I did not reflect; the hour struck; I seized my lamp, and rushing out was already close to the apartment of Doni, when wavering on the wick the flame suddenly sunk and expired. Yet nothing around was dark, it seemed as if I was surrounded by a mist formed by a dazzling light, too dazzling to allow me to view the objects round. I was a moment startled, but undismayed I strove to rush forward, my feet were bound to the floor. I strove but in vain to move. Gradually the light cleared, and gradually the features of that face, which I had so often gazed upon in my imagination, my mother’s, appeared distinctly before me. Her form was majestic, but in her eye there was a softness, which was not even destroyed by the severity of her feeling. ‘Ernestus,’ were her words, ‘Heaven has decreed at my prayer, that this crime shall be spared to you, you shall not act ungratefully.’ – She seemed to vanish with an expression of sorrow upon her face, as if she were not allowed to continue, and felt the horror that burst upon me in consequence of the ignorance in which I was left. My senses forsook me, and the dawn of day had already pierced the thick clouds before I recovered.
I did not return to my room, I went into the open air, my thoughts were hurried; baffled, I was not subdued; jealousy still was not banished, I did not rest upon my mother’s apparition, so strongly had the idea of Louisa’s infidelity taken hold of me. While walking amidst the intricate windings of a public garden, I heard voices near me. One was Count Wilhelm, I heard him boasting of the favours of some lady, whom another thought loved him, and he suddenly presented himself before me; I grossly insulted him. He took a pleasure in torturing me with his pretended concern at my mistress’s kindness to another. I struck him, we fought and he fell severely wounded. I stood by him and he was amply revenged. He told me that he had seen me entering the preceding evening, that being at that moment engaged in speaking about me, and Louisa having expressed her wish that I might be received into the Austrian service, he was offering his interest to forward my views, and that knowing how easily I was irritated, he had purposely taken her hand. He advised me to fly, I was obliged to do so for I was no longer safe where I was.
Louisa was then innocent. I cursed that fate which seemed to hang about me, always shielding me from death. I had fought in battle, but never yet had received the slightest wound: I had escaped from prison while the axe was falling. My rashness seemed to be incapable of hurting me; for there was a shield around me, that snatched me from peril. I was preserved from worse than death. Even this last act could not divide me from Louisa. She loved me indeed. Alarmed at seeing my antagonist brought in wounded, she did not shriek; she did not give herself up to loud and weak lamentations; but conscious, that probably my life depended upon the event of his wound, she sacrificed herself entirely to the care of the invalid. With unremitting attention she watched by his bedside. But when he was declared free from danger, then the cold hand of strengthened disease made itself felt. She was obliged again to return to her sick chamber. But first she begged her father to inform me of the favourable result. I returned. Doni met me on the stairs, – embraced me; but no joy was visible on his face. He announced to me the dangerous state in which Louisa lay, but did not reproach me; she had forbidden it. I was introduced into her room. Consumption was ruining her system; she was faint and weak; her continued cough and the marked colour on her cheek, but too well denoted the power it had acquired. I could not even ask her how she felt; but the tears fell down my cheek on the moist hand that held mine. She allowed me to stay with her. Talked to me of that power, whose pleasure it was to strengthen the weak and console the wretched, she said that he had soothed the agony of death’s visible approach, and until she saw me, that she had found relief in the thought of the short time we should be separated. But now she saw my grief, she was sorry I should be left alone, even for those few moments, without a being, to whom I was attached; that she again wished for life, if amidst all its miseries she could but hope for the power of consoling me through these inflictions. In fine, she did not speak of herself, but of me – of the wretch who had gradually broken the weak threads which bound her pure soul to life. Count Wilhelm perfectly recovered, left us. I had seen him, and as the only atonement in my power, had acknowledged my folly, and had begged he would pardon it, though it had been so severely felt by him. He returned a vague answer, and I saw him no more.
