University of Virginia Library

16. CHAPTER XVI.

When Antonio, with his fellow servants, entered
his mistress's apartment and saw her weltering in
blood, and stretched, apparently, lifeless on the
floor, he was too much shocked at the part he had
borne in her catastrophe to wait for a second look,
but, concluding her dead, availed himself of the
general confusion to slip away and convey the intelligence
to his employer. The consternation of
the other domestics may easily be imagined; but,
fortunately, there was one amongst them, an aged
housekeeper, who, on removing the body, and perceiving
it still warm, had the presence of mind to
send for a surgeon. In the mean time Rosalia
was put into a warm bed, and such other restoratives
being applied as are usual in similar cases,
she soon began to show symptoms of life. Immediately
after, the surgeon arrived. “One minute
more,” said he, “and I should have been too late.”
He then proceeded to probe the wound, when,
drawing a long sigh, Rosalia opened her eyes.

On further examination, the surgeon pronounced
her wound a flesh one; but she had suffered so
much from loss of blood, he observed, that nothing
but the utmost care and absence of all excitement,
could possibly save her. He then ordered the
room to be cleared, and enjoined that on no account
she should be allowed to speak. This last
injunction became necessary in consequence of
several ineffectual attempts she had made to inquire
after her husband. The surgeon further
added, on catching the word husband, and connecting
it with certain surmises which had been
hinted to him of Monaldi's concern in the affair,
that he would recommend it to her not to see any
one — “not excepting even her husband.” Rosalia
answered with an imploring look, but the surgeon
observing, that her life depended on her obedience
in this particular, she was obliged to acquiesce.
For the same reason the interdiction was also extended
to her father. It was with great difficulty,
however, that Landi could be prevailed on to
forego seeing his daughter; but the surgeon was
peremptory, and he was forced to obey. It was
fortunate for Rosalia that the knowledge of her
husband's absence was thus kept from her; Monaldi
having disappeared, and gone no one knew
whither; as to his insanity, the few incoherent
words he had uttered previous to her fainting, had
either passed from her mind, or, considered merely
as the effect of violent emotion, were little heeded.

We left Maldura in a state of misery only to be
conceived by the guilty, or by those to whom a
holy abhorrence of sin reveals its frightful nature.
It was in vain he summoned the casuistry which
had hitherto supported him in the contemplation
of crime. It came now, as formerly, and with a
sound of might, but it spent itself like the wind
against a solid rock; for he had now to do, not
with hypothesis, but a based reality, darkening the
present, and stretching its long shadow into the
future. Before the accomplishment of his purpose
his life had seemed a burden, and he would have
welcomed death as a release from trouble; but
now, though the burthen was heavier and more
galling, the thought of death only filled him with
dismay, and he shrank from it as the traveller
shrinks from an abyss whose edge his foot feels in
the dark, but whose depth neither his eye nor his
imagination can fathom.

Thus will the sense of guilt sometimes cow the
proudest philosophy. The atheist may speculate,
and go on speculating till he is brought up by annihilation;
he may then return to life, and reason
away the difference between good and evil; he

may even go further, and imagine to himself the
perpetration of the most atrocious acts; and still
he may eat his bread with relish, and sleep soundly
in his bed; for his sins wanting, as it were, substance,
having no actual solidity to leave their
traces in his memory, all future retribution may
seem to him a thing with which, in any case, he
can have no concern; but let him once turn his
theory to practice — let him make crime palpable
— in an instant he feels its hot impress on his soul.
Then it is, that what may happen beyond the
grave becomes no matter of indifference; and,
though his reason may seem to have proved that
death is a final end, then comes the question:
what does his reason know of death? Then, last of
all, the little word if, swelling to a fearful size,
and standing at the outlet of his theories, like a
relentless giant, ready to demolish his conclusions.

