To descend into the prison, which is below the level of the water, it is necessary to go down a narrow circular staircase. While descending it, we were stopped by that child upon whom I had rested my appeal to the jailor; to pass her we were obliged to go singly; when I came close to her, I felt something pressed into my hand, while at the same time she made a sign with her finger for silence. I put her present into my breast and followed her father, who was before me, while the others were at my back. I entered a long vault, its floor was the solid rock, and its high roof was supported by seven thick massy pillars. The waves of the lake dashed sullenly against the walls above my head, and the feeble light that pierced the high windows only showed me the damp black sides of this prison. There were the steps of a prisoner marked during a long imprisonment upon the very rock; I still heard the noise of bolts, but did not heed it, till I arrived at a narrow cell, partitioned off from the greater dungeon, which I had not perceived in the general obscurity. Into this narrow space I was forced to enter. It was not sufficiently long for me to lie down at full length, and the barred grating, which, far above my reach, was intended in mockery to represent a window, received no reflected light from the dark floor of Bonniva’s prison. I heard the doors fastened one after another.
Beneath the slowly sounding wave I was cut off from humanity; the monotonous dashing against the castle’s base alone broke the dread silence; it seemed like the loud note of the moments in nature’s last hour. My spirits fled, and I leant against the stones to which I was chained, with hands clasped, and my eyes painfully straining, as if they sought at least to see the real horrors of my dwelling. Fatigued by my long journey over the steep Jamanu, I sought to sit and sleep, but the damp floor for a long time kept my racking mind awake to all the torments of thought, while it hoped for a momentary oblivion of woe.
At last I sunk into repose, and it was not until late the next morning that I awoke, but I awoke refreshed; I had seen the constant attendant upon my dreams, and I soon lost myself in thought upon her various appearances. The waves above me seemed silenced to a calm, and the sun’s powerful meridian ray reflected upon the various sides of the greater vault, penetrated, though in a feeble glimmer, my solitary cell. Gradually stealing upon my ear, I heard a distant voice, which in melancholy notes seemed to sympathise with my sorrows. I listened; it approached; the measured strokes of an oar interrupted the heavenly strain; suddenly breaking into livelier notes it sung of hope; the voice was, they were Italian words, it was my vision’s voice. It gradually sunk away into indistinct sounds. I seemed another being, hope breathed upon my heart, and Louisa wore the semblance of that enchanter; oh that I had died, that she had left me to myself to die! it was not the will of Heaven. Again I heard the splashing sound of the oar, and again that voice sounded on my ear; it was no longer the thrilling notes of an air, but in slow recitative it bade me hope, it told me that a boat should be stationed at two or three stone throws’ distance from the castle, ready at all times to receive me if I could manage to get out, and that in the mean time endeavours were making at Berne, to gain a repeal of the sentence passed upon me. Again the song of hope sounded in my cell, losing itself gradually in the distance, it at last left me with nothing human within hearing.
I now remembered the child’s present; feeling in my breast, it proved to be a file and a knife; I instantly began to work at the wall, dividing me from the great dungeon; while thus busily employed I heard the bolts of the vault withdrawn; my jailor entered, he spoke not, but threw me my pittance of bread, and laid down my pitcher of water. Hardly was he gone, when I resumed my work, the dampness of my cell aided me. The mortar was soft, and the wall built of small stones; when therefore I had scraped the mortar away from the crevices, I did not find any difficulty in forcing them out. One by one I tore away many, and I had already almost pierced the wall, when, fearful of penetrating entirely through, lest the jailor might next day detect my attempt, I managed to replace most of the rubbish in its situation, and to push the rest into a corner. I now began with my file to cut the chain that surrounded my waist. The jailor came next morning, and told me, that at the dawn of the ensuing day I was to be conveyed to Berne. This gave me additional strength, the hopes of liberty, of seeing Louisa, spurred me on, and in a few moments I was free from my chains. With what impatience I waited for the night. It came; I forced a passage through the wall, and I found myself in the great vault without a manacle. The moon’s ray seemed with a smile to seek the ground on which I trod, for its cold beams pierced the grated apertures above, and illumined some dreary spots. I was not yet free, the window was high above my reach; but I did not despair, taking the whole length of the dungeon to give me power, I leapt, and caught with my hands at one of the bars. I raised myself, and resting my knee upon the shelving sill, I immediately began to employ my file, and the rusty bars soon gave way to my arm.