Doni’s interest was great; his wealth insured him friends, active in bringing back to their neighbourhood one whose riches fell in beneficent showers upon all. By their influence, he soon obtained a pardon for my resistance to the civil authorities in behalf of Olivieri, and I was granted permission to return to any part of the French territory. As the cold Alpine air seemed to hasten the rapid steps of his daughter’s decline, he determined upon having her conveyed again to the borders of the Lago Maggiore, which had seemed last year to have possessed such renovating powers. We departed, and soon found ourselves fixed in our abode. Nature wore the same aspect as the year before. Palanza, with its white walls and glittering columns shone as brilliantly in the sun’s ray; the smile of Heaven seemed to play upon the fairy islets of the Boromei, and the rich woods of Belgirato reflected in the blue surface of the water, seemed to put the beauty of this in competition with the sublimity of the wild rocks of the upper part of this long lake. But Louisa’s health had faded. She could hardly hope, if the disease continued its hasty steps to see these scenes again. But still that fairy enchanter, hope, acted upon me, and as each day she gained some slight addition to her strength, I pictured to myself years of happiness united with her I had long so ardently loved. She would not undeceive me, but left me the illusion. She was again able to enjoy the freshness of the air, and to walk out, amidst the varying scenery around. I supported her, and felt the light pressure of her feeble form resting upon my arm. She would stop, and draw some reflections on the bounty of God, even while in pain, from the various pictures before her; always attempting to turn my mind towards those thoughts, which she well knew could alone give me consolation, and a resting place in this vale of miseries. But still she seemed to recover strength. I entreated her to hope, and not to give way to such desponding thoughts. Her father, who was deceived as well as myself, begged of her to console herself; talked to her when alone of me, and spoke of his hopes of seeing us united, of her forming the only prop to his old age, and that I, how could he say it? was alone worthy in his estimation of receiving from a father’s hand so great a treasure.
Unwilling to grieve her father, she yielded to my importunities, promised to be mine, if upon a certain day her acquired strength had not given signs of decay. You may imagine with what anxiety, with what hopes I watched each intervening moment. Every cold breeze made me shudder; every cloud that veiled the sun’s ray caused me pain. I counted her breathings: whenever she moved, watched the firmness of her step. The day arrived. She was not weaker, but had seemed to find renewed energy in the thought of being mine. She was mine. I cannot paint to you the delirious state of mind, in which the next months passed over my head. I had a right to protect. I was something to that being; but I will not rest upon these feverish moments, you may imagine them; Louisa was mine – Louisa mine! But Heaven had not smiled upon our union – no, no. It was but the anger of a God veiled under the brightest hues. Louisa was my, – but I must relate the whole. Her health, as the winter approached declined again, and we returned to Milan. We lived with her father.
To engage my wife’s attention, I resolved upon fitting up a part of the palace anew for our private use. Every thing was ordered, when it occurred to her that the best ornament we could add would be the portrait of her father. I had recovered from my sister our mother’s locket, and showing it to Louisa, we determined upon having it copied and hung opposite the Count’s. To give Doni, as we thought an agreeable surprise, we determined upon having them privately executed, and placed in their situation without his cognisance. I sought for a painter, and spent whole mornings with him at his eazel, directing him how to paint my mother. I described to him
, as well as I could, her appearance to me at Inspruck, and pretending that I had seen her in a dream, I insisted upon his representing her in such a situation. He executed it, and by the magic effect of his pencil, excited a most extraordinary impression of awe in my breast, whenever I turned my eyes upon the picture. She seemed starting from the canvass; the outline of her figure was lost in the blaze of light, and her face, meek amidst splendour, severe, though with features naturally mild, seemed speaking those words I had heard. I took Louisa to see it; she felt the same awe as myself, though she could not assign a reason for it, but she continued gazing, till I perceived her eyes wet with tears.