But Maldura's sufferings were now to be suspended,
for the report of Rosalia's recovery at last
reached him. This unlooked-for intelligence was
followed by a spasm of joy scarcely to have been
exceeded had he been suddenly reprieved from an
ignominious death. He felt like one emerging
from the hopeless darkness of a dungeon to the
light and free air of day; and though the hope
which had once sustained him was gone forever,

and he had nothing to look to, he yet began to
fancy, and even to feel, without stopping to ask
why, that his former relish of life was now returning.
But his respite was short. It was natural
that release from a great, though only imagined,
evil should render him for a time less sensible to
such as were minor and actual; but they were
light only from comparison, and no sooner did the
weight of the former begin to pass from his memory,
than the pressure of the latter became more
perceptible, till at last, in spite of every effort to
resist them, they became the subjects of his daily
and hourly contemplation.

Amongst these, the sorest, and that which time
rather added to than diminished, was the destruction
of Monaldi's peace, perhaps of his life; for
Monaldi had never been heard of since the fatal
night, and whither he had gone, or what had become
of him, was still uncertain.

Whilst Maldura believed himself injured, and
the victim of the world's injustice, he gave himself
up to a moody sullenness, either shut up at
home, or brooding in darkness in the solitude of
ruins. But now that his sufferings were occasioned
by his own crimes their effect was different.
He became restless; deserting his former haunts,
and mixing with the world; visiting every place of

public amusement, giving entertainments, and forming
new acquaintance; then, tiring of these, he
would change his abode, engage in new diversions,
and collect new associates; then he would remove
to another, then run the same round, till that was
exhausted; then to another, then from city to city,
from village to village, wandering and journeying,
day and night, and seeking and catching at every
kind of object, however insignificant, that might, if
possible, draw his thoughts from himself: and such
is the last object of guilt; for novelty while pursued
is the world's substitute for hope; when possessed,
its opiate for remorse — the opiate indeed of a moment
— yet for that moment will the guilty toil
more intently and desperately than in their days of
innocence for the promise of heaven.

It was in one of these wanderings that Maldura,
returning towards Naples, in company with a party
of pleasure, was separated from his companions
by a circumstance of no uncommon occurrence.

The day had begun sultry, but was now closing,
after a refreshing shower, with one of those delicious
atmospheres known only in the south; so
sweet! so bright! — as if the common air had
suddenly given place to the humid sighs of answering
orange groves and the intermingled breath of
enamored flowers — as if the dripping trees and

fields had actually been flooded by liquid gold
from the sun; then the hum of insects, the twittering
of birds, and the ceaseless darting of innumerable
lizards, so filling the ear and eye with
sound and motion, as if the very ground and air
were exulting in life! Such a scene was not for
Maldura, and, trusting to his horse to follow in the
track of his companions, he had closed his eyes,
when, reaching the brow of a hill, a general exclamation
from the company made him look up.
“Glorious! magnificent!” now burst from one
and another. It was the bay of Naples; a scene
not to be painted by words — even though its
waters were likened to a sea of sapphire, its mountains
to amethysts, and its skirting city to a fillet
of snow; these indeed might give their color, but
not the harmony of lines, nor the light and shadow,
nor the dazzling expanse — and never the living,
conscious joy with which they seemed to send up
their shout of praise to the immeasurable depths
above. There is a voice in nature ever audible to
the heart — which no hardness can shut out — and
for its weal or wo, as the heart may be. Maldura
heard it now — breaking upon him like a clap of
thunder. He instinctively turned from the scene,
and looked towards Vesuvius. But even from that
he shrank; for the terrible Vesuvius was now smiling
in purple, and reposing beneath his pillar of smoke
as under a gorgeous canopy: the very type of
himself — gay and peaceful without, yet restless
and racked with fire within. A groan was rising
to his lips, but a resolute effort enabled him to suppress
it; yet dreading to trust himself any longer
to the observation of his party, he hastily dismounted,
under pretence of decyphering a half-effaced
inscription on the road, and bade them ride on.

