 6 The Adventure of the Mysterious Stranger Many years since, when I was a young man, and had just left Oxford, I was sent on the grand tour to finish my education. I believe my parents had tried in vain to inoculate me with wisdom, so they sent me to mingle with society, in hopes I might take it the natural way. Such at least appears to be the reason for which nine-tenths of our youngsters are sent abroad. In the course of my tour I remained some time at Venice. The romantic character of the place delighted me. I was very much amused by the air of adventure and intrigue that prevailed in this region of masks and gondolas. And I was exceedingly smitten by a pair of languishing black eyes that played upon my heart from under an Italian mantle, so I persuaded myself that I was lingering at Venice to study men and manners. At least I persuaded my friend so. And that answered all my purpose. Indeed, I was a little prone to be struck by peculiarities in character and conduct. In my imagination was so full of romantic associations with Italy that I was always on the lookout for adventure. Everything chimed in with such a humor in this old mermaid of a city. My suite of apartments were in a proud, melancholy palace on the Grand Canal, formerly the residence of a Magnifico and sumptuous with the traces of decayed grandeur. My gondolier was one of the shrewdest of his class, active, merry, intelligent, and like his brethren, secret as the grave. That is to say, secret to all the world except his master. I had not had him a week before he put me behind all the curtains in Venice. I liked the silence and mystery of the place. And when I sometimes saw from my window a black gondola gliding mysteriously along in the dusk of the evening, with nothing visible, but its little glimmering lantern, I would jump into my own Zendoludo and give a signal for pursuit. But I am running away from my subject with the recollection of youthful follies, said the baronet, checking himself. Let me come to the point. Among my familiar resorts was a casino under the arcades on one side of the Grand Square of St. Mark. Here I used frequently to lounge and take my ice on those warm summer nights. When in Italy everybody lives abroad until morning. I was seated here one evening, when a group of Italians took seat at a table on the opposite side of the saloon. Their conversation was gay and animated and carried on with Italian vivacity and gesticulation. I remarked among them one young man, however, who appeared to take no share and find no enjoyment in the conversation, though he seemed to force himself to attend to it. He was tall and slender, and extremely prepossessing appearance. His features were fine, though emaciated. He had a profusion of black glossy hair that curled lightly about his head, and contrasted with the extreme paleness of his countenance. His brow was haggard, deep furrows seemed to have been plowed into his visage by care, not by age, for he was evidently in the prime of youth, as I was full of expression and fire, but wild and unsteady. He seemed to be tormented by some strange fancy or apprehension, in spite of every effort to fix his attention on the conversation of his companions. I noticed that every now and then he would turn his head slowly round, give a glance over his shoulder, and then withdraw it with a sudden jerk. As if something painful had met his eye, this was repeated at intervals of about a minute, and he appeared hardly to have got over one shock, before I saw him slowly preparing to encounter another. After sitting some time in the casino, the party paid for the refreshments they had taken, and departed. The young man was the last to leave the saloon, and I remarked him glancing behind him in the same way, just as he passed out at the door. I could not resist the impulse to rise and follow him, for I was at an age when a romantic feeling of curiosity is easily awakened. The party walked slowly down the arcades, talking and laughing as they went. They crossed the Piazzetta, but paused in the middle of it to enjoy the scene. It was one of those moonlight nights so brilliant and clear in the pure atmosphere of Italy. The moon beams streamed on the tall tower of St. Mark, and lighted up the magnificent front and swelling domes of the cathedral. The party expressed their delight in animated terms. I kept my eye upon the young man. He alone seemed abstracted and self-occupied. I noticed the same singular, and, as it were, furtive glance over the shoulder that had attracted my attention in the casino. The party moved on, and I followed. They passed along the walks called the Brugoglio, turned the corner of the Ducal Palace, and getting into a gondola, glided swiftly away. The countenance and conduct of this young man dwelt upon my mind. There was something in his appearance that interested me exceedingly. I met him a day or two after in a gallery of paintings. He was evidently a connoisseur, for he always singled out the most masterly productions, and the few remarks drawn from him by his companions showed an intimate acquaintance with the art. His own taste, however, ran on singular extremes. On Salvatore Rosa, in his most savage and solitary scenes, on Raphael, Titian, and Corregio, in their softest delineations of female beauty, on these he would occasionally gaze with transient enthusiasm. This seemed only a momentary forgetfulness. Still would recur that cautious glance behind, and always quickly withdrawn, as if something terrible had met his view. I encountered him frequently afterwards, at the theatre, at balls, at concerts, at the promenades in the gardens of San Giorgio, at the grotesque exhibitions in the Square of St. Mark, among the throng of merchants on the exchange by the Rialto. He seemed, in fact, to seek crowds, to hunt after bustle and amusement, yet never to take any interest in either the business or gaiety of the scene, ever an air of painful thought of wretched abstraction, and ever that strange and recurring movement of glancing fearfully over the shoulder. I did not know at first, but this might be caused by apprehension of arrest, or perhaps from dread of assassination. But if so, why should he go thus continually abroad? Why expose himself at all times, and in all places? I became anxious to know the stranger. I was drawn to him by that romantic sympathy that sometimes draws young men towards each other. His melancholy through a charm about him in my eyes, which is no doubt heightened by the touching expression of his countenance, and the manly graces of his person, for manly beauty has its effect even upon man. I had an Englishman's habitual diffidence, an awkwardness of address to contend with, but I subdued it, and, from frequently meeting him in the casino, gradually edged myself into his acquaintance. I had no reserve on his part to contend with. He seemed, on the contrary, to court society, and in fact, to seek anything rather than be alone. When he found I really took an interest in him, he threw himself entirely upon my friendship. He clung to me like a drowning man. He would walk with me for hours, up and down the place of St. Mark. Or he would sit until night was far advanced in my apartment. He took rooms under the same roof with me, and its constant request was that I would permit him, when it did not, incommode me, to sit by me in my saloon. It was not that he seemed to take particular delight in my conversation, but rather that he craved the vicinity of a human being, and above all, of a being that sympathized with him. I have often heard, said he, of the sincerity of Englishmen. Thank God I have won at length for a friend. Yet he never seemed disposed to avail himself of my sympathy, other than by mere companionship. He never sought to unbuzz him himself to me. There appeared to be a settled corroding anguish in his bosom that neither could be soothed by silence nor by speaking. A devouring melancholy preyed upon his heart, and seemed to be drawing up the very blood in his veins. It was not a soft melancholy, the disease of the affections, but a parching, withering agony. I could see at times that his mouth was dry and feverish. He almost panted rather than breathed. His eyes were bloodshot. His cheeks pale and livid. With now and then faint streaks athwart them. Baleful gleams of the fire that was consuming his heart. As my arm was within his, I felt impressed at times the convulsive motion to his side. His hands would clinch themselves involuntarily. And a kind of shudder would run through his frame. I reasoned with him about his melancholy, and sought to draw from him the cause. He shrank from all confiding. Do not seek to know it, said he. You could not relieve it if you knew it. You would not even seek to relieve it. On the contrary, I should lose your sympathy. And that, said he, pressing my hand convulsively, that I feel has become too dear to me to risk. I endeavored to awaken hope within him. He was young. Life had a thousand pleasures in store for him. There was a healthy reaction in the youthful heart. It medicines its own wounds. Come, come, said I. There is no grief so great that youth cannot outgrow it. No, no, said he, clinching his teeth, and striking repeatedly with the energy of despair upon his bosom. It is here, here, deep-rooted, draining my heart's blood. It grows and grows while my heart withers and withers. I have a dreadful monitor that gives me no repose, that follows me step by step, and will follow me step by step until it pushes me into my grave. As he said this, he gave involuntarily one of those fearful glances over his shoulder, and shrunk back with more than usual horror. I could not resist the temptation to allude to this movement, which I supposed to be some mere malady of the nerves. The moment I mentioned it, his face became crimson and convulsed. He grasped me by both hands. For God's sake! exclaimed he with a piercing agony of voice. Never allude to that again! Let us avoid this subject, my friend. You cannot relieve me. Indeed, you cannot relieve me. But you may add to the torments I suffer. At some future day you shall know all. I never resumed the subject, for however much my curiosity might be aroused, I felt too true compassion for his sufferings to increase them by my intrusion. I sought various ways to divert his mind, and to arouse him from the constant meditations in which he was plunged. He saw my efforts, and seconded them, as far as in his power, for there was nothing moody or wayward in his nature. On the contrary, there was something frank, generous, unassuming in his whole deportment. All the sentiments