CHAPTER VI.
The fly-catcher, who occasionally made his appearance at his grated window, seemed to take delight in watching the assiduities of Charney towards his favourite! He had observed the Count compose his cement, weave his osier-work—erect his palisades; and, admonished by his own long captivity of the moral influence of such pursuits, readily conjectured that a whole system of philosophy was developing itself in the mind of his fellow-prisoner.
One memorable day, a new face made its appearance at the window—a female face—fair, and fresh, and young. The stranger was a girl, whose demeanour appeared at once timid and lively; modesty regulated the movements of her well-turned head, and the brilliancy of her animated eyes, whose glances were veiled by long silken eyelashes of raven darkness.As she stood behind the heavy grating, on which her fair hand bent for support, her brow inclining in the shade as if in a meditative mood, she might have stood for a chaste personification of the nymph Captivity. But when her brow was uplifted, and the joyous light of day fell on her lovely countenance, the harmony and serenity of her features, her delicate but brilliant complexion, proclaimed that it was in the free air of liberty she had been nurtured, not under the dispiriting influence of the bolts and bars of a dungeon. She was, perhaps, one of those tutelary angels of charity, whose lives are passed in soothing the sick and solacing the captive?—No!—the instinct which brought the fair stranger to Fenestrella was still more puissant—even that of filial duty. Only daughter to Girardi the fly-catcher—Teresa had abandoned the gay promenades and festivities of Turin, and the banks of the Doria-Riparia, to inhabit the cheerless town of Fenestrella, not that her residence near the fortress afforded free access to her father: for some time she found it impossible to obtain even a momentary interview with the prisoner. But to breathe the same air with him—and think of him nearer to herself, was some solace to her affliction. This was her first time of admittance into the long-interdicted citadel; and such is the origin of the delight which Charney sees beaming in her eyes, and the colour which he observes mantling on her cheek. Restored to the arms of her father, Teresa Girardi has indeed a right to look gay, and glad, and lovely!
It was a sentiment of curiosity which attracted her to the window; a feeling of interest soon attaches her to the spot. The noble prisoner and his occupation excite her attention; but finding herself noticed in her turn, she tries to recede from observation, as if convicted of unbecoming boldness. Teresa has nothing to fear! The Count de Charney, engrossed by Picciola and her flower-bud, has not a thought to throw away on any rival beauty!
A week afterwards, when the young girl was admitted to pay a second visit to her father, she turned her steps, almostunconsciously, towards the grated window for a glimpse of the prisoner; when Girardi, laying his hand upon her arm, exclaimed, “My fellow-prisoner has not been near his plant these three days. The poor gentleman must be seriously ill.”
“Ill; seriously ill!” exclaimed Teresa, with emotion.
“I have noticed more than one physician traversing the court: and from what I can learn from Ludovico, they agree only to a single point—that the Count de Charney will die.”
“Die!” again reiterated the young girl, with dilating eyes, and terror rather than pity expressed in her countenance. “Unhappy man—unhappy man!” Then turning towards her father, with terror in her looks, she exclaimed, “Peopledie, then, in this miserable place!”
“Yes, the exhalations from the old moats have infected the citadel with fever.”
“Father, dearest father!”
She paused—tears were gathering under her eyelids; and Girardi, deeply moved by her affliction, extended his hand tenderly towards her. Teresa seized and covered it with tears and kisses.
At that moment Ludovico made his appearance. He came to present to the fly-catcher a new captive whom hehad just arrested—neither more nor less than a dragon-fly with golden wings, which he offered with a triumphant smile to Girardi. The fly-catcher smiled, thanked his jailer, and, unobserved by Ludovico, set the insect at liberty; for it was the twentieth individual of the same species, with which he had furnished him during the last few days. He profited, however, by the jailer’s visit to ask tidings of his fellow-prisoner.
“Santissimo mio padrono!do you fancy I neglect the poor fellow?” cried Ludovico, gruffly: “though still under my charge, he will soon be under that of St. Peter. I have just been watering his favourite tree.”
“To what purpose—since he is never to behold its blossoms?” interrupted the daughter of Girardi.
“Perche, damigella—perche?” cried the jailer, with his accustomed wink, and sawing the air with a rude hand, of which the forefinger was authoritatively extended; “because, though the doctors have decided that the sick man has taken an eternal lease of the flat of his back, I, Ludovico, jailer of Fenestrella, am of a different opinion.Non lo credo—trondidio!—I have notions of my own on the subject.”
And turning on his heel he departed; assuming, as he left the room, his big voice of authority, to acquaint the poor girl, that only twenty-two minutes remained of the time allotted for her visit to her father. And at the appointed minute, to asecond, he returned, and executed his duty of shutting her out.
The illness of Charney was indeed of a serious nature. One evening, after his customary visit to Picciola, an attack of faintness overpowered him on regaining his room; when, rather than summon assistance, he threw himself on the bed, with aching brows, and limbs agitated by a nervous shivering. He fancied sleep would suffice for his restoration.
