University of Virginia Library

SCENE THE FIRST.

An Apartment in the House of the Count.
Count Colville and Le Charier.
COUNT COLVILLE.
THIS evening I was interrupted, ere
The dire confession, which I hold myself
Pledged to impart to you, could pass my lips.
But let me hasten—since I am resolved
That so it shall be—by a solemn use
Of the present time, to frustrate any chance
Of outward circumstance, in time to come,
Of power to hinder that which I've decreed—
A dreadful secret—to impart to you!—
Your friend,—your Colville,—is a murderer!
[A long pause.
In youth I lov'd a lady, but of rank
Not equal to my own, and portionless.
Knowing 'twould be in vain to try to win
My father to consent; rich though he was,
Poor he esteemed himself, so long as there
Was opportunity t' increase his wealth.
The softening influence of connubial love,
No more remained to him, no mediatrix
Betwixt him, and his progeny, to draw
Down on them, through the intercession fond
Of a wife's love, paternal charities.
Ere I was ten years old my mother died.
Having impatiently a year endured
That hope deferred which maketh the heart sick,
I married privately. For twelve short months
My bliss seemed perfect; nor the less so seemed
From the restraint engendered by concealment;
Rather it seemed this gave to my stolen hours
Of wedded intercourse, augmented zest.
For when that intercourse was interrupted
By indispensable concerns, the joy
Anticipation brought me, scarce seemed less
Than that of actual possession.
Such a deep interest did the fervour give
Of my affection, that it seemed as life
Was one perpetual dream of happiness.—
At the expiration of a year, my wife
Became a mother: though apparently
The dangers of that season she surmounted;
Her health from that time failed; a rapid wearing
Attended with all symptoms of decay,—
Daily and visibly more and more encroached
Upon her strength. Though when a stream of joy
Was gushing from our hearts, th' allotted stipend
E'en of a bachelor, had well sufficed
For all our needs: yet from these heavier claims
On it, our child's birth, and my Lucy's sickness,
From being, at first, spent in expectancy,
We found it, in a little time, fall short
To our debts due discharge. Th' anxiety
I had, that, with all possible solaces
For her distemper, Lucy should be furnished,
Heavily taxed my means.—At last, to tell
My father of my marriage, I resolved.
He lived in the country: I in Paris. He
Had all society renounc'd. This left
No channel open by the means of which
Report could reach him of my marriage ties.
He was inexorable. Lucy dying,
He banished me for ever from his house.
Lucy grew worse and worse. I, from the day
That made us man and wife, from Lucy hid
My means ill suited to an exhibition
Adapted to our rank. Love blessed us both.
And little time, and less of inclination,
Had we to think of aught but love and bliss.
Still more tenaciously had I concealed,
When first my wife's distemper shewed itself,
The truth, in order in her weakened state,
Better to reconcile her generous nature
To meet indulgences. How could I now,
Emaciate, and enfeebled, as she was,
Risk such communication? When not only
She had become much more unfit to bear it
Than in the first stage of her malady,
But also, when, from being involved more deeply,
Of far more threatening, and appalling import,
The story now must be?—Can I proceed?
Driven by excess of anguish and despair,
I joined a desperate band who met at night
Not far from Paris: and the troublous times
Favour'd such freebooters' impunity.—
O'er this part of my narrative, let me
Pass lightly! Many deeds of violence
I took a part in, and to many more
Was witness, and much booty thence deriv'd.
One night, a band of cavaliers, as chance
Would have it, through a forest passed, not far
From our accustomed haunt:—we met,—dispers'd them!
One fired at me. I fired again, and slew him.—
But, oh my God,—my friend,—what agonies
Think you were mine;—when I beheld—his hair
Stiffen'd with clotted blood, pale, cold, a corse!—
My father! My companions had departed;
I never, from that moment, saw them more!
Next day were tidings brought me by a courier,
Though without implication on myself,
Both of my father's death, and of the means
By which his life was forfeit. I too learned
That, ere the dire catastrophe had chanced,
He, though to no one he had this disclosed,
Had in his heart relented towards his son,
And dying left me, with the rank of count,
His ample patrimony. Thus was I,—
The murderer of my father, by that father,—
Endowed by means which negatived at once
The blessing which such power had been to me,
With means to gratify that which had been
My heart's first wish since she who ruled it languished,
Th' ability not only to relieve,
But to anticipate, far wider range,
And a far more capricious catalogue,
Of wants, than my poor dying wife could feel.—
I, at the moment, had myself surrendered
To the arm of justice! But for Lucy's sake,
And for my child's, to drag on a loath'd life,
Did I submit. How could I wring her heart,
For whom I would have died, with mental pangs,
In the last conflict of her bodily weakness?—
Yet when, with all the sweetness of an angel,
The dying Lucy thanked me for procuring
Palliatives to her from that very crime
Which had a father robbed of life, oh think
What must have been my shame and desolation!
Think of the dreadful contrariety,
As to one point converged, 'twixt all that seems
Of heaven and hell! How through it did I live?—
I know not! Yet griefs are there so intense
That, as there are no outward shews to match them,
They, as respects the spectator, do bring
Impediment against their own betrayal:—
Purveyors of their own impunity.—
The pangs which revelled, as it were, within me,
As they all exhibition, so they passed
All utterance by looks, and words, and gestures.
I dared not of my father think!—Lest I
Should be detected, never did I feel
Smallest anxiety!—and perhaps this—
Though at the time I took no notice of it—
Frustrated my detection. I had sold
Myself to hell, from pliability
Of temperament; and reckless of the future
Myself I suffered now to be borne on
By time and chance. She in my arms expired,
My Lucy, blessing me for all my care.
My child still lived: this the sole hindrance was
That I did not, now, for the second time,
Myself surrender to the arm of justice.
Lest on his life I obloquy should bring,
Mine I consented to drag on. My child,
The precious being for whose sake alone
I had endured a life of speechless woe,
Was torn from me in two years afterwards
By a rapid malady. Thus was I left—
Thus am I still—poor in the midst of wealth:
And with the means of mitigating wants,
And woes of thousands, solitary, wretched.
Endowed through influence of my patrimony,
With power t' excite respect and gratitude,
And hope in others, yet myself unhoping,
Alone, and in despair, unloveable,
Unloving, and unloved! If I have known
For twenty years which have past since the last
Of these calamities, one little hour,
Abatement of my insuppressive pangs,
I must attribute it to this, that heaven
Has, in his mercy, not quite seered my heart:
To this,—that,—though I have a crime committed
Which never can be pardoned in this world,—
The effect of this has rather been in me
A deep humility, than, to confound
By a sophistical philosophy,
Or fatalism atheistical,
Right and wrong deeds;—by merging them in motives—
And extreme provocation,—to conceal
Thus, from my consciousness the magnitude
Of my delinquency!—God's name be blessed;—
From whom the latter as the former comes,
I, with the power, have had the will, to assist
The broken-hearted, and the indigent;
And to contribute to alleviate
The sufferings of those in every rank
Who needed such an advocate.

