University of Virginia Library

15. CHAPTER XV.

There are some men who can daily await, and
even count the hours up to, a threatened bereavement,
with little discomposure; not so much from
want of feeling as from a constitutional repugnance
to the admission of any definite form to a future
evil; they know it will come, but it is virtually
a mere name so long as they possess the present.
Yet there is a moment when the present and future
may be said to unite, and to produce, like the
mingling of light and darkness, a kind of twilight
image of both: 't is in the last counted hour. As
in grief, so it is in guilt: and so was it with Maldura.
Whilst his revenge was maturing, he had
watched its progress with a moody quietness; but
now that the deadly fruit was ripe, and he saw it
hanging by the last fibre, ready at the breath of
the next minute to drop into his hand, he could
not help shrinking back with a fearful misgiving of
its bitterness.

He had retired to bed at his usual hour. But

he had closed his eyes and composed his limbs in
vain; he could not sleep; the tide of his thoughts
was not to be stopped, neither could he force them
into other than the troublous channel they had
taken; they still rushed on in spite of his will; till,
wearied and maddened by his fruitless efforts, he
sprang out of bed. He then dressed himself, and,
taking a book, began to read aloud; but the sounds
he uttered conveyed no meaning to his brain.
At last the clock struck one — the half hour —
two. “ 'T is over!” said he, throwing the book
from him. “Fool! torment yourself no longer
for what is past recall. Pshaw! this shaking is
mechanical — the coward body. Well, here's a
remedy for that,” seizing a goblet of wine. “Yes,
the soul is still firm; as it should be in triumph.
Ay, triumph; for revenge — what is it? A mere
speculation? a freak of the mind, beginning in a
day-dream, and ending as it began — in nothing?
Has it not relation to time, place, object? and can
a thing unreal hold such relation? No. 'T is then
a reality; if so, can it come of nothing? No; 't is
a consequence of something. What then is that
something? — Injury! Let the Monaldis then
blame themselves. If they would know the cause
of my revenge, let them remember, that she rejected
me — that he supplanted me. Tush! no more
of this.”

With such wretched sophistry did Maldura endeavor
to silence his conscience, when Fialto entered.

“Nay, start not,” said the Count, as Maldura
drew back to let him pass; “ 't is your good genius
— the best, I'll be sworn, in your whole calendar
of devils. What, dumb? No greeting for
your faithful Abaddon — your plenipotentiary to
the powers below? Why, man, you look as if I
had actually come thence, and brought with me
an atmosphere unpolite.”

“You have license, Count,” observed Maldura,
“to speak of yourself as you please.”

“And of you too, I hope.”

“You come, I suppose, to tell me the affair is
over.”

“A word first,” said Fialto. “I take it, Maldura,
you are a man of honor?”

“Why that question, sir?”

“Because it often happens, that when a pupil
first enters Lucifer's school, he thinks it regular to
begin in the lowest forms, such as lying, word-breaking,
cheating, &c.”

“Fialto,” interrupted Maldura fiercely, “if I
thought you dared suspect me — ”

“Not so hot, man. I suspect no one. I only
wish to be sure of my ground.”

“Well, sir, what is your drift?”

“Merely to know if you mean to abide by your
contract.”

“Dare you doubt it?”

“You know I dare anything. But you have
well spoken; and I do not doubt you. Now to
business. The draughts on your banker at Bologna,
I think, are already signed?”

“There, sir; look at them.”

“Right. But there were five hundred sequins
in gold for present expenses. Ah, they are in this
bag. All right.”

“To a baiocco, sir,” said Maldura.

“I don't doubt it,” said the Count, sweeping
the gold and bills from the table. “And thus
ends my diplomacy; for the game is up, and the
wages of sin are won!”

Though Maldura had anticipated this, and
thought himself prepared, he needed all his pride
to conceal the numbing horror that now seized him.
'T is over then,” said he, faintly; “well — ” but
he could not proceed.

“Ha! he quails,” said Fialto to himself. “ 'T is
well; he shall shake yet to his midriff for putting

me on this cursed business. But how's this, my
gallant principal — you don't seem to rejoice?”

“You don't know me,” replied Maldura, endeavoring
to force a laugh; but the sound only
rattled in his throat.

“Ay, that was a merry laugh, but rather too
dry. You should drink, man; joy is thirsty by
nature — especially of the grim breed. There,
pledge me now in a reeling bumper to the black
knight of revenge.”

“ 'T is sweet!” said Maldura, emptying the
goblet, and assuming an air of hardihood.

“What?”

“Revenge.”

“Oh, delicious, no doubt. But I hav'nt given
you the particulars.”

“Why, no matter for them now; 't is enough
that the affair is over.”

“As you please. But there's one thing I must
touch on. There was, I think, an additional
clause, a kind of codicil to our contract — that if
your friends parted, the reward was to be doubled.
Was it not so?”

“It was; but you cannot claim that yet.”

“Suppose I could? You remember you are a
man of honor.”

“You may see I have not forgotten it,” answered
Maldura, producing another draught.

“'T is mine then,” said Fialto, seizing it.

“Impossible!”

“Then impossibilities have come to pass.”

“Count Fialto,” said Maldura, rising. “I doubt
you trifle with me.”

“In honorable earnest,” replied Fialto, carelessly.
“They parted exactly at one o'clock;
that is, if Antonio's watch be right.”

“Parted! and you know it so soon?”

“Even so; and, what's better, so parted, that
all the priests in christendom could never reunite
them.”