The pictures were privately introduced into the house. We had succeeded in keeping them secret from Doni. In a few days was Louisa’s birth-day, we resolved therefore to make him our guest upon that occasion in our new apartment. We invited several of our most intimate friends. Every thing passed in gaiety. At last, all the company were gone, and we remained alone. We then, taking him each by one hand, led him into what we intended should be our private sitting room, telling him he should then see our best friends, the one in Heaven, the other on earth. The door was opened; directly before him was his own portrait; he seemed surprised and pleased; he turned round; I had hardly announced to him that the one he then saw was my mother’s, when he fell. Alarmed we raised him. ‘Your mother! did you say, your mother?’ He threw himself upon the floor, and called upon God to free him from the consciousness of horror like to his. We knelt by him close together; he saw us, raised his aged hands, and with a fluttering voice bade us, if we dreaded Heaven’s most dreadful curse, to separate. But again he fell to the ground, crying, ‘It is too late, too late, the crime is consummated.’ We raised him, he turned hastily away, for he was opposite the portrait, and besought us to take him thence. We led him to his chamber; he motioned us to leave him.
We retired in silence, we knew not what to understand; was it merely the greater effect of that portrait’s power which had been exerted over us. We could not hope it, we were lost in conjectures. Louisa’s health was so much broken that I was alarmed for the effects it might have upon her, and, therefore, strove to turn her mind from the subject; but in vain. She did not sleep the whole night, the anxiety concerning her father would not allow her to seek forgetfulness even for a moment. The effect may be imagined upon so weak a constitution. Her father refused to see us for several days, and each day I saw the mind acting upon my wife’s health with alarming rapidity. When this reached the ears of her father, he could no longer resist our importunities, he saw us; but the sight of his haggard and wild countenance did not restore Louisa. He had evidently been engaged in writing. We pressed him to explain his conduct. He replied, I knew not what I wished to learn. ‘It will blast you, as it has done your friend. You must learn it, but it shall be when I am in the grave, and before him who has thus punished my crime; then, then, I may intercede for you, if I myself am sufficiently purified by suffering. He may hear a father’s, though it be a criminal’s, prayer.’ His words seemed almost incoherent, he at times called me son, but then with hurried impatience he corrected himself; he asked me whence I got that portrait, I put the locket into his hands. ‘’Twas mine, I gave it,’ he hurried, pressed it to his breast, and bade us leave him. We did; he saw us daily, but in silence; he seemed absorbed in one thought, and to that he could not give utterance. He took little, too little, nourishment; but always occupied in writing; he seemed but to find strength for that; when we saw him, he was hardly capable of motion. His task was at last finished. We had been with him as usual, when we were suddenly recalled. He was dying; he bade us kneel down by his side, he blessed us. He took the papers from his table, and putting them into my hands, he bade me read them when he was in the grave, and know the horrors that awaited me; he commanded us to trust in God’s mercy, and he sunk, blessing us, upon his couch, breathed no more.
I bore my Louisa from this scene, she was from this moment confined to her bed. I saw the Count laid in the vault of his ancestors, and then returned to my wife’s chamber, whence I never issued till I had no longer a wife. It was evident that all art was unavailing. It was the undermining of a constitution, not by a common bodily disease, but by the griefs of a heart that had never lately found a moment’s respite from the most bitter inflictions. Yet, even at this moment, she seemed to forget herself, in her attempts to console me. She alone broke the silence around; I sat in mute despair; I saw Louisa before me, and I was to be left isolated, scathed by divine anger, without consolation. She held my hand, spoke to me of another world; for a moment her words would even subdue my grief, and let me feel as if that hope were enough. At last, seeing the silent sorrow that was preying confined within my breast, she sought to rouse me, bade me read those papers; I did in a luckless moment; only hinted at the horrible mystery unfolded there, and saw the last convulsive throe I was destined to witness in any bound to me by love. I cannot tell you more; read that damning tale, and then you may know what I dare, nay, dare not rest upon. My history is quickly ended. I was dragged from the now lifeless Louisa; but I stole from my guards in the night, gained an entrance into the room, where death showed, as if boasting his beauteous victim, dressed in pomp. The wax tapers seemed to burn dimly, as if in unison with the solemn scene; the black walls, the felted ground, the corpse stretched out, arrayed in white, the stillness visible upon that beauteous face, stilled even the tumult in my breast. She did not seem dead but asleep, I had held her in my arms, upon my breast, looking as she then looked, I gazed upon her for moments, it seemed as if I believed the still appearance wronged my senses. I was about to press her to my heart, my lips were approaching hers, but I started; there were two flies already revelling on those lips, and she could not chase them. I hurried away, I could not remain any longer there. I followed her bier also, and I saw my dearest, my last bond to this earth deposited there, where peace seemed to invite me too. Religion, Louisa’s words, however, had not lost all influence, I resisted that will, which would have led me to immolate myself a victim to the manes of those my love had slain. The hopes of a futurity, of Louisa in Heaven, upheld me.
