Percy Bysshe Shelley - Delphi Poets Series

by Percy Bysshe Shelley

  CHAPTER XVII.

  Si fractus illabatur orbis.

  Impavidum ferient ruinæ

  — Horace.

  At last the day arrived, when, exposed to a public trial, Matilda was conducted to the tribunal of il consiglio di dieci.

  The inquisitors were not, as before, at a table in the middle of the apartment; but a sort of throne was raised at one end, on which a stern-looking man, whom she had never seen before, sat: a great number of Venetians were assembled, and lined all sides of the apartment.

  Many, in black vestments, were arranged behind the superior’s throne; among whom Matilda recognised those who had before examined her.

  Conducted by two officials, with a faltering step, a pallid cheek, and downcast eye, Matilda advanced to that part of the chamber where sat the superior.

  The dishevelled ringlets of her hair floated unconfined over her shoulders: her symmetrical and elegant form was enveloped in a thin white robe.

  The expression of her sparkling eyes was downcast and humble; yet, seemingly unmoved by the scene before her, she remained in silence at the tribunal.

  The curiosity and pity of every one, as they gazed on the loveliness of the beautiful culprit, was strongly excited.

  “Who is she? who is she?” ran in inquiring whispers round the apartment. — No one could tell.

  Again deep silence reigned — not a whisper interrupted the appalling calm.

  At last the superior, in a sternly solemn voice, said —

  “Matilda Contessa di Laurentini, you are here arraigned on the murder of La Marchesa di Strobazzo: canst thou deny it? canst thou prove to the contrary? My ears are open to conviction. Does no one speak for the accused?”

  He ceased: uninterrupted silence reigned. Again he was about — again, with a look of detestation and horror, he had fixed his penetrating eye upon the trembling Matilda, and had unclosed his mouth to utter the fatal sentence, when his attention was arrested by a man who rushed from the crowd, and exclaimed, in a hurried tone —

  “La Contessa di Laurentini is innocent.” “Who are you, who dare assert that?” exclaimed the superior, with an air of doubt.

  “I am,” answered he, “Ferdinand Zeilnitz, a German, the servant of La Contessa di Laurentini, and I dare assert that she is innocent.”

  “Your proof,” exclaimed the superior, with a severe frown.

  “It was late,” answered Ferdinand, “when I entered the apartment, and then I beheld two bleeding bodies, and La Contessa di Laurentini, who lay bereft of sense on the sofa.”

  “Stop!” exclaimed the superior.

  Ferdinand obeyed.

  The superior whispered to one in black vestments, and soon four officials entered, bearing on their shoulders an open coffin.

  The superior pointed to the ground: the officials deposited their burden, and produced, to the terror-struck eyes of the gazing multitude, Julia, the lovely Julia, covered with innumerable and ghastly gashes.

  All present uttered a cry of terror — all started, shocked and amazed, from the horrible sight; yet some, recovering themselves, gazed at the celestial loveliness of the poor victim to revenge, which, unsubdued by death, still shone from her placid features.

  A deep-drawn sigh heaved Matilda’s bosom; tears, spite of all her firmness, rushed into her eyes; and she had nearly fainted with dizzy horror; but, overcoming it, and collecting all her fortitude, she advanced towards the corse of her rival, and, in the numerous wounds which covered it, saw the fiat of her future destiny.

  She still gazed on it — a deep silence reigned — not one of the spectators, so interested were they, uttered a single word — not a whisper was heard through the spacious apartment.

  “Stand off! guilt-stained, relentless woman,” at last exclaimed the superior fiercely: “is it not enough that you have persecuted, through life, the wretched female who lies before you — murdered by you? Cease, therefore, to gaze on her with looks as if your vengeance was yet insatiated. But retire, wretch: officials, take her into your custody; meanwhile, bring the other prisoner.”

  Two officials rushed forward, and led Matilda to some distance from the tribunal; four others entered, leading a man of towering height and majestic figure. The heavy chains with which his legs were bound, rattled as he advanced.

  Matilda raised her eyes — stood before her.

  She rushed forwards — the officials stood unmoved.

