Italian Letters Part 8

Do not imagine that I have been easily persuaded of the truth of your infidelity. I have not indulged to levity and credulity. I have heaped evidence upon evidence. I have resisted the proofs that offered on every side, till I have become liable to the character of stupid and insensible. Would it were possible for me to be deceived! But no, the delusion is vanished. I doubt, I hesitate, no longer. All without is certainty, and all within is unmingled wretchedness.

St. Julian, I once again resume my pen. I was willing you should be acquainted with all the distress and softness of my heart. I was willing to furnish you with every motive to redeem the character of a man, before it were too late. Do not however think me incapable of a spirited and a steady resolution. It were easy for me to address a letter to the family of Aranda, I might describe to them all my wrong, and prevent that dreaded union, the thought of which distresses me. My letter might probably arrive before the mischief were irretrievable. It is not likely that so ill.u.s.trious a house, however they may have previously condescended to the speciousness of your qualities, would persist in their design in the face of so cogent objections. But I am not capable of so weak and poor spirited a revenge.

Return, my lord, yet return to her you have deserted. Let your return be voluntary, and it shall be welcome as the light of day to these sad and weeping eyes, and it shall be dear and precious to my soul, as the ruddy drops that warm my heart. But I will not force an unwilling victim. Such a prize would be unworthy of the artless and constant spirit of Matilda.

Such a husband would be the bane of my peace, and the curse of my hapless days. That he were the once loved St. Julian, would but aggravate the distress, and rankle the arrow. It would continually remind me of the dear prospects, and the fond expectations I had once formed, without having the smallest tendency to gratify them.

Letter XIII

_The Marquis of Pescara to the Marquis of San Severino_

_Cosenza_

My dear lord,

Why is it that a heart feeble and unheroic as mine, should be destined to encounter so many temptations? I might have pa.s.sed through the world honourable and immaculate, had circ.u.mstances been a little more propitious. As it is, I shall probably descend to the grave with a character, at least among the scrupulous and the honest, reproachful and scandalous. Now this I can never account for. My heart is a stranger to all the dark and malignant pa.s.sions. I am not cursed with an unbounded ambition. I am a stranger to inexorable hate and fell revenge. I aim at happiness and gratification. But if it were in my power I would have all my fellow-creatures happy as myself.

Why is the fair Matilda so incomparably beautiful and so inexpressibly attractive? Had her temper been less sweet and undesigning, had her understanding been less delicate and refined, had not the graces dwelt upon those pouting lips, my heart had been sound and unhurt to this very hour. But to see her every day, to converse with her at all opportunities, to be regarded by her as her only friend and chosen protector, tell me, ye G.o.ds, what heart, that was not perfectly invulnerable, that was not totally impregnated with the waters of the Styx, could have come off victorious from trials like these?

And yet, my dear Ferdinand, to see the distress of the lovely Matilda, to see her bosom heave with anguish, and her eyes suffused with tears, to hear the heart-rending sighs continually bursting from her, in spite of the fancied resolution, and the sweet pride that fill her soul, how callous, how void of feeling and sympathy ought the man to be, in whom objects like these can call up no relentings? Ah, my lord, when I observe how her tender frame is shaken with misfortune, I am sometimes ready to apprehend that it totters to its fall, that it is impossible she should survive the struggling, tumultuous pa.s.sions that rage within her. What a glorious prize would then be lost? What would then become of all the deep contrivances, the mighty politics, that your friends.h.i.+p suggested?

And yet, so wayward is my fate, those very objects which might be expected to awaken the sincerest penitence and regret, now only serve to give new strength to the pa.s.sion that devours me, and to make my flame surmount every obstacle that can oppose its progress. Yes, Matilda, thou must be mine. Heaven and earth cannot now overturn the irrevocable decree. It has been the incessant object of my attention to throw in those artful baits which might best divert the current of her soul. I have a.s.siduously inflamed her resentment to the highest pitch, and I flatter myself that I have made some progress towards the concluding stroke.

There is no situation in which we stand in greater need of sympathy and consolation, than in those moments of forlornness and desertion to which the poor Matilda imagines herself reduced. At these times my friends.h.i.+p has been most unwearied in its exertions. I have answered sigh with sigh, and mingled my tears with those of the lovely mourner. Believe me, Ferdinand, this has not been entirely affectation and hypocrisy. There is a vein of sensibility in the human heart, that will not permit us to behold an artless and an innocent distress, at least when surrounded with all the charms of beauty, without feeling our souls involuntarily dilated, and our eyes unexpectedly swimming in tears.

But I have another source of disquietude which is unaccompanied with any alleviating circ.u.mstances. A letter from the count de St. Julian to his Matilda has just been conveyed to my hands. It is filled with the most affecting and tender complaints of her silence that can possibly be imagined. He has too exalted a notion of the fair charmer to attribute this to lightness and inconstancy. His inventive fancy conjures up a thousand horrid phantoms, and surrounds the mistress of his soul with I know not what imaginary calamities. But that pa.s.sage of the whole epistle that overwhelms me most, is one, in which, in spite of all the anguish of his mind, in spite of appearances, he expresses the most unsuspecting confidence in his false and treacherous friend. He still recommends me to his Matilda as her best protector and surest guardian.