His companions being now out of sight, Maldura
was about to remount, when the girth of his
saddle gave way. This accident made it necessary
for him to seek assistance, and he was proceeding
for this purpose to a village a little off the road,
when he thought he descried through the trees
something peeping above the ruins of an ancient
tomb like the roof of a hut. As he approached
he perceived it to be the shed of a half-demolished
hovel; but thinking it might possibly still afford
shelter to some wandering swine-herd, he fastened
his horse to the branch of a wild fig-tree that grew
out of a crevice in the ruin, and, walking round,
had just come to the side of the hut, when he
heard a low murmuring sound as of voices within.
He stopped a moment, doubting if it were safe to
enter; should he encounter robbers, the odds
would be against him. Whatever the sounds

might proceed from, he thought it at least but prudent
to reconnoitre, and observing a rent in the
wall he looked through it; but he could only perceive
a dark heap lying in a corner, and something
like a human leg thrust from beneath it. Being
satisfied that he had nothing to fear, Maldura
entered. On a nearer view the heap in the corner
proved, as he had conjectured, to be a man asleep.
“Ho! fellow!” said he; “awake — I need your
assistance.” With a languid motion the figure
turned upon his back, and slowly drawing down
the dark and tattered mantle, that enveloped his
head and body, a little below the eyes, appeared to
look up. Maldura, catching a glimpse of his ashy
forehead, as it gleamed through the flakes of his
long black hair, bent forward to see if the man
were awake; but his eyes were so dark and sunken
that he could only discern two bright specks.
“Come, rouse thee, fellow,” said he, impatiently,
“I want your aid.” The man made an effort to
rise, and the garment fell from his face. “Monaldi!”
exclaimed Maldura, recoiling with horror.

“Who calls me?” said the other. “What do
you want? — oh, you are are a Sbirro. But you
come too late — I am dead — ha! ha! You cannot
touch me now!”

“Fiend, devil that I am!” groaned Maldura.

“His wits are gone — and I — open — gape, hell,
and swallow me!”

“Go, go,” said the maniac.

“I will, I will,” cried Maldura, “and rid you
of a monster!” So saying, he rushed from the
hovel, when, stumbling over a loose stone, he fell
to the ground. He sprang upon his feet again,
but the accident had given a moment for reflection.
“No!” he said, while a multitude of
thoughts passed with the rapidity of lightning
through his brain. “No — I will still endure the
torturing sight — though it transform me to the
like — and endure it, if possible, to save him.”

This resolution calmed him in an instant; but
it was not till after a considerable time that he
could summon sufficient fortitude to return to the
hut. When he did so he found Monaldi again
covered and seemingly asleep. On lifting the
mantle, however, he perceived that he was still
awake — but so exhausted, either by disease or
famine, that he could no longer move.

As Maldura beheld the ravages which misery
had so rapidly made on his late happy friend, and
gazed upon the livid remains of his noble countenance,
the gaunt and angular outline of his once
graceful form, he felt that he had need of all his
courage to hold to his resolution.

“Horrible!” said he, turning away with a suffocating
feeling. “But this is no time even for remorse
— he must not lie here.” Then hastily
quitting the hut, and, vaulting on the bare back of
his horse, he set off at full speed for the village.

It was now the first time since Maldura left
Florence that anything like a feeling of self-approbation
had even glanced on his heart; for now,
in spite of his remorse, the consciousness of performing
a duty forced a passage to his breast;
and feeble as this was — even as the thread of light
that ravels its way through hundreds of fathoms of
darkness to the half quenched eye of the condemned
miner — it yet seemed to cheer his heart
almost with hope.

Having ordered such accommodations as the
village post-house afforded, Maldura returned with
assistance to the hovel, and soon saw his wretched
friend comfortably lodged.

A messenger was then despatched for a physician,
but, there being none nearer than Naples, it was
near midnight before he arrived. The apparently
exhausted maniac had in the meantime, through
the mistaken indulgence of his attendants, been
suffered to gorge himself with food. This brought
on a lethargy, then suffocation and spasms, ending
in a frightful paroxysm of raving; in the height of
which the physician entered.