  “Oh, !” she exclaimed—”dreadful, wicked has been the tenour of our life; base, ignominious, will be its termination: unless we repent, fierce, horrible, may be the eternal torments which will rack us, ere four and twenty hours are elapsed. Repent then, Zastrozzi; repent! and as you have been my companion in apostasy to virtue, follow me likewise in dereliction of stubborn and determined wickedness.”

  This was pronounced in a low and faltering voice.

  “Matilda,” replied , whilst a smile of contemptuous atheism played over his features—”Matilda, fear not: fate wills us to die: and I intend to meet death, to encounter annihilation, with tranquillity. Am I not convinced of the non-existence of a Deity? am I not convinced that death will but render this soul more free, more unfettered? Why need I then shudder at death? why need any one, whose mind has risen above the shackles of prejudice, the errors of a false and injurious superstition.”

  Here the superior interposed, and declared he could allow private conversation no longer.

  Quitting Matilda, therefore, , unappalled by the awful scene before him, unshaken by the near approach of agonising death, which he now fully believed he was about to suffer, advanced towards the superior’s throne.

  Every one gazed on the lofty stature of , and admired his dignified mein and dauntless composure, even more than they had the beauty of Matilda.

  Every one gazed in silence, and expected that some extraordinary charge would be brought against him.

  The name of , pronounced by the superior, had already broken the silence, when the culprit, gazing disdainfully on his judge, told him to be silent, for he would spare him much needless trouble.

  “I am a murderer,” exclaimed ; “I deny it not: I buried my dagger in the heart of him who injured me; but the motives which led me to be an assassin were at once excellent and meritorious; for I swore, at a loved mother’s death-bed, to revenge her betrayer’s falsehood.

  “Think you, that whilst I perpetrated the deed I feared the punishment? or whilst I revenged a parent’s cause, that the futile torments which I am doomed to suffer here, had any weight in my determination? No — no. If the vile deceiver, who brought my spotless mother to a tomb of misery, fell beneath the dagger of one who swore to revenge her — if I sent him to another world, who destroyed the peace of one I loved more than myself in this, am I to be blamed?”

  ceased, and, with an expression of scornful triumph, folded his arms.

  “Go on!” exclaimed the superior.

  “Go on! go on!” echoed from every part of the immense apartment.

  He looked around him. His manner awed the tumultuous multitude; and, in uninterrupted silence, the spectators gazed upon the unappalled , who, towering as a demi-god, stood in the midst.

  “Am I then called upon,” said he, “to disclose things which bring painful remembrances to my mind? Ah! how painful! But no matter; you shall know the name of him who fell beneath this arm: you shall know him, whose memory, even now, I detest more than I can express. I care not who knows my actions, convinced as I am, and convinced to all eternity as I shall be, of their rectitude. — Know, then, that Olivia was my mother; a woman in whom every virtue, every amiable and excellent quality, I firmly believe to have been centred.

  “The father of him who by my arts committed suicide but six days ago in La Contessa di Laurentini’s mansion, took advantage of a moment of weakness, and disgraced her who bore me. He swore with the most sacred oaths to marry her — but he was false.

  “My mother soon brought me into the world — the seducer married another; and
when the destitute Olivia begged a pittance to keep her from starving, her proud betrayer spurned her from his door, and tauntingly bade her exercise her profession. — The crime I committed with thee, perjured one! exclaimed my mother as she left his door, shall be my last! — and, by heavens! she acted nobly. A victim to falsehood, she sank early to the tomb, and, ere her thirtieth year, she died — her spotless soul fled to eternal happiness. — Never shall I forget, though but fourteen when she died — never shall I forget her last commands. — My son, said she, my Pietrino, revenge my wrongs — revenge them on the perjured Verezzi — revenge them on his progeny for ever.

  “And, by heaven! I think I have revenged them. Ere I was twenty-four, the false villain, though surrounded by seemingly impenetrable grandeur; though forgetful of the offence to punish which this arm was nerved, sank beneath my dagger. But I destroyed his body alone,” added , with a terrible look of insatiated vengeance: “time has taught me better: his son’s soul is hell-doomed to all eternity: he destroyed himself; but my machinations, though unseen, effected his destruction.