LE CHARIER.
Thus you
Have found employment. Thus has your life been
Supplied with something like an object.

COUNT COLVILLE.
Yes.—
But long I've wished to quit my native land.
Not only here too many objects wake
Yearnings for—an impossibility!—
Me to become like other men; but here,
Do what I may, do they too potently
Remind me of the past, to allow the hope
I ever here can that composure gain,
To be possessed of which, in some degree
Is needful for me, would I dedicate
Myself effectively to other's interests.
To-morrow I at noon have an appointment
With Julia Villeneuve: as you recollect
Her coming here this evening broke the thread
Of my sad story. I have seen enough
Of her to feel assured she well deserves
The Duke her cousin even as he was
In better days; and that it must be she—
Hid as his brightness now is by a cloud—
That will—if any one can—bring him back
To the fair light of virtue and of peace.
Till this end be achieved, I, for myself,
No purpose have. In D'Ormond I behold
Not only possibility of all
That I, had I not fallen, might have been,—
But also of much more. With this I see
Like perilous propensity to fall:—
And, were this so, as he surpasses me
In a capacity for excellence,
So would he—and I shudder to think of it—
In that for crime, and consequent remorse.—
I wish that you would go to his abode
To-night, and learn if he have been there seen
Of late. But do not let my name transpire.
As, should he hear it, probably by change
Of residence, to-morrow he would frustrate
My resolution to converse with him.
And if he be not there; I pray you try
To learn, where he may, with most likelihood
Be found. I need not say discretion use
In this research. Farewell.

[Exit.
LE CHARIER
(alone).
It pleases me
That he has given me this embassy.
It turns a train of thought too tragical!—
I do not know whether to marvel most
At the deep nature of his crime! or most
To pity the excess of his remorse;
Or most to reverence the sublimity
Of his repentance and return to virtue.