that he uttered were noble and lofty. He claimed no indulgence. He asked no toleration. He seemed content to carry his load of misery and silence, and only sought to carry it by my side. There was a mute, beseeching manner about him, as if he craved companionship as a charitable boon, and a tacit thankfulness in his looks, as if he felt grateful to me for not repulsing him. I felt this melancholy to be infectious. It stole over my spirits, interfered with all my gay pursuits, and gradually saddened my life. Yet it could not prevail upon myself to shake off a being who seemed to hang upon me for support. In truth, the generous traits of character that beamed through all his gloom had penetrated to my heart. His bounty was lavish and open-handed, his charity melting and spontaneous, not confined to mere donations, which often humiliate as much as they relieve. The tone of his voice, the beam of his eye, enhanced every gift, and surprised the poor suppliant with the rarest and sweetest of charities. The charity not merely of the hand, but of the heart. Indeed, his liberality seemed to have something in it of self-abasement and expiation. He humbled himself in a manner, before the mendicant. What right have I to ease an affluence, would he murmur to himself, when innocence wanders in misery and rags? The carnival time arrived. I had hoped the gay scenes which then presented themselves might have some cheering effect. I mingled with him in the motley throng that crowded the place of St. Mark. We frequented operas, masquerade, balls, all in vain. The evil kept growing on him. He became more and more haggard and agitated. Often after we had returned from one of these scenes of revelry, I had entered his room and found him lying on his face on the sofa, his hands clenched in his fine hair, and his whole countenance bearing traces of the convulsions of his mind. The carnival passed away. The season of lends exceeded. Passion week arrived. We attended one evening a solemn service in one of the churches, in the course of which a grand piece of vocal and instrumental music was performed, relating to the death of our Saviour. I had remarked that he was always powerfully affected by music. On this occasion he was so in an extraordinary degree. As the peeling notes swelled through the lofty aisles, he seemed to kindle up with fervor. His eyes rolled upwards until nothing but the whites were visible. His hands were clasped together until the fingers were deeply imprinted in the flesh, and the music expressing the dying agony. His face gradually sunk upon his knees, and at the touching words resounding through the church, jesu mori, sobs burst from him uncontrolled. I had never seen him weep before. He had always been agony rather than sorrow. I augured well from the circumstance. I let him weep on uninterrupted. When the service was ended we left the church. He hung on my arm as we walked homewards, and with something of a softer and more subdued manner. Instead of that nervous agitation I had been accustomed to witness. He alluded to the service we had heard. Music, said he, is indeed the voice of heaven. Never before have I felt more impressed by the story of the atonement of our Saviour. Yes, my friend, said he, clasping his hands with the kind of transport, I know that my Redeemer liveth. He parted for the night. His room was not far from mine, and I heard him for some time busyed in. I fell asleep, but was awakened before daylight. The young man stood by my bedside, dressed for travelling. He held a sealed packet and a large parcel in his hand, which he laid on the table. Farewell, my friend, said he. I am about to set forth on a long journey. But before I go I leave with you these remembrances. In this packet you will find the particulars of my story. When you read them I shall be far away. Do not remember me with aversion. You have been indeed a friend to me. You have poured oil into a broken heart. But you could not heal it. Farewell, let me kiss your hand. I am unworthy to embrace you. He sunk on his knees, seized my hand in, despite of my efforts to the contrary, and covered it with kisses. I was so surprised by all this scene that I had not been able to say a word. But we shall meet again, said I hastily, as I saw him hurrying towards the door. Never, never in this world, said he solemnly. He sprang once more to my bedside, seized my hand, pressed it to his heart and to his lips, and rushed out of the room. Here the baronet paused. He seemed lost in thought, and sat looking upon the floor, and drumming with his fingers on the arm of his chair. And did this mysterious personage return, said the inquisitive gentleman. Never, replied the baronet, with a pensive shake of the head, I never saw him again. And pray, what has all this to do with the picture? Inquired the old gentleman with the nose. True, said the questioner, is it the portrait of this crack-brained Italian? No, said the baronet dryly, not half-liking the appellation given to his hero. But this picture was enclosed in the parcel he left with me. The sealed packet contained its explanation. There was a request on the outside, that it would not open it until six months had elapsed. I kept my promise, in spite of my curiosity. I have a translation of it by me, and am meant to read it by way of accounting for the mystery of the chamber. But I fear I have already detained the company too long. Here there was a general wish expressed to have the manuscript read, particularly on the part of the inquisitive gentleman, so the worthy baronet drew out a fairly written manuscript, and wiping his spectacles, read aloud the following story. End of Chapter 6 Recording by Greg Giardano Newport Ritchie, Florida Chapter 7 of Tales of a Traveller by Washington Irving This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Greg Giardano Story of the Young Italian I was born at Naples. My parents, though of noble rank, were limited in fortune. Or rather my father was ostentatious beyond his means, and expended so much in his palace, his equipage, and his retinue, that he was continually straightened in his pecuniary circumstances. I was a younger son, and looked upon with indifference by my father, who, from a principle of family pride, wished to leave all his property to my elder brother. I showed, when quite a child, an extreme sensibility. Everything affected me violently, while yet an infant in my mother's arms, and before I had learned to talk, I could be wrought upon to a wonderful degree of anguish or delight by the power of music. As I grew older, my feelings remained equally acute, and I was easily transported into paroxysms of pleasure or rage. It was the amusement of my relatives and of the domestics to play upon this irritable temperament. I was moved to tears, tickled to laughter, provoked to fury for the entertainment of company, who were amused by such a tempest of mighty passion in a pygmy frame, their little thought, or perhaps little heated, the dangerous sensibilities they were fostering. I thus became a little creature of passion, before reason was developed. In a short time I grew too old to be a plaything, and then I became a torment. The tricks and passions I had been teased into became irksome, and I was disliked by my teachers for the very lessons they had taught me. My mother died, and my power as a spoiled child was at an end. There is no longer any necessity to humor or tolerate me, for there is nothing to be gained by it, as I was no favorite of my father. I therefore experienced the fate of a spoiled child in such situation, and was neglected or noticed only to be crossed and contradicted. Such was the early treatment of a heart, which, if I am judge of it at all, was naturally disposed to the extremes of tenderness and affection. My father, as I have already said, never liked me. In fact, he never understood me. He looked upon me as willful and wayward. As deficient in natural affection. It was the statelyness of his own manner, the loftiness and grandeur of his own look, that had repelled me from his arms. I always pictured him to myself, as I had seen him clad in his senatorial robes, rustling with pomp and pride. The magnificence of his person had daunted my strong imagination. I could never approach him with the confiding affection of a child. My father's feelings were wrapped up in my elder brother. He was to be the inheritor of the family title and the family dignity, and everything was sacrificed to him, I as well as everything else. It was determined to devote me to the church, that so my humours and myself might be removed out of the way, either of tasking my father's time in trouble or interfering with the interests of my brother. At an early age, therefore, before my mind had dawned upon the world and its delights, or known anything of it beyond the precincts of my father's palace, I was sent to a convent, the superior of which was my uncle, and was confided entirely to his care. My uncle was a man totally estranged from the world, he had never relished, for he had never tasted its pleasures. And he deemed rigid self-denial as the great basis of Christian virtue. He considered everyone's temperament like his own, or at least he made them conform to it. His character and habits had an influence over the fraternity of which he was superior. A more gloomy, Saturnine set of beings were never assembled together. The convent, too, was calculated to awaken sad and solitary thoughts. It was situated in a gloomy gorge of those mountains away south of Vesuvius. All distant views were shut out by sterile volcanic heights. A mountain stream raved beneath its walls, and eagles screamed about its turrets. I had never been sent to this place at so tender an age, as soon to lose all distinct recollection of the scenes I left behind. As my mind expanded, therefore, it formed its idea of the world from the convent and its vicinity, and a dreary world it appeared to me. An early tinge of melancholy was thus infused into my character, in the dismal stories of the monks about devils and evil spirits, with which they affrighted my young imagination, gave me a tendency to superstition, which I could never effectually shake off. It took the same delight to work upon my ardent feelings that had been so mischievously exercised by my father's household, I can recollect the horrors with which they fed my heated fancy during an eruption of Vesuvius. We were distant from that volcano, with mountains between us, but its convulsive throes shook the solid foundations of nature. Earthquakes threatened to topple down our convent towers. A lord, baleful