I paused a moment, the cool fresh air of the night, no longer poisoned by the noxious vapours of the subterranean dungeon, played amidst my hair; I seemed to inhale life. The moon’s ray, decked with one glittering streak of light the whole breadth of the wide lake; it seemed the path of hope. Not far distant was a barge; in three or four hours my murderers would be at my prison door. The ground was covered with snow even to the water’s edge; I leapt into the lake, and being a good swimmer I reached the boat numbed by the cold, I had hardly the strength to raise myself into it. There was no one to be found; there were some coarse provisions, a peasant’s habit, and a letter; it had no direction, ‘If safe,’ it said, ‘proceed to Milan, you will hear of us there. Your sister is well, Berchtold ill, but do not go to him, he knows we are attempting to save you, and he shall immediately be informed of your escape. The daughter of Olivieri’s father.’ It was now that I learnt that Olivieri was the brother of Louisa Doni. It was now explained why he so attentively examined my scarf.
I could not resolve on leaving Switzerland without seeing Berchtold, there was a western breeze, I hoisted the latin sail, and in a few minutes I was free from immediate danger, and on my way towards Beatenberg. It was necessary that I should keep amongst the mountains, and I only dared approach the most solitary chalets. They were generally deserted, and it was with difficulty that I procured sufficient to support nature during the three days I was upon my way. Arriving at OEschi, I took a boat from the side of the lake, and crossing, was soon at the foot of the steep, on which stands Beatenberg. The stillness of the night was broken by the sound of voices chaunting, which, stealing down the mountain, sunk upon the wave. Alarmed I knew not why, I rushed up the path; before the church porch, around the great cross that stood upon the green sward, knelt Berchtold’s parishioners arrayed in white. Though the red glare of the pine torch fell upon their faces, it did not allow me to distinguish any one. Breathless I stood incapable of motion. The chaunt ended, the minister of peace arose, it was not Berchtold; ‘He’s dead,’ I cried, and rushed forward; alarmed, the peasants rose, they recognised me and were silent; my sister took my hand and bade me pray for him who had died. Incapable of any longer bearing the anxiety attendant upon my fate, I knew not what I did, I knelt, I heard the solemn chaunt sing Berchtold’s requiem, and could not join it. The earth closed over him, and the minister led me to my former home.
I was inconsolable, they talked to me of ensuring my safety; I was deaf to their remonstrances, and only listened to grief; my sister was left alone with me. She wept with me, and ere it was dawn, had persuaded me to depart. She told me that Louisa had been with her, had made her promise to join her, in case of Berchtold’s death, so that I need not be under any anxiety on her account. She informed me that Louisa had walked with her over my haunts, had inquired after every minutes’ circumstance about me. My sister said, she thought she loved me. I could listen to no more, embracing her, I issued forth, visited my mother’s and Berchtold’s grave, and soon lost sight of Beatenberg.
Louisa loved me! it was too true, if that love had fallen upon any one else it would have proved a blessing.
On me; you see my withered lineaments, my sunken eye, my feeble step, think you, a common curse could thus blast the bloom of life? Berchtold was but the first victim to my love. My love has left me, a scattered pine amidst this desolate scene, but first it has destroyed all who were bound to me, my love has proved, but I must preserve my strength, – I have horrors to relate, – going through the Simplon, then a road only passable by mules or on foot, I soon arrived at Milan.
I was in safety, the city was in possession of the Austrians. I had hardly rested at the inn, at which I took up my abode and was making inquiries, in hopes of discovering the Donis, when Olivieri entered. We flew into one another’s arms, he answered none of my inquiries, but leading me to his carriage, we arrived through the Corso at a palace close to the gates. We got out, I knew not whither he was leading me, the doors of the saloon were thrown open, and I found myself in the presence of his father, his sister. The old man advanced, and taking my hand, which hung by my side, he thanked me for having twice saved the life of his son. I knew not what to say; conscious I owed my life to Louisa’s interference, I could not find words to thank her. The father at last led me towards his daughter, and bade her attempt to thank me. Her eyes turned upon me, suffused with blushes she had some words upon her lips, when I forced myself to stop her. ‘Do not mock me, what do I owe to you? my life is nothing, when compared to that thirst of honour, you inspired in my breast.’ Again, she blushed and was silent. At that moment, another carriage arrived, it was my sister attended by two faithful domestics of my friend; locked in my arms, she was at last taken thence to be clasped in those of my preserver.
