1. I.
At length I was permitted to behold my benefactress. The
messenger who brought my quarterly remittance was the bearer
of a letter, the first which had ever been addressed by her to
myself, in which this grateful permission was accorded. I read
and reread it a thousand times. My first emotions were those
of pleasure — a pleasure enhanced by the hope of satisfying a
curiosity, which, awakened in my earliest boyhood, had never
yet been gratified. Why had I been so kindly treated, so well
provided for, so affectionately considered, in all the changes of
my brief existence, my sickness and my health, by a lady of
such high condition? Why, again, should she, whose care and
consideration had been so unvarying and decided, have shown
so little desire to behold the object of her bounty? Years had
elapsed since I had become her charge; — years, to me, of continued
satisfaction — if one small matter be excepted. There
was one alloy to my enjoyments, which, in its most rapturous
moments, my boyhood did not cease to feel. It was the mystery
which overhung my origin. Who am I? was the question, not
so natural to the boy, yet natural enough to the sensitive and
thoughtful. I was both sensitive and thoughtful; and my boyish
associates, contrived on this very subject, to keep me so.
Their inquiries disordered me; their surprise at my ignorance
alarmed me; their occasional doubts gave me pain, and the suspicions
of their minds readily passed into my own. `Who am
I?' was the perpetual inquiry which my mind was making of
itself. I could address it nowhere else. My tutor, with whom
I also lodged, declared his ignorance; and I believed him. He
was too good a man, too kind, and himself betrayed too great
an interest in the question, not to have spoken sincerely. He
saw my disquiet, and endeavored to allay it; and the endeavor
added to the burden, since it sufficiently declared his equal inability
and desire. His anxiety, though unequal to, was not
unlike, my own. I know not if his conjectures led him to like
conclusions with myself. I only know that mine were sufficiently
painful to extort my tears and tremors.
Vainly, at each quarterly return of the agent of the baroness,
did I endeavor, by question and insinuation, to gather from
him some clue to the facts of which I sought to be possessed.
He had been the person who brought me to the school — who
made the contract for my education and support with my tutor
— and who alone, through each successive period of my life
afterward, had been the medium for conveying the benefactions
of my friend. To whom, then, could I so naturally apply?
whence could I hope to obtain better information? Besides, he
always treated me with marked affection. I can remember,
when a mere child, how frequently he took me upon his knee,
how kindly he caressed me, what affectionate words he poured
into my ear; the gentleness of his tones, the tenderness of his
regards! Nor, as I advanced in years, did his attentions alter,
though they assumed different aspects. He was more reserved,
though not less considerate. If he no longer brought me toys,
he brought me books; if he no longer took me on his knee, he
lingered with me long, and seemed to regret the hour that commanded
his departure. There was something too — so I fancied
— in what he said, did, and looked, that betrayed the fondness
of one who had known me with a tender interest from the beginning.
His arms, perhaps, had dandled me in infancy; he had
been my follower, my attendant. But why linger on conjectures
such as these? My speculations ran wild, as I thought
over the circumstances of my condition, and painfully resolved,
hour after hour, the secret of my birth.
From Bruno, however, I could obtain nothing. When questioned,
he affected a stolid simplicity which, even to my
boyish understanding, seemed wholly inconsistent with his. I
knew that he was no fool — still less was I willing to consider
him a churl. My conclusion was natural. He knew something.
He could tell me much. Could he not tell me all, and where
could be the motive for concealment? The answer to this question
inevitably overwhelmed me for a time, until the elasticity
of the youthful heart could disencumber itself from the desponding
tendency of a premature activity of thought. The only
motive of concealment must be guilt. I was the child of sin —
I was the foredoomed of suffering. My present anxieties gave
a gravity and intensity of expression to my features which did
not become one so youthful. I felt this: I felt the seeming unnaturalness
of my looks and carriage; but how could I relieve
myself? I felt the pain of thought — thought unsatisfied — and
could already imagine how natural was the doom which visited
the sins of the father to the third and fourth generation.
