3. III.
Having thus spoken, Bruno became suddenly silent, and no
effort that I could make could induce him to resume the conversation.
Yet, how had this conversation excited me! — what
strange commotion did it occasion among the thoughts and fancies
of my mind. Where had he obtained the power to speak
with so much authority, words so full of animation, thoughts so
far beyond his seeming condition? His words seemed to lift
and expand himself. His eye glittered with the fire of an
eagle's as he spoke, his lip quivered with equal pride and enthusiasm,
and his form, it seemed to rise and tower aloft in all the
majesty of a tried and familiar superiority. The mystery which
enwrapped my own fate, seemed of a sudden to envelop this
man also. He had dropped words which indicated an alliance
of our destinies, and what could he mean, when, at the close of
this speech, he said, that my visit to the castle of T— was the
epoch of his emancipation. The words rang in my ears with the
imposing solemnity of an oracle; but, though I felt, in vain did
I strive to find something in them beyond their solitary import.
They increased the solemnity and anxiety of those feelings
which oppressed me on my nearer approach to the gloomy towers
of T— castle. As we came in sight of them I could
perceive that the countenance of my companion assumed an expression
of anxiety also. A dark cloud, slowly gathering, hung
about his brows, and at length spread over and seemed to settle
permanently upon his face. He now seldom spoke, and only in
answer to my inquiries and in monosyllables. Something of
this, in the case of each of us, may have been derived from the
sombre and gloomy tone of everything in the immediate neighborhood
of this castle. The country was sterile in the last
degree. We had travelled the whole day and had scarcely encountered
a human being. But few cottages skirted the cheerless
and little-trodden pathway over which we came, and a
general stuntedness of vegetation and an equally general poverty
of resource in all respects, fully accounted to us for, and
justified the absence of, inhabitants. Bruno, however, informed
me that the country on the other side of the lake on which the
castle stood, and from which it derived its resources, was as fertile
and populous as this was the reverse. A succession of little
hills, rugged and precipitous, which were strewed thickly over
our pathway, added to the difficulties of our approach, and the
cheerlessness of the prospect. The castle was gray with years
— one portion of it entirely dismantled and deserted — the residue
in merely habitable condition — the whole presenting such
a pile as would be esteemed a ruin among a people of romantic
temperament, but carefully avoided by the superstitious as
better calculated for the wanderings of discontented ghosts, than
as a dwelling for the living. The wall which was meant to protect
it from invasion on the side we came, was in a worse state
of dilapidation than even the deserted portions of the castle, and
we entered the enclosure through a fissure, and over the overthrown
masses of lime and stone by which it had been originally
filled. There were too many of these openings to render formal
ports or gateways necessary. Within the enclosure I had an opportunity
to see how much more desolate was the prospect the
nearer I approached it. Its desolation increased the feelings of
awe with which the mystery of my own fate, the ambiguous words
and manner of Bruno, and the vague conjectures I had formed in
reference to my benefactress, had necessarily filled my mind;
and I was conscious, on first standing in the presence of the baroness,
of far more apprehension than gratitude — an apprehension
not so creditable to my manhood, and only to be excused
and accounted for, by the secluded and unworldly manner in
which my education had been conducted.
The baroness met me with a smile, and such a smile! — I
could not comprehend its language. It was clearly not that of
affection; it did not signify hatred — shall I say that it was the
desperate effort of one who seeks to look benevolence while
feeling scorn; that it was a smile of distrust and bitterness, the
expression of a feeling which seemed to find the task of receiving
me too offensive and unpleasant even to suffer the momentary
disguise of hypocrisy and art. I was confused and stupefied.
I turned for explanation to Bruno, who had accompanied me into
the presence; and the expression in his face did not less surprise
me than that in the face of the baroness. His eyes were fixed
upon hers, and his looks wore an air of pride and exultation;
not dissimilar to that which I have already described as distinguishing
them while our dialogue was in progress. There was
something also of defiance in his glance, while gazing on the
baroness, which puzzled me the more. Her eyes were now
turned from me to him.
“And this then is the — the youth — the —” She paused.
I could no longer misunderstand those accents. They were those
of vexation and annoyance.
“The same!” exclaimed Bruno, “the same, my lady, and a
noble youth you see he is; well worthy of your patronage, your
love!”
There was a taunting asperity in his tones which struck me
painfully, and at length stimulated me to utterance and action.
I rushed forward, threw myself at her feet, and, while I poured
forth my incoherent acknowledgments for her benefactions, would
have seized and carried her hand to my lips. But she shrunk
back with an impulse if possible more rapid than my own, her
hands uplifted, the palms turned upon me as if beckoning me
away, her head averted, and her whole attitude and manner that
of one suffering contact with the thing it loathes.
“No, no! None of this. Take him away. Take him away.”
I rose upon my feet and turned to Bruno. His form was
erect, his eye was full of a stern severity as he gazed upon the
baroness, which seemed to me strangely misplaced when I considered
his relative position with the noble lady to whom I owed
so much, and, in respect to whom it would seem so unaccountable,
so unnatural. Bruno paused and did not regard me as I approached
him. His eyes were only fixed upon his mistress. She repeated
her injunction, with a wild and strange addition: —
“Have you not had enough? Would you drive me mad?
Away with him. Away!”
“Come!” he exclaimed, turning to me slowly, but with an
eye still fixed upon the baroness, whose face was averted from
us. He muttered something further which I did not understand,
and we were about to depart, he frowning as if with indignation,
and I trembling with equal apprehension and surprise.
“Stay!” she exclaimed, “where would you take him, Bruno?”
“To the hall below, your ladyship.”
“Right, see to his wants. His chamber is in the northern
turret.”
“There!” was the abrupt exclamation of Bruno.
“There! There!” was all the reply; a reply rather shrieked
than spoken, and the manner of which, as well as the look of
Bruno, when he beheld it, convinced me that there was something
occult and mysterious in the purport of her command.
Nothing more, however, was spoken by either the baroness or
himself, and we left the presence in silence together.