light hung in the heavens at night, and showers of ashes, born by the wind, fell in our narrow valley. The monks talked of the earth being honeycombed beneath us, of streams of molten lava raging through its veins, of caverns of sulfurous flames, roaring in the center, the abodes of demons in the damned, of fiery gulfs ready to yawn beneath our feet. All these tales were told to the doleful accompaniment of the mountain's thunders, whose low bellowing made the walls of our convent vibrate. One of the monks had been a painter, but had retired from the world, and embraced this dismal life, an expiation of some crime. He was a melancholy man, who pursued his art in the solitude of his cell, but made it a source of penance to him. His employment was to portray, either on canvas or in wax and models, the human face and human form, in the agonies of death, in and all the stages of disillusion and decay. The fearful mysteries of the charnel house were unfolded in his labors, the loathsome banquet of the beetle and the worm. I turned with shuddering even from the recollection of his works. Yet at that time my strong but ill-directed imagination seized with ardor upon his instructions in his art. Anything was a variety from the dry studies and monotonous duties of the cloister. In a little while I became expert with my pencil, and my gloomy productions were thought worthy of decorating some of the altars of the chapel. In this dismal way was a creature of feeling and fancy brought up. Everything genial and amiable in my nature was repressed, and nothing brought out. But what was unprofitable and ungracious, I was ardent in my temperament. Quick, mercurial, impetuous, formed to be a creature all love and adoration, but a leadened hand was laid on all my finer qualities. I was taught nothing but fear and hatred. I hated my uncle. I hated the monks. I hated the convent in which I was immured. I hated the world. And I almost hated myself. For being, as I supposed, so hating and hateful an animal. When I had nearly attained the age of sixteen, I was suffered on one occasion, to accompany one of the brethren on a mission, to a distant part of the country. We soon left behind us the gloomy valley in which I had been pent up for so many years. And after a short journey among the mountains, emerged upon a voluptuous landscape that spreads itself about the Bay of Naples. Heavens! How transported was I when I stretched my gaze over a vast reach of delicious, sunny country, gay with groves and vineyards, with viscous rearing as forked summit to my right, a blue Mediterranean to my left, with his enchanting coast, studded with shining towns and sumptuous villas, and Naples, my native Naples, gleaming far, far in the distance. Good God! Was this the lovely world from which I had been excluded? I had reached that age when the sensibilities are all in their bloom and freshness. Mine had been checked and chilled. They now burst forth, with the suddenness of a retarded spring. My heart, hitherto unnaturally shrunk up, expanded into a riot of vague but delicious emotions. The beauty of nature intoxicated bewildered me. The song of the peasants, their cheerful looks, their happy avocations, the picturesque gaiety of their dresses, their rustic music, their dances, all broke upon me like witchcraft. My soul responded to the music. My heart danced in my bosom. All the men appeared amiable, all the women lovely. And returned to the convent, that is to say, my body returned, but my heart and soul never entered there again. I could not forget this glimpse of a beautiful and a happy world, a world so suited to my natural character. I had felt so happy while in it, so different a being, when I felt myself, all in the convent, that tomb of the living. I contrasted the countenances of the beings I had seen, full of fire and freshness and enjoyment, with the pallid, leaden, lackluster visages of the monks, the music of the dance, with the droning chant of the chapel. I had before found the exercises of the cloister wearisome. They now became intolerable. The dull round of duties wore away my spirit. My nerves became irritated by the fretful tinkling of the convent bell, ever more dinging among the mountain echoes, ever more calling me for my repose at night, my pencil by day, to attend to some tedious and mechanical ceremony of devotion. I was not of a nature to meditate long, without putting my thoughts into action. My spirit had been suddenly aroused, and was now all awake within me. I watched my opportunity, fled from the convent, and made my way on foot to Naples. As I entered its gay and crowded streets, and beheld the variety and stir of life around me, the luxury of palaces, the splendor of ecopages, and the pantomimic animation of the motley populace, I seemed as if awakened to a world of enchantment, and solemnly vowed that nothing should force me back to the monotony of the cloister. I had to inquire my way to my father's palace, for I had been so young on leaving it, that I knew not its situation. I found some difficulty in getting admitted to my father's presence. For the domestics scarcely knew there was such a being as myself in existence, and my monastic dressed and unoperated in my favor. Even my father entertained the recollection of my person. I told him my name, threw myself at his feet, implored his forgiveness, and entreated that I might not be sent back to the convent. He received me, with the condescension of a patron, rather than the kindness of a parent. He listened patiently, but coldly, to my tale of monastic grievances and disgusts, and promised to think what else could be done for me. This coldness blighted and drove back all of the frank affection of my nature that was ready to spring forth at the least warmth of parental kindness. All my early feelings towards my father revived. I again looked up to him as the stately and magnificent being that had daunted my childish imagination, and felt as if I had no pretensions to his sympathies. My brother engrossed all his care and love. He inherited his nature and carried him towards me, with a protecting rather than a fraternal heir. It wounded my pride, which was great. I could brook condescension from my father, for I looked up to him, with awe as a superior being. But I could not brook patronage from a brother, who, I felt, was intellectually my inferior. The servants perceived that I was an unwelcome intruder in the paternal mansion, and menial like they treated me with neglect. Thus baffled at every point, my affections outraged wherever they would attach themselves. I became silent, silent, and despondent. My feelings driven back upon myself, entered and prayed upon my own heart. I remained for some days an unwelcome guest, rather than a restored son in my father's house. I was doomed never to be properly known there. I was made by wrong treatment, strange, even to myself, and they judged of me from my strangeness. I was startled one day at the sight of one of the monks of my convent, gliding out of my father's room. He saw me, but pretended not to notice me. And his very hypocrisy made me suspect something. I had become sore and susceptible in my feelings. Everything inflicted a wound on them. In this state of mind I was treated with marked disrespect by a pampered minion, the favorite servant of my father. All the pride and passion of my nature rose in an instant, and I struck him to the earth. My father was passing by. He stopped not to inquire the reason. Noor indeed could he read the long course of mental sufferings, which were the real cause. He rebuked me with anger and scorn. He summoned all the haughtiness of his nature, and grandeur of his look, to give weight to the contumely with which he treated me. I thought I had not deserved it. I felt that I was not appreciated. I felt that I had that within me which merited better treatment. My heart swelled against the father's injustice. I broke through my habitual awe of him. I replied to him with impatience. My hot spirit flushed in my cheek and kindled in my eye. But my sensitive heart swelled as quickly and before I had half vented my passion. I felt it suffocated and quenched in my tears. My father was astonished and incensed at this turning of the worm, and ordered me to my chamber. I retired in silence, choking with contending emotions. I had not been long there when I overheard voices in an adjoining apartment. It was a consultation between my father and the monk about the means of getting me back quietly to the convent. My resolution was taken. I had no longer a home nor a father. That very night I left the paternal roof. I got on board a vessel about making sail from the harbor and abandoned myself to the wide world, no matter to what port she steered, any part of so beautiful a world was better than my convent. No matter where I was cast by fortune any place would be more a home to me than the home I left behind. The vessel was bound to Genoa. We arrived there after a voyage of a few days. As I entered the harbor, between the moles which embrace it and beheld the amphitheater of palaces and churches and splendid gardens, rising one above another, I felt at once its title to the appellation of Genoa the superb. I landed on the mole and utter stranger without knowing what to do or whether to direct my steps. No matter I was released from the thralldom of the convent and the humiliations of home. When I traversed the Strada Balbi and the Strada Nuova, those streets of palaces, engaged at the wonders of architecture around me, when I wandered a close of day amid a gay throng of the brilliant and the beautiful, through the green alleys of the aqua Verdi, were among the colonnades and terraces of the magnificent Doria Gardens, I thought it impossible to be ever otherwise than happy in Genoa. A few days sufficed to show me my mistake. My scanty purse was exhausted and for the first time in my life I experienced the sort of distress of penery. I had never known the want of money and had never adverted to the possibility of such an evil. I was ignorant of the world and all its ways, and when first the idea of destitution came over my mind, its effect was withering. I was wandering pensively through the streets which no longer delighted my eyes. When chance led my stops into the magnificent church of the Anunciata, a celebrated painter of the day was at that moment superintending the placing of one of his pictures over an altar. The proficiency which I had acquired in his art during my residence in the convent had made me an enthusiastic amateur. I was struck at the first glance with the painting. It was