  “Matilda di Laurentini! Hah! why do you shudder?. When, with repeated stabs, you destroyed her who now lies lifeless before you in her coffin, did you not reflect upon what must be your fate? You have enjoyed him whom you adored — you have even been married to him — and, for the space of more than a month, have tasted unutterable joys, and yet you are unwilling to pay the price of your happiness — by heavens I am not!” added he, bursting into a wild laugh.—”Ah! poor fool, Matilda, did you think it was from friendship I instructed you how to gain Verezzi? — No, no — it was revenge which induced me to enter into your schemes with zeal; which induced me to lead her, whose lifeless form lies yonder, to your house, foreseeing the effect it would have upon the strong passions of your husband.

  “And now,” added , “I have been candid with you. Judge, pass your sentence — but I know my doom; and, instead of horror, experience some degree of satisfaction at the arrival of death, since all I have to do on earth is completed.”

  ceased; and, unappalled, fixed his expressive gaze upon the superior.

  Surprised at ‘s firmness, and shocked at the crimes of which he had made so unequivocal an avowal, the superior turned away in horror.

  Still stood unmoved, and fearlessly awaited the fiat of his destiny.

  The superior whispered to one in black vestments. Four officials rushed in, and placed on the rack.

  Even whilst writhing under the agony of almost insupportable torture his nerves were stretched, ‘s firmness failed him not; but, upon his soul-illumined countenance, played a smile of most disdainful scorn; and with a wild convulsive laugh of exulting revenge — he died.

  THE END

  ST IRVYNE; OR, THE ROSICRUCIAN

  This gothic novel was written in 1810 and anonymously published by John Joseph Stockdale in 1811, who advertised it as being written “by a Gentleman of the University of Oxford”. The narrative introduces Wolfstein, a solitary wanderer in the Swiss Alps, who encounters Ginotti, an alchemist of the Rose Cross Order seeking to impart the secret of immortality.

  Originally intended to be written in three volumes, Shelley ended the novel abruptly, deciding not to develop or integrate the two strands of the narrative, resulting with a much shorter work. Contemporary critics attacked the novel, with the conservative British periodical The Anti-Jacobin Review and Magazine writing in a January 1812 review, “the writer, who can outrage nature and common sense in almost every page of his book.” The reviewer then sought to deter readers from “the perusal of unprofitable and vicious productions.”

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER. I.

  CHAPTER. II.

  CHAPTER. III.

  CHAPTER. IV.

  CHAPTER. VII.

  CHAPTER. VIII.

  CHAPTER. X.

  CHAPTER. XI.

  CHAPTER. XII.

  CONCLUSION.

  CHAPTER. I.

  Red thunder-clouds, borne on the wings of the midnight whirlwind, floated, at fits, athwart the crimson-coloured orbit of the moon; the rising fierceness of the blast sighed through the stunted shrubs, which, bending before its violence, inclined towards the rocks whereon they grew: over the blackened expanse of heaven, at intervals, was spread the blue lightning’s flash; it played upon the granite heights, and, with momentary brilliancy, disclosed the terrific scenery of the Alps, whose gigantic and mishapen summits, reddened by the transitory moon-beam, were crossed by black fleeting fragments of the tempest-clouds. The rain, in big drops, began to descend, and the thunder-peals, with louder and more deafening crash, to shake the zenith, till the long-protracted war, echoing from cavern to cavern, died, in indistinct murmurs, amidst the far-extended chain of mountains. In this scene, then, at this horrible and tempestuous hour, without one existent earthy being whom he might claim as friend, without one resource to which he might fly as an asylum from the horrors of neglect and poverty, stood Wolfstein; — he gazed upon the conflicting elements; his youthful figure reclined against a jutting granite rock; he cursed his wayward destiny, and implored the Almighty of Heaven to permit the thunderbolt, with crash terrific and exterminating, to descend upon his head, that a being useless to himself and to society might no longer, by his existence, mock Him whone’er made aught in vain. “And what so horrible crimes have I committed,” exclaimed Wolfstein, driven to impiety by desperation, “what crimes which merit punishment like this? What, what is death? — Ah, dissolution! thy pang is blunted by the hard hand of long-protracted suffering — suffering unspeakable, indescribable!” As thus he spoke, a more terrific paroxysm of excessive despair revelled through every vein; his brain swam around in wild confusion, and, rendered delirious by excess of misery, he started from his flinty seat, and swiftly hastened towards the precipice, which yawned widely beneath his feet. “For what then should I longer drag on the galling chain of existence?” cried Wolfstein; and his impious expression was borne onwards by the hot and sulphurous thunder-blast.