When I failed to extort from the cunning of Bruno the secret
which I was persuaded he yet possessed, I turned naturally to
the letter of my benefactress. I read and reread it, each time
with the hope of making some discoveries — of finding some
slight clue to the truth — which might relieve my anxiety. An
ambiguous sentence, the latent signification of a passage (and
how many of these did my desire enable me to discover in a
billet of twenty lines?) awakened my hopes and caused my
heart to bound with double pulsation. But when I had gone
through it again and again, until my head ached, and my senses
seemed to swim, I was compelled to acknowledge to myself that
there was nothing in the epistle that I had not readily comprehended
at the first. It simply expressed the writer's gratification
at the improvement and good conduct of the youth whom
she had thought proper to educate and provide for, until manhood
should bring around the period of independence; and
expressed — though without emphasis (and how earnestly did I
look for this quality in every word, syllable and point!) — a
very natural desire to remark, with her own eyes, the personal
deportment and carriage of her protégé — subjects which she
seemed to regard as equally important with my intellectual improvement,
and of which neither my letters nor my exercises —
which were duly transmitted to her by my tutor — could give her
much, if any, satisfaction. Failing to find any occult signification
in the language, I next addressed my scrutiny to the style
and manner of the letter — the handwriting, the air, the roundings
equally of letters and periods. How soon, where the hopes
and anxieties are awakened, will the boy learn to think, examine,
and become analytical! To trace the mind of the writer in
his penmanship is a frequent employment with the idly curious;
but a deep interest led me to the same exercise. The style of
the composition was clear and strong, but it struck me as quite
too cold for the benevolent tenor which the note conveyed.
Why should one speak the language of reserve whose deeds
are the very perfection of generosity? Why should the tones
be frigid where the sentiments are as soft as summer and sweet
as its own bird-music? There was, to my mind, some singular
contradiction in this. I could very well understand how one,
doing, or about to do, a benevolent or generous action, should
speak of it as slightly and indifferently as possible — nay, should
avoid to speak of it at all, if to avoid it be within the nature of
the occasion; — but this did not apply to the character of the
epistle I examined. The writer spoke freely of her friendly
purposes; but her language to the recipient was cold and freezing.
If she had said nothing of what she had done and still
meditated, and had spoken to me in more elaborate tones, I
should have been better satisfied. But there was not an unnecessary
word in the whole epistle — not one which I could fancy
put in at the moment when the current of feeling, being at its
height, forbade the reserve of prudence, or the cautious considerateness
of deliberate and calculating purposes. There was
evidently considerable pains taken — so my youthful judgment
inferred — in the reserved language and manner of this letter;
and why should my benefactress, moved only in what she had
done by a high but ordinary sentiment of charity, strive to
express herself in such language to a boy? This question led
me into newer intricacies, from which, I need scarcely add, I
did not readily extricate myself. The penmanship of the writer
did not call for a less earnest examination than the language
which she employed. It was evidently feminine in its character,
but how masculine in its tone. The utter absence of ornament
was a deficiency, which struck me as forming a surprising
feature in the handwriting of a lady. She used capitals constantly
in beginning words as well as sentences; but these capitals
exhibited the cold Gothic aspects of the Roman, rather than
the lively ornamented outlines of the Italian letters. The T of
her signature, for example, was a simple perpendicular stroke,
carried much below the line, with a thick heavy cap upon it,
having a dip at each end almost as great as that of an umbrella.
The letters were remarkably clear, but how irregular! They
seemed to have been written under a determination to write,
even against desire and will — dashed spasmodically down upon
the paper, not coherent, and leaving wide gaps between the several
words, into which an ingenious hand might readily have
introduced other words, such, as I fondly conjectured, might
have given to the composition that friendly warmth and interest
in my fate, which it seemed to me it needed more than anything
besides. My grand conclusion, on finishing my study, was this,
that the writer had taken some pains to write indifferently; that
the studied coldness of the letter was meant to conceal a very
active warmth and feeling in the writer; and (though I may not
be able to define the sources of this conjecture so well as the
rest) that this feeling, whatever might be its character, was not
such as could compel the admiration or secure the sympathy of
mine. This conclusion may seem strange enough, when it is
recollected that the baroness was my benefactress, who had
always carefully anticipated my wishes; provided for my
wants; afforded me the best education which the condition of
the palatinate afforded; and, in all respects, had done, through
charity, those kindly deeds which could not have been exacted
by justice. The next moment I reproached myself for ingratitude
— I prayed for better thoughts and more becoming feelings
— but my prayer was not vouchsafed me. The conclusion
which I have already declared had taken a rooted possession of
my mind, and I commenced my journey to the castle of T—
with a mixed feeling of equal awe, anxiety, and expectation.