Ah, my St. Julian, how didst thou deserve to be cursed with an a.s.sociate, hollow and deceitful as Rinaldo?

Yes, marquis, in spite of all the arguments you have alledged to me upon the subject, I still regard my first and youthful friend, as the most exalted and the foremost of human beings. You may talk of pride, vanity, and stoicism, the heart that listens to the imputation feels its sophistry. It is not vanity, for his virtuous actions are rather studiously hid from observation, than ostentatiously displayed. Is it pride? It is a pride that const.i.tutes the truest dignity. It is a pride worthy of heroes and of G.o.ds. What a.n.a.logy does it bear with the pride of avarice, and the pride of rank; how is it similar to the haughty meanness of patronage, and the insatiable cravings of ambition?

But I must not indulge to reflexions like these. It is to no purpose for the disinterested tenderness, the unstoical affection of my St. Julian to start up in array before me. Hence remorse, and all her kindred pa.s.sions! I am cruel, obdurate, and unrelenting. Yes, most amiable of men, you might as well address your cries to the senseless rocks. You might as well hope with your eloquent and soft complainings to persuade the crocodile that was ready to devour you. I have pa.s.sed the Rubicon.

I have taken the irrevocable step. It is too late, ah, much too late to retreat!

Letter XIV

_The Marquis of San Severino to the Marquis of Pescara_

_Naples_

Joy, uninterrupted, immortal joy to my dear Rinaldo. May all your days be winged with triumph, and all your nights be rapture. Believe me, I feel the sincerest congratulation upon the desired event of your long expected marriage. My lord, you have completed an action that deserves to be recorded in eternal bra.s.s. Why should politics be confined to the negotiations of amba.s.sadors, and the cabinets of princes? I have often revolved the question, and by all that is sacred I can see no reason for it. Is it natural that the unanimating and phlegmatic transactions of a court should engage a more unwearied attention, awaken a brighter invention, or incite a more arduous pursuit than those of love? When beauty solicits the appet.i.te, when the most ravis.h.i.+ng tenderness and susceptibility attract the affections, it is then that the heart is most distracted and regardless, and the head least fertile in artifice and stratagem.

My joy is the more sincere, as I was compelled repeatedly to doubt of your perseverance. What sense was there in that boyish remorse, and those idle self-reproaches, in which you frequently employed yourself?

No, Rinaldo, a man ought never to enter upon an heroical and arduous undertaking without being perfectly composed, and absolutely sure of himself. What a pitiful figure would my friend have made, had he stopped in the midway, and let go the angelic prize when it was already within his grasp? If it had not been for my repeated exhortations, if I had not watched over you like your guardian genius, would you have been now flushed with success, and crowned with unfading laurel?

Letter XV

_The Count de St. Julian to the Marquis of Pescara_

_Livorno_

My lord,

I hoped before this time to have presented before you the form of that injured friend, which, if your heart is not yet callous to every impression, must be more blasting to your sight, than all the chimeras that can be conjured up by a terrified imagination, or a guilty conscience. I no sooner received the accursed intelligence at Zamora, than I flew with the speed of lightning. I permitted no consideration upon earth to delay me till I arrived at Alicant. But the sea was less favourable to the impatience of my spirit. I set sail in a boisterous and unpromising season. I have been long tossed about at the mercy of the ocean. I thank G.o.d, after having a thousand times despaired of it, that I have at length set foot in a port of Italy. It is distant indeed, but the ardour of my purpose were sufficient to cut short all intermission.

My lord, I trusted you as my own soul. No consideration could have moved me to entertain a moment's suspicion of your fidelity. I placed in your hand the most important pledge it ever was my fortune to possess. I employed no guard. I opened to you an unsuspecting bosom, and you have stung me to the heart. I gave you the widest opportunity, and it is through my weak and groundless confidence that you have reached me. You have employed without scruple all those advantages it put into your hands. You have undermined me at your ease. I left you to protect my life's blood, my heart of heart, from every attack, to preserve the singleness of her affections, and the constancy of her attachment. It was yours to have breathed into her ear the sighs of St. Julian. It was yours ambitiously to expatiate upon his amiable qualities. You were every day to have added fuel to the flame. You were to have presented Matilda to my arms, more beautiful, more tender, more kind, than she had ever appeared. From this moment then, let the name of trust be a by-word for the profligate to scoff at! Let the epithet of friend be a mildew to the chaste and uncorrupted ear! Let mutual confidence be banished from the earth, and men, more savage than the brute, devour each other!

Was it possible, my lord, that you should dream, that the benefits you had formerly conferred upon me, could deprive my resentment of all its sting under the present provocation! If you did, believe me, you were most egregiously mistaken. It is true I owed you much, and heaven has not cursed me with a heart of steel. What bounds did I set to my grat.i.tude? I left my natal sh.o.r.e, I braved all the dangers of the ocean, I fought in foreign climes the power of requital. I fondly imagined that I could never discharge so vast obligations. But the invention of your lords.h.i.+p is more fertile than mine. You have found the means to blot them in a moment. Yes, my lord, from henceforth all contract between us is canceled. You have set us right upon our first foundations.