  The midnight meteors danced above the gulf upon which Wolfstein wistfully gazed. Palpable, impenetrable darkness seemed to hang upon it; impenetrable even by the flaming thunderbolt. “Into this then shall I plunge myself?” soliloquized the wretched outcast, “and by one rash act endanger, perhaps, eternal happiness; — deliver myself up, perhaps, to the anticipation and experience of never-ending torments? Art thou the God then, the Creator of the universe, whom canting monks call the God of mercy and forgiveness, and sufferest thou thy creatures to become the victims of tortures such as fate has inflicted on me? — Oh! God, take my soul; why should I longer live?” Thus having spoken, he sank on the rocky bosom of the mountains. Yet, unheeding the exclamations of the maddened Wolfstein, fiercer raged the tempest. The battling elements, in wild confusion, seemed to threaten nature’s dissolution; the ferocious thunderbolt, with impetuous violence, danced upon the mountains, and, collecting more terrific strength, severed gigantic rocks from their else eternal basements; the masses, with sound more frightful than the bursting thunder-peal, dashed towards the valley below. Horror and desolation marked their track. The mountain-rills, swoln by the waters of the sky, dashed with direr impetuosity from the Alpine summits; their foaming waters were hidden in the darkness of midnight, or only became visible when the momentary scintillations of the lightning rested on their whitened waves. Fiercer still than nature’s wildest uproar were the feelings of Wolfstein’s bosom; his frame, at last, conquered by the conflicting passions of his soul, no longer was adequate to sustain the unequal contest, but sank to the earth. His brain swam wildly, and he lay entranced in total insensibility.

  What torches are those that dispel the distant darkness of midnight, and gleam, like meteors, athwart the blackness of the tempest? They throw a wavering light over the thickness of the storm: they wind along the mountains: they pass the hollow vallies. Hark! the howling of the blast has ceased, — the thunderbolts have dispersed, but yet reigns darkness. Distant sounds of song
are borne on the breeze: the sounds approach. A low bier holds the remains of one whose soul is floating in the regions of eternity: a black pall covers him. Monks support the lifeless clay: others precede, bearing torches, and chanting a requiem for the salvation of the departed one. They hasten towards the convent of the valley, there to deposit the lifeless limbs of one who has explored the frightful path of eternity before them. And now they had arrived where lay Wolfstein: “Alas!” said one of the monks, “there reclines a wretched traveller. He is dead; murdered, doubtlessly, by the fell bandits who infest these wild recesses.”

  They raised from the earth his form: yet his bosom throbbed with the tide of life: returning animation once more illumed his eye: he started on his feet, and wildly inquired why they had awakened him from that slumber which he had hoped to have been eternal. Unconnected were his expressions, strange and impetuous the fire darting from his restless eyeballs. At length, the monks succeeded in calming the desperate tumultuousness of his bosom, calming at least in some degree; for he accepted their proffered tenders of a lodging, and essayed to lull to sleep, for a while, the horrible idea of dereliction which pressed upon his loaded brain.

  While thus they stood, loud shouts rent the air, and, before Wolfstein and the monks could well collect their scattered faculties, they found that a troop of Alpine bandits had surrounded them. Trembling, from apprehension, the monks fled every way. None, however, could escape. “What! old greybeards,” cried one of the robbers, “do you suppose that we will permit you to evade us: you who feed upon the strength of the country, in idleness and luxury, and have compelled many of our noble fellows, who otherwise would have been ornaments to their country in peace, thunderbolts to their enemies in war, to seek precarious subsistence as Alpine bandits? If you wish for mercy, therefore, deliver unhesitatingly your joint riches.” The robbers then despoiled the monks of whatever they might adventitiously have taken with them, and, turning to Wolfstein, the apparent chieftain told him to yield his money likewise. Unappalled, Wolfstein advanced towards him. The chief held a torch; its red beams disclosed the expression of stern severity and unyielding loftiness which sate upon the brow of Wolfstein. “Bandit!” he answered fearlessly, “I have none, — no money — no hope — no friends; nor do I care for existence! Now judge if such a man be a fit victim for fear! No! I never trembled!”