I retired first to Beatenberg, there in the former house of Berchtold, I spent some time: it was too near the first scenes of memory. I left them and came hither; here, amidst these rocks, bound to me by no memory of the past, I spend the few hours allotted me by Heaven, in penance; here each day, my prayer is offered up, that in mercy I might be taken to Louisa. My life has been a life of anguish, of vice, of crime; but still amidst these there have been moments, there has been a being, which, if life could be renewed, would cause me to dare all again, once more to go through those few moments. Often in my dreams I see that form, but now, if when in this mortal life her beauty could not be described, how can I now, that her form, her face, are decked with the smile of him, who glories in the glory of his children. When she now appears in my dreams, there is no longer that hideous chasm opening between us; she is always decked as if for another bridal day, and I awake confident in that day’s approach without guilt.
But leave me, depart to-morrow upon your intended journey, if that you stay, who knows but the curse which has attended me through life may yet be acting, and may fall upon you as well as all others whom I have loved. These papers will explain to you what I have withheld, the life of Doni. If that you return this way, you may find me dead. Drop not a tear over my grave, I shall be with Louisa. Farewell, but depart knowing that there exists a consolation, which man cannot take from you, which misfortune cannot destroy, the belief in a future state, in the mercy of a redeeming God. It is there I find refuge.
The Life of Count Filiberto Doni
The family to which I belong is one of the most noble in Lombardy; but I, being the son of the younger branch, did not enjoy many of those advantages which belong to high rank. I was sent at a very early age to a college of Jesuits, and soon distinguished myself so much, that all the allurements the society was in the habit of holding
out to young men of promise, were employed to attach me to this community. I had, however, been educated amongst the mountains; and having been nursed by an old retainer of the family, I had conceived so high an idea of the importance and consequence attached to nobility, that I could not resolve upon putting on a dress, which bound me to forego all those advantages and pleasures, the early associations excited by my nurse, had taught me to believe, belonged to the entry of a nobleman into that very world, my venerable master endeavoured, in vain, to persuade me, was every thing horrible. In the mountains, a son of even the lateral descendants from the Lord, is always looked up to with so much respect and veneration by the poor inhabitants of these districts, that it is no wonder if I was deceived. When the religious began to flatter and distinguish me above my companions, as I was not conscious of any exertion in the acquisition of that mental superiority about which they talked, I attributed their attentions to the respect they felt for one of such exalted rank, as I imagined myself born to, having been left also for the whole of the time with the men, without having paid a single visit to my family, the distant memory of what I had seen at home, appeared to me in contrast with the plain life of my superiors, as something magnificent and passing comparison. My parents, hearing of the talents of their son, were anxious for his entry into an order, whose influence they well knew could be profitable in the greatest degree, not only to the individual, but to the whole of his family. When, therefore, they found that their son was determined not to bind himself by any bond which should hinder him from enjoying, what his imagination had pictured; they thought the best plan in such a case was to allow me to view nearer, that misery which attends nobility devoid of riches. I was accordingly sent for home.
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