the face of a Madonna, so innocent, so lovely, such a divine expression of maternal tenderness. I lost for the moment all recollection of myself in the enthusiasm of my art. I clasped my hands together and uttered an ejaculation of delight. The painter perceived my emotion. He was flattered and gratified by it. My air and manner pleased him and he accosted me. I felt too much the want of friendship to repel the advances of a stranger. And there was something in this one so benevolent and winning that in a moment he gained my confidence. I told him my story and my situation, concealing only my name and rank. He appeared strongly interested by my recital, invited me to his house, and from that time I became his favorite pupil. He thought he perceived in me extraordinary talents for the art and his encumiums awakened all my ardor. What a blissful period of my existence was it that I passed beneath his roof. Another being seemed created within me, or rather all that was amiable and excellent was drawn out. I was as recluse as ever I had been at the convent, but how different was my seclusion. My time was spent in storing my mind with lofty and poetical ideas, in meditating on all that was striking and noble in history or fiction, and studying and tracing all that was sublime and beautiful in nature. I was always a visionary, imaginative being, but now my reveries and imaginings all elevated me to rapture. I looked up to my master as to a benevolent genius that had opened to me a region of enchantment. I became devotedly attached to him. He was not a native of Genoa, but had been drawn thither by the solicitation of several of the nobility, and had resided there but a few years, with the completion of certain works he had undertaken. His health was delicate, and he had to confide much of the filling up of his designs to the pencils of his scholars. He considered to me as particularly happy and delineating the human countenance, and seizing upon characteristic, though fleeting expressions and fixing them powerfully upon my canvas. I was employed continually therefore, and sketching faces, and often when some particular grace or beauty or expression was wanted in a countenance it was entrusted to my pencil. My benefactor was fond of bringing me forward, and partly perhaps through my actual skill, and partly by his partial praises. I began to be noted for the expression of my countenances. Among the various works which he had undertaken was an historical piece from one of the palaces of Genoa, in which were to be introduced the likenesses of several of the family. Among these was one entrusted to my pencil. It was that of a young girl, who was yet was in a convent for her education. She came out for the purpose of sitting for the picture. I first saw her in an apartment of one of the sumptuous palaces of Genoa. She stood before a casement that looked out upon the bay. A stream of vernal sunshine fell upon her, and she had a kind of glory round her as it lit up the rich crimson chamber. She was, but sixteen years of age, and oh how lovely! The scene broke upon me like a mere vision of spring and youth and beauty. I could have fallen down and worshipped her. She was like one of those fictions of poets and painters, when they would express the bow ideal that haunts their minds of the shapes of indescribable perfection. I was permitted to sketch her countenance in various positions, and I finally protracted the study that was undoing me. The more I gazed on her, the more I became enamored. There was something almost painful in my intense admiration. I was but nineteen years of age, shy, diffident, and inexperienced. I was treated with attention and encouragement, for my youth and my enthusiasm in my art had won favor for me, and I am inclined to think that there was something in my air and manner that inspired interest and respect. Still the kindness with which I was treated could not dispel the embarrassment into which my own imagination threw me when in presence of this lovely being. It elevated her into something almost more than mortal. She seemed too exquisite for earthly use, too delicate and exalted for human attainment, as I sat tracing her charms on my canvas, when my eyes occasionally riveted on her features. I drank in delicious poison that made me giddy, my heart alternately gushed with tenderness, and ached with despair. Now I became more than ever sensible of the violent fires that had lain dormant at the bottom of my soul. You who are born in a more tempered climate, and under a cooler sky, have little idea of the violence of passion in our southern bosoms. A few days finished my task. Bianca returned to her convent, but her image remained indelibly impressed upon my heart. It dwelt on my imagination. It became my pervading idea of beauty. It had in effect even upon my pencil. I became noted for my felicity in depicting female loveliness. It was but because I multiplied the image of Bianca. I soothed and yet fed my fancy by introducing her and all the productions of my master. I stood with delight in one of the chapels of the Manciata, and heard the crowded stole, the seraphic beauty of a saint which I had painted. I had seen them bow down in adoration before the painting. They were bowing before the loveliness of Bianca. I existed in this kind of dream. I might almost say delirium for upwards of a year. Such is the tenacity of my imagination, that the image which was formed in it continued in all its power and freshness. Indeed, I was a solitary, meditative being, much given to reverie, an apt to foster ideas which had once taken strong possession of me. I was roused from this fond melancholy, delicious dream, by the death of my worthy benefactor. I cannot describe the pangs his death occasioned me. It left me alone and almost broken-hearted. He bequeathed to me his little property, which, from the liberality of his disposition, and his expensive style of living, was indeed but small, and he most particularly recommended me, in dying, to the protection of a nobleman who had been his patron. The latter was a man who passed for munificent. He was a lover, and an encourager of the arts, and evidently wished to be thought so. The fanciety saw in me indications of future excellence. My pencil had already attracted attention, and took me at once under his protection, seeing that I was overwhelmed with grief, and incapable of exerting myself in the mansion of my late benefactor. He invited me to sojourn for a time in a villa, which he possessed on the border of the sea, in the picturesque neighborhood of Cestri de Bonanti. I found at the villa the Count's only son, Filippo, who was nearly of my age, prepossessing in his appearance, and fascinating in his manners. He attached himself to me, and seemed to court my good opinion. I thought there was something of profession in his kindness, and of caprice, and of disposition. But I had nothing else near me to attach myself to, and my heart felt the need of something to repose itself upon. His education had been neglected. He looked upon me as a superior in mental powers and requirements, and tacitly acknowledged my superiority. I felt that I was equal in birth, and that it gave an independence to my manner which had its effect. The caprice and tyranny I saw sometimes exercised on others, over whom he had power, were never manifested towards me. We became intimate friends, and frequent companions. Still I loved to be alone, and to indulge in the reveries of my imagination, among the beautiful scenery by which I was surrounded. The villa stood in the midst of the ornamented gardens, finally decorated with statues and fountains, and laid out into groves and alleys and shady bowers. It commanded a wide view of the Mediterranean, and the picturesque Ligurian coast. Everything was assembled here that could gratify the taste, or agreeably occupy the mind. Soothed by the tranquility of this elegant retreat, the turbulence of my feelings gradually subsided, and, lending with the romantic spell that still reigned over my imagination, produced a soft, voluptuous melancholy. I had not been long under the roof of the Count. When our solitude was enlivened by another inhabitant, it was a daughter of a relation of the Count, who had lately died in reduced circumstances, bequeathing his only child as protection. I had heard much of her beauty from Filippo, but my fancy become so engrossed by one idea of beauty as not to admit of any other. We were in the central saloon of the villa when she arrived. She was still in mourning, and approached, leaning on the Count's arm. As they ascended the marble portico, I was struck by the elegance of her figure and movement, by the grace with which the Mazzaro, bewitching Vale of Genoa, was folded about her slender form. They entered. Heavens! What was my surprise when I beheld Bianca before me? It was herself, pale with grief, but still more matured in loveliness than when I had last beheld her. The time that had elapsed had developed the graces of her person, and the sorrow she had undergone had diffused over her countenance and irresistible tenderness. She blushed and trembled at seeing me, and tears rushed into her eyes. Where she remembered in whose company she had been accustomed to behold me. For my part, I cannot express what were my emotions. By degrees they overcame the extreme shyness that had formally paralyzed me in her presence. We were drawn together by sympathy of situation. We had each lost our best friend in the world. We were each, in some measure, thrown upon the kindness of others. When I came to know her intellectually, all my ideal pictureings of her were confirmed. Her newness to the world, her delightful susceptibility to everything, beautiful and agreeable in nature, reminded me of my own emotions. When first I escaped from the convent, her rectitude of thinking delighted my judgment. The sweetness of her nature wrapped itself around my heart. And then her young and tender and budding loveliness sent a delicious madness to my brain. I gazed upon her with a kind of idolatry as something more than mortal, and I felt humiliated at the idea of my comparative unworthiness. Yet she was mortal and one of mortality's most susceptible and loving compounds, for she loved me. How first I discovered the transporting truth I cannot recollect. I believe it stole upon me by degrees, as a wonder past hope or belief. We were both such a tender and loving age, in constant intercourse with each other, mangling in the same elegant pursuits, for music, poetry, and painting were our mutual delights, and we were almost separated from