Friends.h.i.+p, affection, pity, I give you to the winds! Come to my bosom, unmixed malignity, black-boiling revenge! You are now the only inmates welcome to my heart.

Oh, Rinaldo, that character once so dear to me, that youth over whose opening inclinations I watched with so unremitting care, is it you that are the author of so severe a misfortune? I held you to my breast. I poured upon your head all that magazine of affection and tenderness, with which heaven had dowered me. Never did one man so ardently love another. Never did one man interest himself so much in another's truth and virtue, in another's peace and happiness. I formed you for heroism.

I cultivated those features in your character which might have made you an ornament to your country and mankind. I strewed your path with flowers, I made the couch beneath you violets and roses. Hear me, yet hear me! Learn to perceive all the magnitude of your crime. You have murdered your friend. You have wounded him in the tenderest part. You have seduced the purest innocence and the most unexampled truth. For is it possible that Matilda, erewhile the pattern of every spotless excellence, could have been a party in the black design?

But it is no longer time for the mildness of censure and the sobriety of reproach. I would utter myself in the fierce and unqualified language of invective. You have sinned beyond redemption. I would speak daggers.

I would wring blood from your heart at every word. But no; I will not waste myself in angry words. I will not indulge to the bitterness of opprobrium. Nothing but the anguish of my soul should have wrung from me these solitary lines. Nothing but the fear of not surviving to my revenge, should have prevented me from forestalling them in person.--I will meet thee at Cerenzo.

Letter XVI

_The Marquis of San Severino to the Marchioness of Pescara_

_Cerenzo_

Madam,

I am truly sorry that it falls to my lot to communicate to you the distressing tidings with which it is perfectly necessary you should be acquainted. The marquis, your husband, and my most dear friend, has this morning fallen in a duel at this place. I am afraid it will be no alleviation of the unfortunate intelligence, if I add, that the hand by which he fell, was that of the count de St. Julian.

His lords.h.i.+p left Cosenza, I understand, with the declared intention of honouring me with a visit at Naples. He accordingly arrived at my palace in the evening of the second day after he left you. He there laid before me a letter he had received from the count, from which it appeared that the misunderstanding was owing to a rivals.h.i.+p of no recent date in the affections of your ladys.h.i.+p. It is not my business to enter into the merits of the dispute. You, madam, are doubtless too well acquainted with the laws of modern honour, pernicious in many instances, and which have proved so fatal to the valuable life of the marquis, not to know that the intended rencounter, circ.u.mstanced as it was, could not possibly have been prevented.

As we were informed that the count de St. Julian was detained by sickness at Livorno, we continued two days longer at Naples before we set out for our place of destination at Cerenzo. We arrived there on the evening of the twenty-third, and the count de St. Julian the next day at noon. We were soon after waited upon in form by signor Hippolito Borelli, who had been a fellow student with each of these young n.o.blemen at the university of Palermo. He requested an interview with me, and informing me that he attended the count in quality of second, we began to adjust those minutiae, which are usually referred to the decision of those who exercise that character.

The count and the marquis had fixed their quarters at the two princ.i.p.al hotels of this place. Of consequence there was no sort of intercourse between them during the remainder of the day. In the evening we were attended by the baron of St. Angelo, who had heard by chance of our arrival. We spent the remainder of the day in much gaiety, and I never saw the marquis of Pescara exert himself more, or display more collectedness and humour, than upon this occasion. After we separated, however, he appeared melancholy and exhausted. He was fatigued with the repeated journies he had performed, and after having walked up and down the room, for some time, in profound thought, he retired pretty early to his chamber.

The next day at six in the morning we repaired according to appointment to the ramparts. We found the count de St. Julian and his friend arrived before us. As we approached, the marquis made a slight congee to the count, which was not returned by the other. "My lord," cried the marquis,--"Stop," replied his antagonist, in a severe and impatient tone. "This is no time for discussions. It was not that purpose that brought me hither." My lord of Pescara appeared somewhat hurt at so peremptory and unceremonious a rejoinder, but presently recovered himself. Each party then took his ground, and they fired their pistols without any other effect, than the shoulder of the count being somewhat grazed by one of the b.a.l.l.s.

Signor Borelli and myself now interposed, and endeavoured to compromise the affair. Our attempt however presently appeared perfectly fruitless.

Both parties were determined to proceed to further action. The marquis, who at first had been perfectly calm, was now too impatient and eager to admit of a moment's delay. The count, who had then appeared agitated and disturbed, now a.s.sumed a collected air, a ferociousness and intrepidity, which, though it seemed to wait an opportunity of displaying itself, was deaf as the winds, and immoveable as the roots of Vesuvius.

They now drew their swords. The pa.s.ses of both were for some time rendered ineffectual. But at length the marquis, from the ardour of his temper seemed to lay aside his guard, and the count de St. Julian, by a sudden thrust, run his antagonist through the body. The marquis immediately fell, and having uttered one groan, he expired. The sword entered at the left breast, and proceeded immediately to the heart.