitude;--but come, let us to
business." He spoke, and threw his mantle on the ground. "I am blasted
to endless torment," muttered the mysterious. "Wolfstein, dost thou deny
thy Creator?"--"Never, never."--"Wilt thou not?"--"No, no,--any thing
but that."
Deeper grew the gloom of the cavern. Darkness almost visible seemed to
press around them; yet did the scintillations which flashed from
Ginotti's burning gaze, dance on its bosom. Suddenly a flash of
lightning hissed through the lengthened vaults: a burst of frightful
thunder seemed to convulse the universal fabric of nature; and, borne on
the pinions of hell's sulphurous whirlwind, he himself, the frightful
prince of terror, stood before them. "Yes," howled a voice superior to
the bursting thunderpeal; "yes, thou shalt have eternal life, Ginotti."
On a sudden Ginotti's frame mouldered to a gigantic skeleton, yet two
pale and ghastly flames glared in his eyeless sockets. Blackened in
terrible convulsions, Wolfstein expired; over him had the power of hell
no influence. Yes, endless existence is thine, Ginotti--a dateless and
hopeless eternity of horror.
Ginotti is Nempere. Eloise is the sister of Wolfstein. Let then the
memory of these victims to hell and malice live in the remembrance of
those who can pity the wanderings of error; let remorse and repentance
expiate the offences which arise from the delusion of the passions, and
let endless life be sought from Him who alone can give an eternity of
happiness.