society, among lovely and romantic scenery. Is it strange that two young hearts thus brought together should readily twine round each other? Oh, gods, what a dream! A transient dream of unalloyed delight then passed over my soul. Then it was that the world around me was indeed a paradise. For I had a woman, lovely, delicious woman, to share it with me. How often have I rambled over the picturesque shores of Cestri, or climbed its wild mountains, with the coast gemmed with villas, and the blue sea far below me, and the slender pharaoh of Genoa, on its romantic promontory in the distance. And as I sustained the faltering steps of Bianca, have thought there could be no unhappiness entered into so beautiful a world. Why, oh, why is this budding season of life and love so transient? Why is this rosy cloud of love that shed such a glow over the morning of our days, so prone to brew up into the whirlwind and the storm? How was the first two awakened from a spliceful delirium of the affections? I again, Bianca's heart. Was I to do with it? I had no wealth nor prospects to entitle me to her hand. Was I to take advantage of her ignorance of the world, of her confiding affection, and draw her down to my own poverty? Was this requiting the hospitality of the count? Was this requiting the love of Bianca? At first I began to feel that even successful love may have its bitterness, a corroding care gathered about my heart. I moved about the palace like a guilty being. I felt as if I had abused its hospitality, as if I were a thief within its walls. I could no longer look with unembarrassed mean at the countenance of the count. I accused myself of profidity to him, and I thought he read it in my looks, and began to distrust and despise me. His manner had always been ostentatious and condescending. It now appeared cold and haughty. Filippo, too, became reserved and distant. Or at least I suspected him to be so. Heavens! Was this mere coinage of my brain? Was I to become suspicious of all the world? A poor, surmising wretch, watching looks and gestures, and torturing myself with misconstructions. I were, if true, glad to remain beneath the roof, I was merely tolerated and lingered there on sufferance. This is not to be endured, exclaimed I. I will tear myself from the state of self-abasement. I will break through this fascination and fly, fly wither, from the world. From where is the world when I leave Bianca behind me? My spirit was naturally proud, and swelled within me at the idea of being looked upon with consummly. Many times I was on the point of declaring my family in rank, and asserting my equality in the presence of Bianca, when I thought her relatives assumed an air of superiority. But the feeling was transient. I considered myself discarded and condemned by my family, and insomely vowed never to own relationship to them, until they themselves should claim it. The struggle of my mind preyed upon my happiness and my health. It seemed as if the uncertainty of being loved would be less intolerable than thus to be assured of it, and yet not dare to enjoy the conviction. I was no longer the enraptured admirer of Bianca. I no longer hung in ecstasy on the tones of her voice, or drank in with insatiate gaze the beauty of her countenance. Her very smiles ceased to delight me, for I felt culpable in having won them. She could not but be sensible of the change in me, and inquired the cause with her usual frankness and simplicity. I could not evade the inquiry, for my heart was full to aching. I told her all the conflict of my soul, my devouring passion, my bitter self-upbraiding. Yes, said I, I am unworthy of you. I am an off-caste from my family, a wanderer, a nameless, homeless wanderer, with nothing but poverty for my portion, and yet I have dared to love you, have dared to aspire to your love. My agitation moved her to tears. But she saw nothing in my situation so hopeless, as I had depicted it. Brought up in a convent, she knew nothing of the world, its wants, its cares, and indeed, what woman is a worldly, causuist in matters of the heart. Nay, more she kindled into a sweet enthusiasm when she spoke of my fortunes in myself. We had brought together on the works of the famous masters. I related to her their histories, the high reputation, the influence, magnificence to which they had attained, the companions of princes, the favorites of kings, the pride and boasts of nations. All this she applied to me. Her love saw nothing in their greatest productions, that was not able to achieve. And when I saw the lovely creature glow with fervor, and her whole countenance radiant with the visions of my glory, which seemed breaking upon her, I was snatched up for the moment into the heaven of her own imagination. I am dwelling too long upon this part of my story. Yet I cannot help lingering over a period of my life, on which, with all its cares and conflicts, I look back with fondness, for as yet my soul was unstained by a crime, I do not know what might have been the result of the struggle between pride, delicacy, and passion had I not read in a neapolitan gazette an account of the sudden death of my brother. It was accompanied by an earnest inquiry for intelligence concerning me, and a prayer, should this notice meet my eye, that I would hasten to Naples, to comfort an infirm and afflicted father. I was naturally of an affectionate disposition. My brother had never been as a brother to me. I had long considered myself as disconnected from him, and his death caused me but little emotion. The thoughts of my father, infirm and suffering, touched me, however, to the quick. And when I thought of him, that lofty, magnificent being, now bowed down and desolate, and suing to me for comfort, all my resentment for past neglect was subdued, and a glow of filial affection was awakened within me. The predominant feeling, however, that overpowered all others, was transported at the sudden change in my whole fortunes. A home, a name, a rank. Wealth awaited me, and love painted a still more rapturous prospect in the distance. I hastened to Bianca, and threw myself at her feet. Oh, Bianca, exclaimed I, at length I can claim you for my own. I am no longer a nameless adventurer, and neglected, rejected outcast. Look, read, behold the tidings that restore me to my name and to myself. I will not dwell on the scene that ensued. Bianca rejoiced in the reverse of my situation, because she saw it enlightened my heart of a load of care. For her own part, she loved me for myself, and had never doubted that my own merits would command both fame and fortune. I now felt all my native pride buoyant within me. I no longer walked with my eyes bent to the dust. Hope elevated them to the skies. My soul was lit up with fresh fires, and beamed from my countenance. I wished to impart the change in my circumstances to the Count, to let him know who and what I was, and to make four more proposals for the hand of Bianca. But the count was absent on a distant estate. I opened my whole soul to Filippo. At first I told him of my passion, of the doubts and fears that had distracted me, and of the tidings that suddenly dispelled them. He overwhelmed me with congratulations and with the warmest expressions of sympathy. I embraced him in the fullness of my heart. I felt compunctions for having suspected him of coldness, and asked him forgiveness for having ever doubted his friendship. Nothing is so warm and enthusiastic as a sudden expansion of the hearts between young men. Filippo entered into our concerns with the most eager interest. He was our confidant and counselor. He was determined that I should hasten at once to Naples, to re-establish myself and my father's affections, and my paternal home. In the moment the reconciliation was affected, and my father's consent ensured, I should return and demand Bianca of the Count. Filippo engaged to secure his father's acquiescence. Indeed, he undertook to watch over our interests, and was the channel through which we were to respond. My parting with Bianca was tender, delicious, agonizing. It was in the little pavilion of the garden which had been one of our favorite resorts. How often and often did I return to have one more adieu, to have her look once more on me in speechless emotion, to enjoy once more the rapturous sight of those tears streaming down her lovely cheeks, to seize once more on that delicate hand, the frankly accorded pledge of love and cover with tears and kisses. Heavens, there is a delight even in the parting agony of two lovers, with a thousand tame pleasures of the world. I have her at this moment before my eyes, at the window of the pavilion, putting aside the vines that clustered about the casement, her light foreign beaming forth in virgin white, her countenance all tears and smiles, sending a thousand and a thousand adieu's after me, as hesitating in a delirium of fondness and agitation. I faltered my way down the avenue. As the bark bore me out of the harbor of Genoa, how eagerly my eyes stretched along the coast of Sestri, till it discerned the villa gleaming from among the trees at the foot of the mountain. As long as day lasted, I gazed and gazed upon it, till it lessened and lessened to a mere white speck in the distance. And still my intense and fixed gaze discerned it, when all other objects of the coast that blended into indistinct confusion, or were lost in the evening gloom. On arriving at Naples, I hastened to my paternal home. My heart yearned for the long-without blessing of a father's love. As I entered the proud portal of the Ancestral Palace, my emotions were so great that they could not speak. No one knew me. The servants gazed at me with curiosity and surprise. A few years of intellectual elevation and development had made a prodigious change in the poor fugitive stripling from the convent. Still that no one should know me in my rightful home was overpowering. I felt like the prodigal sun returned. I was a stranger in the house of my father. I burst into tears and wept aloud. When I made myself known, however, all was changed. I, who had once been almost repulsed from its walls, and forced to fly as an exile, was welcomed back with acclimation, with servility. One of the servants hastened to prepare my father for my reception. My eagerness to receive the paternal embrace was so great that I could not await his return, but hurried after him. What a spectacle it met my eyes as I entered the chamber. My father, whom I left in the pride of vigorous age, whose noble and majestic bearing had so awed my young imagination, was bowed down and withered into decrepitude. A paralysis had