 | CHAPTER XVIII. Monaldi |  |
18. CHAPTER XVIII.
“Where — which way? Show me to him,” said
Rosalia.
“Be patient, my child,” said her father. We
must not be abrupt. So sudden a meeting might
prove fatal. Let us wait till our good hostess has
apprized him of our arrival.”
“With all my heart,” replied the landlady;
“though, I should think, the better person for this
office would be his friend, Signor Maldura.”
“True,” observed Landi. “But first, tell me —
How is he?”
The landlady then related the particulars of
Monaldi's illness, and was just concluding with an
account of his entire recovery, when, pale and
ghastly, Maldura entered.
“Horrible!” said Maldura, drawing back at the
sight of Landi. “His wife too — Monster! now
am I doubly cursed!”
“Speak! What's the matter?” exclaimed
Rosalia and Landi in the same breath.
“You will know but too soon,” replied Maldura,
retreating towards the door.
“For mercy's sake!” cried Rosalia. “Stop,
tell — ”
“Stay me not,” said Maldura in a choaking
voice — “there's a curse about me.” So saying,
he dashed open the door, and ran with frantic
swiftness from the house.
If it be hard to part with the dead, and to see
one borne to the grave with whom we have been
accustomed to associate all our wishes and schemes
of happiness, and without whom nothing in life
seems capable of imparting enjoyment, there is
yet a consolation in the thought that our grief is
only for our own suffering, since it cannot reach
one to whom our loss is a gain. What then must
it be to feel this entire avulsion from the living; to
know that the object with whom our very soul was
mixed, and who is thus parted from our common
being, still walks the same earth, breathes the same
air, and wears the same form; yet lives, as to us,
as if dead — closed, sealed up from all our thoughts
and sympathies, like to a statue of adamant. What
must it be to know too that this second self, though
callous and impenetrable from without, is yet within
all sense? The partial palsy-death of the body
is but a faint image of this half-death of the twinbeing
in all its agony.
The alarm occasioned by this last scene was so
sudden that neither father nor daughter thought
more of first making known their arrival, but, following
the landlady, entered Monaldi's chamber.
He was sitting on the bed, his hands clenched on
his knees, and his eyes fixed on vacancy. Rosalia
sprang forward, but at the sight of his countenance
she shrunk back and stood gazing on him in silence.
And next to madness was the dreadful conviction
within her. She would have folded him in her
arms; but the thought of the touch of the benumbed,
vacant being before her sickened her, and
she sunk back in her father's arms. But she had
not fainted: the energy of hope that he might
again recover, came like a ministering spirit, and
nerved her for the occasion.
“You must go with me,” said Landi.
“No,” replied Rosalia, in a low, but firm, voice;
“I am his even in madness. Do not fear for me;
the shock is now over. But, speak to him.” Landi
then advancing spoke to him by name; but Monaldi
making no answer, he drew nearer and took his
hand. For a moment Monaldi turned to look at
him, then withdrawing his eyes as if with terror —
“away, away!” he cried. “Why come you
I murdered her. Look — look at her — 't was I —
she was my wife — she'll confess it herself. But
no, she cannot — she's dead.”
“No, she lives — she is still yours!” cried Rosalia,
going to him.
“Ha! there are two!” cried the maniac with a
frightful shriek. “Take them away — I did not
murder both.”
The father and daughter stood silent and motionless;
their very breath seemed suspended; and
for several minutes not a sound was heard but the
quick, low panting of the affrighted maniac. Landi,
alarmed for the reason of his daughter, drew
her into another room, when she fell on his neck
and wept. But we close the scene; for we cannot
describe that which no tears relieved — even
that blessed dew, which, in most other cases, softens
agony.
| CHAPTER XVIII. Monaldi | |