After taking some refreshment, the father led me into another room, he there told me that Berchtold’s last request was, that he should supply his place, and take my sister and myself to him, as his children. As he spoke, he showed me at the same time, the last lines which my foster-father had written a few moments before he died. They contained our history as far as he was acquainted with it; in them he bade me trust always in God, and recommended me to bow under that dispensation, which had made me an outcast on my native soil, and not to murmur at the will of him, who had deprived me of the feeble support a Swiss pastor could afford against the pressure of events, since he had raised me up a protector, so much more powerful in the father of him whose life I had saved. Doni took me by the hand, and perceiving the tear trembling in my eye, he begged of me to let him supply the place of Berchtold. He called me son; Louisa’s father could not call me so in vain, I fell upon his neck, but could not speak.
Part Second
You have visited our alpine scenes and have undoubtedly been witness to the approach of one of those dreadful visitations of angry nature, which sometimes occur in the pent-up valleys. The black speck gathers upon the mountain’s brow; amidst the silence and dead stillness of the air, it seems as if all were resting, in hopes of gaining strength to resist the desolating fury of the powers let loose against them. Only the lowing of the cattle, which, with its hollow lengthened sound, seems to give unheeded notice of the dread storm’s approach, echoes upon the air, awed by the very stillness. Yet the sun shines brilliantly on the scene, doubled in the unrippled surface of the lake that seems proudly to bear the beauteous image, as if it were conscious how soon that smiling scene would be changed. – So passed the years, in which day succeeded day in unperceived succession, in which I lived under the same roof, partook innocently of the same joys and sorrows as Louisa. There was yet a weight upon my heart I could not explain; my dreams always terminated unhappily, and sleep, that refuge common to all misery, was to me like the waking hours of others. Immediately after our arrival, my sister was visited with a threatening appeal from our mother, who bade her depart with me once more to our native wilds, and never return. We could not understand the decrees of fate, lulled by the peace and apparent happiness around us, we were unconscious of what was in future, – we remained, and I am what you see – a spectre amongst the living.
Encouraged by Louisa, I again returned to my studies. All the morning engaged in the library of my benefactor, I followed them under his direction, chiefly reading the modern poets and historians, with whom I had little acquaintance. Louisa would often come, and, sitting by my side, read the same passages, and discuss the merits of a particular image, often directing my taste, and pointing out many beauties I had not before perceived, even in my favourite authors. You see those volumes; they are those we read together; they now form my whole library, but you cannot know the pleasure there is contained in a single one of those pages. I read them, and every word again sounds upon my ear, as if she spoke it. I turn round and am undeceived, Louisa is not by my side, though her voice seems speaking as when we were innocent.
In the evening we assembled in the saloon of the palace. Doni was distinguished from his countrymen by a state of affluence, which was apparently boundless, but which was the more extraordinary in this respect, that it did not excite the envy of his neighbours. His riches indeed seemed less for his own use than for that of his friends. He was of a noble family, but being the offspring of a younger branch, he had been early inured to hardships. Disdaining the mean idle life he was obliged to lead, in subservience to the will of a proud relation, he had left Milan at an early age, and had travelled into the East. He never, however, spoke of his journey, and always seemed anxious to direct the conversation into another channel, whenever it turned upon subjects in any manner connected with it. He had returned rich, no one knew whence; but there were whisperings abroad, that he had not gained his riches by commerce; though no one could trace where his riches lay; yet as his gold was poured forth with so liberal a hand, his wealth was deemed almost infinite. He had been strikingly handsome, and was extremely intelligent; but grief had weighed down his energies, and sorrow had broken his faculties. After his return he had married. Beauty was the mere casket, the riches were within; his wife was described as having possessed a mind, that without laying aside all that appealing delicacy and weakness, which binds woman to man; had all those powers and accomplishments, which unfortunately in her sex have generally been the panders to vice; but which, with her, were the handmaids to virtue. Her presence was commanding, but her voice was persuasive; its tones struck the heart and produced those emotions, which all remember, none can express, the feeling, as if we had been always virtuous, and were worthy of listening to the voice of a being superior to ourselves. The poor followed her steps, not with their usual boisterous cry for charity, but in silence; they seemed to watch the glance of her eye, as if the sympathy which shone there, had made them even forget their ragged miseries. Louisa was her counterpart, when I heard any one describing what her mother had been, it seemed that I could read the whole upon her daughter’s face, and methought I could often perceive the speaker reading on the same page. Doni had loved her; nay more, had adored her, but she had married him by the persuasion of her parents, while her heart was engaged to another far away; he had returned, they saw one another, and fled together; Doni pursued them, fired at the carriage which was escaping and blood fell upon the road; – they did not stop. Doni then entirely lost all command of himself; he fell in the road, calling for mercy and relief from that curse, which had already begun to blast him. He had never recovered the shock; had retired from all those gaieties in which he had been once engaged, and devoted himself to the education of his children. For their sake he had, however, again entered into society, but in a very different style from his former magnificence. These are the circumstances which I heard of his history, from those friends with whom I spoke in the course of the two first years of my stay at Milan; besides this, I also found the reports of his supernatural powers to be believed and whenever I inquired concerning them, the speaker always looked round the room, before he ventured to speak, and would then only answer in whispers.