ravaged his stately form, and left it a shaking ruin. He sat propped up in his chair, with pale, relaxed visage and glassy, wandering eye. His intellects had evidently shared in the ravage of his frame. The servant was endeavouring to make him comprehend the visitor that was at hand. I tottered up to him and sunk at his feet. All his past coldness and neglect were forgotten in his present sufferings. I remembered only that he was my parent, and that I had deserted him. I clasped his knees. My voice was almost stifled with convulsive sobs. Pardon, pardon, oh my father! Was all that I could utter. His apprehension seemed slowly to return to him. He gazed at me for some moments with a vague, inquiring look. The convulsive tremor quivered about his lips. He feebly extended a shaking hand, laid it upon my head, and burst into an infantile flow of tears. From that moment he would scarcely spare me from his sight. I appeared the only object that his heart responded to in the world. All else was as a blank to him. He had almost lost the powers of speech, and the reasoning faculty seemed at an end. He was mute and passive, accepting that fits of childlike weeping would sometimes come over him without any immediate cause. If I left the room at any time, his eye was incessantly fixed on the door to my return, and on my entrance there was another gush of tears. To talk with him of my concerns, in this ruined state of mind, would have been worse than useless. To have left him for ever so short a time would have been cruel, unnatural. Here, then, was a new trial from my affections. I wrote to Bianca an account of my return, and of my actual situation. Painting in colors vivid, for they were true, the torments I suffered that are being thus separated. For to the youthful lover, every day of absence is an age of love lost. I enclosed a letter and one to Filippo, who was a channel of our correspondence. Her see was a reply from him full of friendship and sympathy, from Bianca full of assurances of affection and constancy. Week after week, month after month elapsed, without making any change in my circumstances, the vital flame, which had seemed nearly extinct when first I met my father, kept fluttering on without any apparent diminution. I watched him constantly, faithfully. I had almost said patiently. I knew that his death alone would set me free. Yet I never in any moment wished it. I felt too glad to be able to make any atonement for past disobedience. And, denied as I had been all endearments of relationship in my early days, my heart yearned towards a father, who, in his age and helplessness, had thrown himself entirely on me for comfort. My passion for Bianca gained daily more force from absence. My constant meditation in it wore itself a deeper and deeper channel, and made no new friends nor acquaintances, sought none of the pleasures of Naples which my rank and fortune threw open to me. Mine was a heart that confined itself to few objects, but dwelt upon those with the intense repression. To sit by my father, in an administer to his wants, and to meditate on Bianca and the silence of his chamber, was my constant habit. Sometimes I am using myself with my pencil, and portraying the image that was ever present to my imagination. I transferred to canvas every look and smile of hers that dwelt in my heart. I showed them to my father in hopes of awakening an interest in his bosom, for the mere shadow of my love. But he was far too sunk and intellect to take any more than a childlike notice of them. When I received the letter from Bianca, it was a new source of solitary luxury. Her letters, that is true, were less and less frequent, but they were always full of assurances of unabated affection. They breathed not the frank and innocent warmth with which she expressed herself in conversation, but I accounted for it from them. The embarrassment which inexperienced minds have often to express themselves upon paper. Filippo assured me of her unaltered inconstancy. They both lamented in the strongest terms, our continued separation, though they did justice to the filial feeling they kept me by my father's side. Nearly eighteen months elapsed in this protracted exile. To me they were so many ages, ardent and impetuous by nature. I scarcely know how I should have supported so long an absence had I not felt assured that the faith of Bianca was equal to my own. Had length my father died. Life went from him almost imperceptibly. I hung over him in mute affliction and watched the expiring spasms of nature. Its last faltering accents whispered repeatedly a blessing on me. Alas, how has it been fulfilled? When I had paid due honors to his remains and laid them in the tomb of our ancestors, I arranged briefly my affairs, put them in a posture to be easily at my command from a distance, and embarked once more with a bounding heart for Genoa. Our voyage was repitious, and oh, what was my rapture when first, in the dawn of morning, I saw the shadowy summits of the epinines rising almost like clouds above the horizon. The sweet breath of summer just moved us over the long, wavering billows that were rolling us on towards Genoa. By degrees the coast of Sestri rose like a sweet creation of enchantment from the silver bosom of the deep. I behold the line of villages and palaces stunning its borders. My eye reverted to a well-known point, and at length, from the confusion of distant objects, it singled out the villa which contained Bianca. It was a mere speck in the landscape, but glimmering from afar the polar star of my heart. Again I gazed at it for a live-long summer's day. But oh, how different the emotions between departure and return! And I kept growing and growing, instead of lessening on my sight. My heart seemed to dilate with it. I looked at it through a telescope. I gradually defined one feature after another. The balconies at the central saloon were a first I met Bianca beneath its roof. The terrace, who we so often had passed delightful summer evenings. The awning that shaded her chamber window. I almost fancied I saw her fall beneath it. Could she but know her lover was in the bark whose white sail now gleamed on the sunny bosom of the sea? I found impatience increased as we neared the coast. The ship seemed to lag lazily over the bellows. I could almost have sprung into the sea and swam to the desired shore. The shadows of evening gradually shrouded the scene. But the moon arose in all her fullness and beauty, and shed the tender light so dear to lovers over the romantic coast of Sestri. My whole soul was bathed in an unutterable tenderness. Anticipated that heavenly evening I should pass in wandering with Bianca by the light of that blessed moon. It was late at night before we entered the harbor. As early next morning as I could get released from the formalities of landing, I threw myself on horseback and hastened to the villa as I galloped round the rocky promontory of which stands the faro and saw the coast of Sestri opening upon me. A thousand anxieties and doubts suddenly sprang up in my bosom. There's something fearful in returning to those we love, while yet uncertain what ills or changes absence may have affected. The turbulence of my agitation shook my very frame. I spurred my horse through doubled speed. He was covered with foam when we both arrived panting at the gateway that opened to the grounds around the villa. I left my horse at a cottage and walked through the grounds, that I might regain tranquility for the approaching interview. I tried myself for having suffered mere doubts and surmises. Thus suddenly it's overcome me. But I was always prone to be carried away by these gusts of the feelings. On entering the garden everything bore the same look as when I had left it. And this unchanged aspect of things reassured me. There were the alleys in which I had so often walked with Bianca. The same shades under which we had so often sat during the noontide. There were the same flowers of which she was fond, which appeared still to be under the ministry of her hand. Everything around looked and breathed of Bianca. Hope and joy fleshed in my bosom at every step. I passed a little bower in which we had often sat and read together. I booked in the glove lay on the bench. It was Bianca's glove. It was a volume of the metastasio I had given her. The glove lay in my favorite passage. They clasped them to my heart. All is safe, exclaimed I, with rapture. She loves me. She is still my own. I bounded lightly along the avenue on which I had faltered so slowly at my departure. I beheld her favorite pavilion which had witnessed our parting scene. The window was open, with the same vine clambering about it precisely as when she waved and wept to me adieu. Oh, how transporting was the contrast in my situation. As I passed near the pavilion I heard the tones of a female voice. They thrilled through me with an appeal to my heart not to be mistaken. Before I could think I felt they were Bianca's. For an instant I paused, overpowered with agitation. I feared to break in suddenly upon her. I softly ascended the steps of the pavilion. The door was open. I saw Bianca seated at a table, her back towards me. She was warbling a soft melancholy air and was occupied in drawing. A glance suffice to show me that she was copying one of my own paintings. I gazed on her for a moment in a delicious tumult of emotions. She paused in her singing, a heavy sigh. Almost a sob followed. I couldn't no longer contain myself. Bianca exclaimed I, in a half smothered voice. She started at the sound, brushed back the ringlets among clustering about her face. Dotted a glance at me, uttered a piercing shriek, and would have fallen to the earth had I not caught her in my arms. Bianca! My own Bianca! exclaimed I, folding her to my bosom. My voice stifled in sobs of convulsive joy. She lay in my arms without sense or motion. Alarmed at the effects of my own precipitation, I scarce knew what to do. I tried by a thousand enduring words to call her back to consciousness. She slowly recovered, and half opening her eyes. Where am I? remembered she faintly. Here! exclaimed I, pressing her to my bosom. Here! close to the heart that adores you, in the arms of your faithful Otavio. Oh! no! no! no! shrieked she, starting into sudden life and terror. Away! away! leave me! leave me! She tore herself from my arms, rushed to a corner of the saloon and covered her face with her hands, as if the very sight of me were baleful. I was thunderstruck. I could not believe my senses. I followed her, trembling, confounded. I endeavored to take her hand, but she shrunk from my very