The agony of Maldura during this scene had become
almost insupportable; but when the physician
observed that the injudicious treatment of the
patient was the probable cause of his frenzy, and
gave hope of his recovery, he dropped senseless.
He had borne misery, as we have seen, and almost
despair, with a degree of firmness; but the transition
of the latter to hope, even feeble as it was,
proved too much for him. As he had, however,
only fainted, he was soon revived, when, observing
that he still appeared to be much weakened, the
doctor advised his going immediately to bed.

“No,” said Maldura — “I must remain where
I am, though the sounds I hear rive me like fire
from heaven.”

“Alack!” said the hostess, who was then
bathing his temples, “he has caught the other's
madness.”

“No, woman,” replied Maldura with a ghastly
smile, “mine is from hell.”

“My good sir,” said the physician, “this is no
place for one in your state — you must to bed.”

“Look at him,” continued Maldura, turning
towards Monaldi, and without regarding the speaker
— “look at that human ruin.”

The maniac now, attempting to rise, appeared
first to discover that he was bound. For a moment

he endeavored to free himself with a kind of
childish impatience, but finding himself baffled, he
sent forth a cry so shrill and piteous that the
attendants involuntarily put their hands to their
ears.

“Nay, hear it,” said Maldura, who alone seemed
to listen unmoved, but whom the sound had smote
deeper; “hear it — 'tis the crash of a wrecked
mind — yet even that — even him I envy — For
what is his state to mine? No — the world cannot
see the hell from which my spirit looks —
nor know the longing with which it strains over
the gulf between us. Bid me not leave him, in
the fear that suffering like his can injure me.”

Thus did the pride of Maldura, stony and
colossal as it seemed, fall before the voice of conscience,
even as the walls of Jerico before the horn
of Joshua.

But the triumph of conscience was not yet complete.
Though his presumption was gone, and he
no longer sought to resist or evade the sense of
his crime, he could not wholly subdue a worldly
feeling of shame at the thought of appearing despicable
in the eyes of others. He had therefore
no sooner given vent to this burst of remorse, and
perceived its effect on the astonished hearers, than
he felt as if he could have sunk into the earth.

“Poor gentleman!” said the landlady, crossing
herself with a mixture of fear and compassion —
“he seems to have some terrible sin on his mind.”

“Peace woman!” said Maldura, “leave the
room.”

“San' Gennaro protect us!” muttered the
hostess.” I can at least take a good conscience
away with me — which is more than I shall leave
here.”

Whatever the physician may have thought, he
was prudent enough to keep it to himself; he
however again urged Maldura to retire; but, finding
him still obstinate, he left his patient in his
charge, promising to repeat his visit at an early
hour the next day.

This was the first penance to which Maldura
had ever brought himself to submit. And never
did desperate contrition encounter a greater. For,
taking his station at the foot of the bed, and keeping
his eyes fixed on Monaldi, he scarcely moved
during the whole night; and, though every sound
and look seemed to go through him, he still continued
to stand listening and gazing, hour after
hour, till the wretched maniac, exhausted by
raving and the violence of the fever, sunk at last
to sleep.

The day was already far advanced before the

physician arrived. “Your friend,” said he, turning
to Maldura, “if I mistake not, will awake in
his senses: it may be, only to know that he is
dying; yet, as it is possible he may recover, we
will hope for the best. All depends on the strength
of his constitution, and his being kept quiet.”

Maldura attempted to speak — “My dear sir,”
continued the doctor, perceiving his emotion, “I
will not ask if you wish the recovery of your
friend; but, if you do, you must remain here no
longer. His crisis is at hand, and I dare not
answer for the issue should either your presence,
or any other cause produce the least agitation.
“Tis not for your sake, but his — ” “No more,”
said Maldura, “You shall be obeyed. But when — ”
“You may see him to-morrow,” interrupted the
physician.