I have mentioned our evening assembly in the saloon of the palace; thither all distinguished by rank or science came – all visitors were alike welcome. There, no c
eremony, which is but the vain-pointing of selfishness to its sacrifices, incommoded those, who, invited by the society they found there, chose to take a chair in this circle. Louisa’s father always held the reins of conversation in his own hands, and instead of letting it fall upon the common place subjects of fashion, he turned the minds of his company to disquisitions that gave to each an opportunity of showing his information or judgement. At times, the existence and powers of the Deity were canvassed, – at times, the reality of beings intermediate between God and man; their qualities, and the facts related concerning them, came under consideration. Other evenings heard discussions upon the nature of virtue, whether it really were definite and felt, as is beauty, in every breast, or whether it were not merely an object of policy and self-convenience. The father and son generally took opposite sides, and under one or the other, each individual of the company enlisted himself, accordingly as it happened that he were either in a humour to be pleased with the general dispensation of providence throughout the day to himself, or was smarting under what he conceived to be an undeserved infliction of the evil spirit.
Olivieri made it a point to bewilder every one. He was a little older than myself; his head, though not perfect, had much beauty; a fine forehead, black hair, a dark, though small eye, united to a Grecian contour, formed, if not a pleasing, a striking physiognomy. I soon found that he had read much. His body also had been exercised; though not graceful, he was active, and hardly any excelled him in a certain quickness of adaptation, both of mind and body, to any thing required. His opinions were paradoxical and singular. In religion he outwardly professed Catholicism, and strongly opposed those scribbling philosophers, who by sarcasm, attempt to overturn the religion of ages, though at the same time he allowed the absurdity and falsehood of the prevailing doctrines. This did not appear to arise from a spirit of opposition, but, if the motives he gave were true, from a chain of thought that did honour to his heart, not head. He asserted that Catholicism was the only religion affording to the poor and to the sick of heart, a balm for their evils. Calvinism, deism and atheism, were by him called the professions of the northern nations, cold as their native rocks. Professions to which enthusiasm, and the feeling of a certain refuge, so heart-soothing in Catholicism, were unknown. He maintained that it was not for individuals, who had the advantage of education and imagination, to shelter them from the overwhelming force of mental miseries, and unlooked for misfortunes, to attempt under a real, though vain pretence of the love of truth, to deprive the poor and uneducated millions forming the mass of mankind, of the consolation always offered by this religion, which instead of shunning the poor, gladly seeks their miserable hovel, in the hope of administering present comfort and future hope. Indeed he was inconsistent in his principles. He had not mingled much in general life, but while at Padua, where he had been sent to study, he had sought the acquaintance of all. From the knowledge of man he had there acquired, whether it were that he had constantly met with mean and weak companions, or that conscious of his own bad qualities, he had thence estimated the value of man’s professions, he always seemed to view the human character in a darker hue than was warranted by truth, and to have formed his mind into a general contempt for mankind as a mass, and a determination, if ever an occasion offered, of rising at their expence, considering them but as tools to work with. His manners were at first always engaging, and rather pleasing, but this seemed irksome to him, and he gave way to an imperious, assuming air in conversation, which soon disgusted his friends. His ideas of a life after death seemed strangely childish, he did not believe in an immortality, yet he had so strong a love of fame, that there was no reputation he did not covet. He sometimes formed visions of a throne raised upon the blood of his countrymen spilt in civil war; at times, of the fame of a benefactor to debtors and galley slaves. He sought at the same time for the applause of the philosopher and the drunkard, the divine, and the libertine. Things, of which, even at the moment of action he was ashamed, were often done by him in the view of proving himself capable of excelling even in vice. It was hard to say, whether he owed a certain frankness and easiness of attachment, to his weakness, or to seeds sown in his breast by nature. But whether it were from his incapability of constancy acting up to his system, or to the overpowering force of nature, it was strange to hear him express himself a follower of a doctrine that has proved the leech of human blood, and at the same time refuse to tread upon a worm. The evil was, his riches induced the young to pander for him, the old to flatter him, on account of his specious talents and handsome appearance. He was a student, a gambler, and a libertine.
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