But instead of sleep, came pain and fever; and on the morrow, when he tried to rise, an influence more potent than his will nailed him to his pallet. Closing his eyes, the Count resigned himself to his sufferings. In the face of danger, the calmness of the philosopher and the pride of the conspirator returned. He would have felt dishonoured by a cry or murmur, or an appeal to the aid of those by whom he was sequestered from the breathing world—contenting himself with instructions to Ludovico respecting the care of his plant, in case he should be detained in bed, thecarcere durowhich was to render still harder his original captivity. Physicians were called in, and he refused to reply to their questioning. Charney seemed to fancy that, no longer master of his existence, he was exempted from all care for his life. His health was a portion of his confiscated property; and those who had appropriated all, might administer tothatamong the rest. At first, the doctors attempted to overcome his spirit of perversity; but finding the sick man obstinately silent, they began to interrogate his disorder instead of his temper.
The pathognomonic symptoms to which they addressed themselves, replied in various dialects and opposite senses; for the learned doctors invested their questions, each in the language of a different system. In the livid hue of Charney’s lips, and the dilated pupils of his eyes, one saw symptoms of putrid fever; another, of inflammation of the viscera; while the third inferred, from the coloration of the neck and temples, the coldness of the extremities, and the rigidity of thecountenance, that the disorder was paralytic or apoplectic—protesting that the silence of the patient was involuntary, the result of the cerebral congestion.
Twice did the captain-commandant of the fortress deign to visit the bedside of the prisoner. The first time to inquire whether the Count had any personal requests to make—whether he was desirous of a change of lodging, or fancied the locality had exercised an evil influence over his health; to all which questions Charney replied by a negative movement of the head. The second time, he came accompanied by a priest. The Count had been given over by his doctors as in a hopeless state. His time was expired; it became necessary to prepare him for eternity; and the functions of the commandant required that he should see the last consolations of religion administered to his dying prisoner.
Of all the duties of the sacerdotal office, the most august, perhaps, are those of the ordinary of a prison—of the priest whose presence sanctifies the aspect of the gibbet! Yet the scepticism of modern times has flung its bitter mockeries in the face of these devoted men! “Hardening their hearts under the cuirass of habit,” says the voice of the scorner, “these officials become utterly insensible. They forget to weep with the condemned—they forget to weep for them; and the routine of their professional exhortations has neither grace nor inspiration in its forms of prayer.”
Alas! of what avail were the most varied efforts of eloquence—since the exhortation is fated to reach but once the ear of the victim? Alas! what need to inveigh against a calling which condemns the pure and virtuous to live surrounded by the profligate and hard-hearted, who reply to their words of peace and love, with insults, imprecations, and contempt? Like yourselves, these devoted men might have tasted the luxuries and enjoyments of life—instead of braving the contact of the loathsome rags of misery, and the infected atmosphere of a dungeon. Endued with human sensibilities, and that horror of sights of blood and death inherent in all mankind,they compel themselves to behold, year after year, the gory knife of the guillotine descend on the neck of the malefactor; and such is the spectacle, such the enjoyment, which men of the world denounce as likely to wear down their hearts to insensibility!
The priest at Charney’s bedside.
The priest at Charney’s bedside.
The priest at Charney’s bedside.
In place of this “man of sorrows and acquainted with grief,” devoted for a lapse of years to this dreadful function, in place of this humble Christian, who has made himself the comrade of the executioner, summon a new priest to the aid of every criminal! It is true, he will be more deeply moved; it is true, his tears will fall more readily—but will he be more capable of the task of imparting consolation? His words are rendered incoherent by tears and sobs; his mind is distracted by agitation. The emotion of which he is so deeply susceptible, will communicate itself to the condemned, and enfeeble his courage at the moment of rendering up his life a sacrifice to the well-being of society. If the fortitude of the new almoner be such as enables him to command at once composure in his calling, be assured that his heart is a thousand times harder than that of the most experienced ordinary.
No—cast not a stone at the prison priest; throw no additional obstacles in the way of so painful a duty! Deprive not the condemned of their last friend. Let the cross of Christ interpose, as he ascends the scaffold, between the eyes of the criminal and the fatal axe of the executioner. Let his last looks fall upon an object proclaiming, trumpet-tongued, that after the brief vengeance of man comes the everlasting mercy ofGod!
The priest summoned to the bedside of Charney was fortunately worthy of his sacred functions. Fraught with tenderness for suffering humanity, he read at once, in the obstinate silence of the Count, and the withering sentences which disfigured his prison walls, how little was to be expected of so imperious and scornful a spirit; and satisfied himself with passing the night in prayers by his bedside, charitably officiating with Ludovico in the services indispensable to the sufferer.The Christian priest waited, as for the light of dawning day, an auspicious moment to brighten with a ray of hope the fearful darkness of incredulity!
In the course of that critical night, the blood of the patient determining to the brain, produced transports of delirium, necessitating restraint to prevent the unfortunate Count from dashing himself out of bed. As he struggled in the arms of Ludovico and the priest, a thousand incoherent exclamations and wild apostrophes burst from his lips; among which the words “Picciola—povera Picciola!” were distinctly audible.