“How! what mean you?”

“The woman's dead — that's all.”

“Dead!”

“Ay, dead as Santa Rosalia herself. Glorious!
is n't it? What, dumb with joy? I thought you
would be, and kept it for a bonne bouche that
would send its savor to your very heart. But that
is not all — the best is to come; she was murdered
— murdered too by her milksop husband!”

Maldura staggered, and fell back into his seat.

“Ha!” continued Fialto, advancing, and raising
his voice, “why don't you laugh — shout?
Hey? shout — dance, sing io triumphe, man! for

the deed is done past all undoing; ay, done, and
bruited, and chronicled too by this time in all the
infernal gazettes!”

“Monster!” exclaimed Maldura, recoiling from
him.”

“Which of us!”

“Leave me, fiend! — blasted be the hour that
brought us together.”

“What, ho! did you think to raise the devil,
and expect him to leave his work half done? I
thought you knew him better; for I never saw one
who looked and talked so like his cater-cousin.
Marvellous! Why, you were wont to brood over
this precious plot like some dark hell-bird in the
incubation of an imp; and now that the thing
is hatched, you shrink, and turn craven before
your own offspring.”

“Begone, villain!” cried Maldura, starting up,
and moving to a distance.

“Softly, my worthy compeer,” said the Count.
“Devil as often as you please; but my honor
brooks no vulgar appellation of earth.”

“Leave me then, devil! and curse me no more
with your hateful presence.”

“Hateful! What, hateful to Maldura?” said
Fialto, with a sneer. “Then I must be above him.
On my life, this is supposing me to have reached

an elevation in iniquity to which I never dared
aspire. But you do yourself injustice. Why, I
am but a thing of clay — a mere receptacle of appetites;
and, evil though they be, they are yet
human; in other words, I'm a man — bad, if you
will, but too gross, too material, to be named with
— what shall I call thee? The very sentiment,
the idea, the unimpassioned essence of sin! If I
prey on others, I only transfer something from
their needs to my own; if I deceive, 't is only for
a craved advantage; and if I pull down, 't is only
to build up for myself; so that nothing is lost. In
short, my utmost scope is barely to anticipate time,
and now and then, perhaps, to forestall fortune in
her eternal mutations. But thou — thou art above
profiting by thy actions; for thou deprivest for the
pleasure of bereaving — destroyest for the gust of
destruction; in a word, thy sins find their end in
nothing, and vanish, like abstractions, in the dark,
joyless abyss of thy soul.”

Maldura, trembling with rage, unsheathed his
dagger — but guilt had cowed him; he stood a
moment irresolute, and the weapon dropped from
his hand.

“I would that I could pity thee,” said Fialto,
observing the action and fixing his eye on the dagger;
“but — pah! my soul sickens at a coward.”

“Ruffian! robber!” screamed Maldura, snatching
up the dagger, and rushing on him with fury.

“Another step,” said the Count, presenting a
pistol, “and your brains shall spatter these walls.”

Maldura retreated a few paces, and, seizing a
chair, with a horrible execration, dashed it in
shivers against the wall. “Thus! thus!” said
he, “shall it be with thee! Remember the nun!”

“Dost thou threaten?” replied Fialto, advancing;
then stopping short — “No,” he added, “I
will not hazard my life by taking thine in this
place. Besides, thy menace is too impotent to
claim a thought; my secret is safe enough in thy
cowardly keeping. The nun wants no better
guard than the ghost of Rosalia; they are now
leagued; summon the one, then, and raise the
other — if thou darest. Ha! does the name of
Rosalia shake thee? How then wilt thou stand it
when all Rome shall couple it with thine — her
destroyer? That thou art so, and without benefit
to thyself, is why I hate thee. As for
my part in the business — I acted in my need,
and under thee, thou superlative tempter! so
the world would not waste a curse on me. But
what tempted thee? Oh, I forgot — thou art a
poet. Well, thou hast reached the ideal of sin;
and I give thee joy of thy bloody chaplet.”

“Leave me, or poniard me, unmerciful dog!”
cried Maldura, in a voice hoarse and scarcely articulate.

“Thou shalt have thy wish,” said Fialto, turning
contemptuously towards the door. “But I
leave thee this advice, Maldura: Ride not wide of
Rome. Should we meet again at Radicoffani, my
stilletto, perhaps, may do, for once, some service
to the world.” So saying, he left the house, and
a moment after the clatter of hoofs gave notice of
his departure.

As the sounds caught his ear, Maldura felt as if
there was one fiend less to tug at his heart; but
the relief was transient, for another minute brought
their echoes to his brain, hurrying him back in
memory to his first meeting with Fialto — then
from place to thought — from thought to word,
and plot, and action — through their whole horrible
meanderings to his present hell. His agony
now became choking, and, grasping his throat as
though he would tear it open, he thought he would
give the world for a groan; but even that was
denied him, and he fell on the floor without uttering
a sound.

Thus ended this compact of sin. It could not
have ended otherwise; for there is no sympathy
in evil, whose natural consequence is hatred.

Yet the evil may not hate themselves; if they do
not, however, 't is only because of that instinctive
sophistry with which the mind is ever ready to defend
itself from whatever is painful; but the delusion
is limited to themselves; for the vices of
others they have a clear-sightedness which even the
minutest deformities cannot escape. Indeed, evil
is but another name for moral discord; its law,
revulsion; and its final issue the shutting up the
soul in impenetrable solitude.