touch with horror. Good heavens, Bianca! exclaimed I. What is the meaning of this? Is this my reception after so long an absence? Is this the love you professed for me? A dimension of love, a shuddering ran through her. She turned to me, a face wild with anguish. No more of that! no more of that! gasped she. Talk not to me of love. I, I, am married! I reeled as if I had received a mortal blow. A sickness struck to my very heart. I caught at a window frame for support. For a moment or two everything was chaos around me. When I recovered I beheld Bianca lying on a sofa, her face buried in the pillow, and sobbing convulsively. Indignation at her fickleness for a moment overpowered every other feeling. Faithless, perjured cried I, striding across the room. But another glance at that beautiful being in distress checked on my wrath. Anger could not dwell together with her idea in my soul. Oh, Bianca! exclaimed I in anguish. Could I have dreamt of this? Could I have suspected you would have been false to me? She raised her face all streaming with tears, all disordered with emotion, and gave me one appealing look. False to you? They told me you were dead. What? said I, in spite of our constant correspondence? She gazed wildly at me. Correspondence? What correspondence? Have you not repeatedly received and replied to my letters? She clasped her hands with solemnity and fervor, as I hope for mercy never. A horrible sermon I shot through my brain. Who told you I was dead? It was reported at the ship in which you embarked for Naples perished at sea. But who told you the report? She paused for an instant and trembled. Philippo! May the God of Heaven curse him! cried I, extending my clenched fists aloft. Oh, do not curse him! Do not curse him! exclaimed she. He is—he is my husband! That was all that was wanting to unfold the perfidity that had been practiced upon me. My blood boiled like liquid fire in my veins. I gasped with rage too great for utterance. I remained for a time bewildered by the whirl of horrible thoughts that rushed through my mind. The poor victim of deception before me thought I was with her. I was incensed. She faintly murmured forth her exculpation. I will not dwell upon it. I saw in it more than she meant to reveal. I saw with a glance how both of us have been betrayed. Tis well, muttered I to myself, and smothered accents of concentrated fury. He shall account to me for this. Bianca overheard me. New terror flashed in her countenance. For mercy's sake do not meet him. Say nothing of what is past. For my sake say nothing to him. I only shall be the sufferer. And new suspicion darted across my mind. What! exclaimed I. Do you then fear him? Is he unkind to you? Tell me! re-atturated I, grasping her hand and looking her eagerly in the face. Tell me, dares he to use you harshly? No, no, no! cried she, faltering and embarrassed. But the glance at her face had told me volumes. I saw in her pallid and wasted features, in the prompt terror and subdued agony of her eye, a whole history of a mind broken down by tyranny. Great God! and was as beauty as flower snatched from me to be thus trampled upon. The idea roused me to madness. I clenched my teeth in my hands. I foamed at the mouth, every passion seemed to have resolved itself into the fury that like a lava boil within my heart. Bianca shrunk from me in speechless affright. As I strode by the window, my eye darted down the alley. Fatal moment! I beheld Filippo at a distance. My brain was in a delirium. I sprang from the pavilion, and was before him with the quickness of lightning. He saw me as I came rushing upon him. He turned pale, looked wildly to right and left, as if he would have fled and trembling drew his sword. Rich! cried I, will may you draw your weapon! I spake not another word. I snatched forth a stiletto, put by the sword which trembled in his hand, and buried my panyard in his bosom. He fell with the blow, but my rage was unsated. I sprang upon him with the bloodthirsty feeling of a tiger. Redoubled my blows, mangled him in my fury, grasped him by the throat until with reiterated wound and strangling convulsions he expired in my grasp. I remained glaring on the countenance. Horrible in death! It seemed to stare back with its protruded eyes upon me. Piercing shrieks roused me from my delirium. I looked round and beheld Bianca flying distractedly towards us. My brain whirled. I waited not to meet her, but fled from the scene of horror. I fled forth from the garden like another cane, a hell within my bosom, and a curse upon my head. I fled without knowing wither, almost without knowing why. My only idea was to get farther and farther from the horrors I had left behind, as if I could throw space between myself and my conscience. I fled to the happenings, and wandered for days and days among their savage heights. How I existed, I cannot tell. What rocks and precipices I braved, and how I braved them, I know not. I kept on and on, trying to out-travel the curse that clung to me. Alas, the shrieks of Bianca rang forever in my ear. The horrible countenance of my victim was forever before my eyes. The blood of Filippo cried to me from the ground. Rocks, trees, and torrents all resounded with my crime. Then it was, I felt, how much more insupportable is the anguish of remorse than every other mental pang. Oh, could I but have cast off this crime that festered in my heart. Could I but regain the innocence that reigned in my breast as I entered the garden at Cestri. Could I but restore my victim to life. I thought as if I could look on with transport, even though Bianca were in his arms. By degrees this frenzied fever of remorse settled into a permanent malady of the mind, into one of the most horrible that ever poor wretch was cursed with. Wherever I went, the countenance of him I had slain appeared to follow me. Wherever I turned my head, I beheld it behind me, hideous with the contortions of the dying moment. I have tried in every way to escape from this horrible phantom, but in vain. I know not whether it is an illusion of the mind, the consequence of my dismal education at the convent, or whether a phantom really sent by heaven to punish me. But there it ever is, at all times, in all places. Nor has time nor habit had any effect in familiarizing me with its terrors. I have traveled from place to place, plunged into amusements, tried dissipation and distraction of every kind, all, all in vain. I once had recourse to my pencil as a desperate experiment. I painted an exact resemblance of this phantom face. I placed it before me in hopes that by constantly contemplating the copy I might diminish the effect of the original, but I only doubled instead of diminishing the misery. Such is the curse that has clung to my footsteps, that has made my life a burden, but the thoughts of death terrible. God knows what I have suffered, what days and days and nights and nights of sleepless torment, what an ever-dying worm has prayed upon my heart, what an unquenchable fire has burned within my brain. He knows the wrongs that wrought upon my poor weak nature, that converted the tenderest of affections into the deadliest of fury. He knows best whether a frail airing creature has expiated by long-enduring torture and measureless remorse, the crime of a moment of madness. Often, often have I prostrated in myself in the dust and implored that he would give me a sign of his forgiveness, and let me die. Thus far had I written some time since. I had meant to leave this record of misery and crime with you, to be read when I should be no more. My prayer to heaven has at length been heard. You were witness to my emotions last evening, at the performance of the Miserar, when the vaulted temple resounded with the words of atonement and redemption. I heard a voice speaking to me from the midst of the music. I heard it rising above the peeling of the organ and the voices of the choir. It spoke to me in tones of celestial melody. It promised mercy and forgiveness, but demanded from me full expiation. I go to make it. Tomorrow I shall be on my way to Genoa to surrender myself to justice. You, who have pitied my sufferings, who have poured the balm of sympathy into my wounds, do not shrink from my memory with abhorrence, now that you know my story. Recollect when you read of my crime. I shall have atone for it with my blood. When the baronet had finished, there was a universal desire expressed to see the painting of this frightful visage. After much entreaty the baronet consented. On condition they should only visit it one by one. He called his housekeeper and gave her charge to conduct the gentleman, singly, to the chamber. They all returned veering in their stories. Some effected in one way, some in another, some more, some less, but all agreeing that there was a certain something about the painting that had a very odd effect upon the feelings. I stood in a deep bow-window with the baronet, and could not help expressing my wonder. After all, said I, there are certain mysteries in our nature, certain inscrutable impulses and influences that warrant one in being superstitious. Who can account for so many persons of different characters being thus strangely affected by a mere painting? And especially when not one of them has seen it, said the baronet with a smile. How! exclaimed I. Not seen it? Not one of them, replied he, laying his finger on his lips in sign of secrecy. I saw that some of them were in a bantering vein, and I did not choose that the memento of the poor Italians should be made a jest of. So I gave the housekeeper a hint to show them all to a different chamber. This end the stories of the nervous gentleman. CHAPTER 8 of Tales of a Traveller by Washington Irving This LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Recording by Greg Giordano. LITERARY LIFE PART SECOND BUCKTHORN AND HIS FRIENDS Tis a very good world that we live in, to lend or to spend or to give in, but to beg or to borrow or get a man's own, tis the very worst world, sir, that ever was known. Lines from an in-window. LITERARY LIFE Among the great variety of characters which fall in a traveller's way, I became acquainted during my sojourn in London with an eccentric personage of the name of Buckthorn. He was a literary man, had lived much in the metropolis, and had acquired a great deal of curious, though unprofitable, knowledge concerning it. He was a great observer of character, and could give the natural history of every odd animal that presented itself in this great wilderness of men. Finding me very curious about literary life and literary characters, he took much pains to gratify