“Andiamo!” cried Ludovico, the moment he caught the sound. “The moment is come! Yes, yes, the Count is right; the moment is come,” he reiterated with impatience. But how was he to leave the poor chaplain there alone, exposed to all the violence of a madman? “In another hour, it may be too late!” cried Ludovico. “Corpo di Dio!it will be too late. Blessed Virgin, methinks he is growing calmer! Yes, he droops! he closes his eyes! he is sinking to sleep! If at my return he is still alive, all’s well. Hurra! reverend father, we shall yet preserve him, hurra, hurra!”
And away went Ludovico, satisfied, now the excitement of Charney’s delirium was appeased, to leave him in the charge of the kind-hearted priest.
In the chamber of death, lighted by the feeble flame of a flickering lamp, nothing now was audible but the irregular breathing of the dying man, the murmured prayers of the priest, and the breezes of the Alps whistling through the grating of the prison-window. Twice, indeed, a human voice mingled in these monotonous sounds—the “qui vive?” of the sentinel, as Ludovico passed and repassed the postern on his way to his lodge, and back to the chamber of the Count. At the expiration of half an hour, the chaplain welcomed the return of the jailer, bearing in his hand a cup of steaming liquid.
“Santo Christo!I had half a mind to kill my dog!” said Ludovico, as he entered. “The brute, on seeing me, set upa howl, which is a sign of evil portent! But how have you been going on here? Has he moved? No matter! I have brought something that will soon set him to rights! I have made bold to taste it myself—bitter, saving your reverence’s presence, as five hundred thousanddiavoli! Pardon me!mio padre!”
But the priest gently put aside the offered cup.
“After all,” said Ludovico, “’tis not the stuff for us. A pint of good muscadello, warmed with a slice or two of lemon, is a better thing for sitters-up with the sick—eh,Signore Capellano? Butthisis the job for the poor Count;thiswill put things in their places. He must drink it to the last drop; for so says the prescription.”
And, as he spoke, Ludovico kept pouring the draught from one cup to another, and blowing to cool it; till, having reduced it to the proper temperature, he forced the half-insensible Count to swallow the whole potion, while the chaplain supported his shoulders for the effort. Then, covering the patient closely up, they drew together the curtains of the bed.
“We shall soon see the effects,” observed the jailer to his companion. “I don’t stir from hence till all is right. My birds are safe locked in their cages; my wife has got the babe to keep her company. What say you,Signore Capellano?”
And Ludovico’s garrulity having been silenced by the almoner, by a motion of the hand, the poor fellow stationed himself in silence at the foot of the bed, with his eyes fixed on the dying man; retaining his very breath in the anxiousness of his watchfulness for the event. At length, perceiving no sign of change in the Count, he grew uneasy. Apprehensive of having accelerated the last fatal change, he started up, and began pacing the room, snapping his fingers, and addressing menacing gestures to the cup, which was still standing on the table.
Suddenly he stopped short, and fixed his eyes on the livid face of Charney.
“I have been the death of him,” cried he, accompanying the apostrophe with a tremendous oath. “I have certainly been the death of him.”
The chaplain raised his head, when Ludovico, unappalled by his air of consternation, began anew to pace the room, to stamp, to swear, to snap his fingers with all the energy of Italian gesticulation, till, tired out by his own impetuosity, he threw himself on his knees beside the priest, hiding his head in the bedclothes, and murmuring hismea culpa, till, in the midst of a paternoster, he fell asleep.
At dawn of day the chaplain was still praying, and Ludovico still snoring; when a burning hand, placed upon the forehead of the latter, suddenly roused him from his slumbers.
“Give me some drink,” murmured the faint voice of Charney.
And, at the sound of a voice which he had supposed to be for ever silenced, Ludovico opened his eyes wide with stupefaction to fix them on the Count, upon whose face and limbs the moisture of an auspicious effort of nature was perceptible. The fever was yielding to the effect of the powerful sudorific administered by Ludovico; and the senses of Charney being now restored, he proceeded to give rational directions to the jailer concerning the mode of treatment to be adopted; then, turning towards the priest, still humbly stationed on his knees at the bedside, he observed—
“I am not yet dead, sir! Should I recover (as I have every hope of doing), present the compliments of the Count de Charney to his trio of doctors, and tell them I dispense with their further visits, and the blunders of a science as idleand deceptions as all the rest. I overheard enough of their consultations to know that I am indebted to chance alone for my recovery.”
“Chance!” faltered the priest—“chance!”—And, having raised his eyes to Heaven in token of compassion, they fell upon the fatal inscription on the wall—
“Chance, though blind, is the sole author of the creation.”
The chaplain paused, after perusing this frightful sentiment; then, having gathered breath by a deep and painful inspiration, he added, in a solemn voice, the last word inscribed by Charney—
“Perhaps!”
And ere the startled Count could address him, he had quitted the apartment.