my curiosity. The literary world of England, said he, to me one day, is made up of a number of little fraternities, each existing merely for itself, and thinking the rest of the world created only to look on and admire. It may be resembled to the firmament, consisting of a number of systems, each composed of its own central sun, with its revolving train of moons and satellites, all acting in the most harmonious concord. But the comparison fails in part, in as much as the literary world has no general concord. Each system acts independently of the rest, and indeed considers all other stars as mere exhalations and transient meteors, beaming for a while with false fires, but doomed soon to fall and be forgotten. While its own luminaries are the lights of the universe, destined to increase in splendor and to shine steadily on to immortality, and pray, said I, how is a man to get a peep into one of these systems you talk of? I presume an intercourse with authors is a kind of intellectual exchange where one must bring his commodity to barter, and always give a quid pro quo. Poo-poo! How you mistake! said Buckthorn, smiling. You must never think to become popular among wits by shining. They go into society to shine themselves, not to admire the brilliancy of others. I thought as you do when I first cultivated the society of men of letters, and never went to a blue stocking coterie without studying my part beforehand as diligently as an actor. The consequence was I soon got the name of an intolerable proser, and should, in a little while, have been completely excommunicated, had I not changed my plan of operations. From thence forth I became a most assiduous listener. Or, if ever, I were eloquent. It was, te-te, with an author in praise of his own works, or what is nearly as acceptable in disparagement of the works of his contemporaries. If ever he spoke favorably of the productions of some particular friend, I ventured boldly to dissent from him, and to prove that his friend was a blockhead, and much as people say of the pertinency and irritability of authors, I never found one to take offense in my contradictions. Oh, no, sir. Authors are particularly candid in admitting the faults of their friends. Indeed, I was extremely sparing of my remarks on all modern works, accepting to make sarcastic observations of the most distinguished writers of the day. I never ventured to praise an author that had not been dead at least half a century. And even then I was rather cautious, for you must know that many old writers have been enlisted under the banners of different sects, and their merits have become as complete topics of party prejudice and dispute as the merits of living statesmen and politicians. Nay, there have been whole periods of literature absolutely tabooed to use a South Sea phrase. It is, for example, as much as a man's reputation is worth in some circles, to say a word and praise of any writers of the reign of Charles II, or even of Queen Anne, they being all declared to be Frenchmen in disguise. And pray, then, said I, when am I to know that I am on safe grounds, being totally unacquainted with the literary landmarks in the boundary lines of fashionable taste. Oh, plight he, there is fortunately one tract of literature that forms a kind of neutral ground on which all literary world meet amicably, lay down their weapons, and even run riots in their excess, of good humor. And this is, the reigns of Elizabeth and James. Here you may praise away at a venture. Here it is, cut and come again, and the more obscure the author, and the more quaint and crabbed his style, the more your admiration will smack of the real relish of the connoisseur, whose taste, like that of an epicure, is always for game that has an antiquated flavor. But, continued he, as you seem anxious to know something of literary society, I will take an opportunity to introduce you to some coterie, where the talents of the day are assembled. I cannot promise you, however, that they will be of the first order. Somehow or other our great geniuses are not gregarious. They do not go in flocks, but fly singly in general society. They prefer mingling like common men, with the multitude, and are apt to carry nothing of the author about them, but the reputation. It is only the inferior orders that herd together, acquire strength and importance by their confederacies, and bear all the distinctive characteristics of their species. A LITERARY DINNER A few days after this conversation with Mr. Buckthorn, he called upon me, and took me with him to a regular literary dinner, who is given by a great bookseller, or rather, a company of booksellers, whose firms are past in length, even that of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. I was surprised to find between twenty and thirty guests assembled, most of whom I had never seen before. Buckthorn explained this to me, by informing me that this was a business dinner, or kind of field day, which the house gave about twice a year to its authors. It is true, they did occasionally give snug dinners to three or four literary men at a time, but when these were generally select authors, favorites of the public, such as had arrived at their sixth and seventh editions. There are, said he, certain geographical boundaries in the land of literature, and you may judge tolerably well of an author's popularity by the wine his bookseller gives him. An author crosses the portline about the third edition, and gets into Claret, but when he has reached the sixth and seventh, he may revel in champagne and burgundy. And, pray, said I, how far may these gentlemen have reached that I see around me? Are any of these Claret drinkers? Not exactly. Not exactly. You find at these great dinners the common steady run of authors, one, two edition men, or if any others are invited, they are aware that it is a kind of Republican meaning. You understand me, a meaning of the Republic of Letters, and that they must expect nothing but plain, substantial fare. These hints enabled me to comprehend more fully the arrangement of the table. The two ends were occupied by two partners of the house, and the host seemed to have adopted Addison's ideas as to the literary precedents of his guests. A popular poet had the post of honor. Opposite to him was a hot-pressed traveler in quarto with plates. A grave-looking antiquarian, who had produced several solid works, which were much quoted and little read, was treated with great respect, and seated next to a neat, dressy gentleman and black, who had written a thin, gentile, hot-pressed octavo on political economy that was getting into fashion. Several three volume to a decimal men of fair currency were placed about the center of the table, while the lower end was taken up with small poets, translators, and authors, who had not as yet risen into much notice. The conversation during dinner was by fits and starts, breaking out here and there in various parts of the table, in small flashes, and ending in smoke. The poet, who had the confidence of a man on good terms with the world, and independent of his bookseller, was very gay and brilliant, and said many clever things which set the partner next to him, in a roar, and delighted all the company. The other partner, however, maintained his sedateness, and kept carving on, with the air of a thorough man of business, intent upon the occupation of the moment. His gravity was explained to me by my friend Buckthorn. He informed me that the concerns of the house were admirably distributed among the partners. Thus, for instance, said he, the grave gentleman is the carving partner who attends to the joints, and the other is the laughing partner who attends to the jokes. The general conversation was chiefly carried on at the upper end of the table, as the authors there seemed to possess the greatest courage of the tongue. As to the crew at the lower end, if they did not make much figure in talking, they did in eating. Never was there any more determined, inveterate, thoroughly sustained attack on the trencher than by the failings of masticators. When the cloth was removed, and the wine began to circulate, they grew very merry in jocos among themselves. Their jokes, however, if by chance any of them had reached the upper end of the table, seldom produced much effect. Even the laughing partner did not seem to think it necessary to honor them with a smile, which my neighbor Buckthorn accounted for by informing me that there was a certain degree of popularity to be obtained before a bookseller could afford to laugh at an author's jokes. Among this crew of questionable gentlemen, thus seated below the salt, my eyes singled out one in particular. He was rather shabbily dressed, though he had evidently made the most of a rusty black coat, and wore his shirt-frill plaited and puffed out voluminously at the bosom. His face was dusky but florid, perhaps a little too florid, particularly about the nose, though the rosy hue gave the greater luster to a twinkling black eye. He had a little the look of a boon companion with that dash of the poor devil in it, which gives an expressly mellow tone to a man's humor. I had seldom seen a face of richer promise, but never was promised so ill-kept. He said nothing, ate and drank with the keen appetite of a gazetteer, scarcely stopped to laugh, even at the good jokes from the upper end of the table. I inquired who he was. Buckthorn looked at him attentively. "'Gad,' said he, I have seen that face before, but where I cannot recollect it. He could not be an author of any note. I suppose some writer of sermons or grinder of foreign travels. After dinner we retired to another room to take tea and coffee, where we were reinforced by a cloud of inferior guests, authors of small volumes and boards and pamphlets stitched in blue paper. He said not as yet arrived to the importance of dinner invitation, but were invited occasionally to pass the evening in a friendly way. They were very respectful to the partners, and indeed seemed to stand a little in awe of them. But they paid very devoted court to the lady of the house, and were extravagantly fond of the children. They looked round for the poor devil author in the rusty black coat, and magnificent frill. But he had disappeared immediately after leaving the table, having a dread no doubt of the glaring light of a drawing room. Funding nothing farther to interest my attention, I took my departure as soon as coffee had been served, leaving the port and the thin, genteel, hot-pressed octavo gentleman, masters of the field. End of Chapter 9 Recording by Greg Giordano, Newport Ritchie, Florida