The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano Part 17

Before he was removed, Antonio went up to him and whispered in his ear: "If you are a man of honour, not a word about the cause of our fray will pa.s.s over your lips. In four days time we will meet again: and if you are not of my way of thinking then, I am ready to give you any satisfaction."

Alfonso pledged his solemn promise; all the bystanders too a.s.sured Antonio that the wound as well as the whole affair should be kept a secret, not to expose him to any danger.

When they were all gone Antonio walkt with the priest Theodore deeper into the wood.

"Why," began the latter, "will you, for a fiend's sake, make over your own soul to h.e.l.l? I see, you are now of a different opinion; but is the sword the spokesman that should preach truth to a brother?"

Antonio felt in doubt how much he should disclose to the monk; however he said nothing about the wonderful event that had befallen him, and only entreated that, at the approaching festival of Easter, he might be allowed to enter the great church during high ma.s.s through the sacristy, near the altar.

After some objections Theodore complied, though he could not conceive what was the youth's purpose in asking for this permission. All Antonio said further was: "I wish to bring a friend into the church that way, whose entrance at the great door might perhaps be stopt."

All the bells in the city were ringing, that the holy feast of Easter might be kept with gladness and devotion. The people flockt toward the dome, to celebrate the most joyous of Christian festivals, and also to behold the renowned Apone in his new dignity. The students escorted their ill.u.s.trious teacher, who walkt along amid the reverent salutations of the n.o.bles, the council, and the citizens, in seeming piety and humility, an example to all, the pride of the city, the inspiring model of the youth. At the door of the cathedral the crowd shrank back in timid respect, to make way for their honoured bishop, who, in the garb of a prelate, with the golden chain round his neck, with his white beard and the white locks on his head, might be compared to an emperor or an ancient doctor of the church in his majestic demeanour.

A seat had been raised up on high for the great man near the altar, that the students and the people might see him; and when the mult.i.tude of the devout had poured into the church, the service began.

Theodore, the little priest, read ma.s.s on this day; and young and old, gentle and simple, all rejoiced to keep the festival of their Lord's resurrection in a worthy manner, and to behold the pomp of wors.h.i.+p returning, glad that after the days of severe fasting, after the saddening representations of suffering and sorrow, they might now comfort themselves with the feeling of a new life springing forth from the grave.

The first part of the divine service was already over, when people were astonisht to see Antonio Cavalcanti stepping into the church by the side of the altar, leading a thickly veiled figure in his hand. He placed the figure on the raised pavement just in face of Pietro, and then threw himself down before the altar praying. The m.u.f.fled form remained standing stiff and high, and beneath the covering one saw the firy black eyes. Pietro lifted himself from his seat, and sank back into it pale and trembling. The music of the ma.s.s now gusht and rolled in fuller symphonies; the m.u.f.fled form disentangled itself slowly from its veils; the face became free; and those who were nearest with horrour recognized the dead Crescentia. A shudder pa.s.sed through the whole church; even over those who were furthest off a secret s.h.i.+vering crept, to see the image pale as death standing so tall there, and praying so fervently, and never turning her large burning eyes from the priest at the altar. Even the great mighty Pietro himself seemed changed into a corpse; from his distorted features one might have held him to be dead, but that his life betrayed itself in his violent trembling.

Now the priest turned round and lifted up the consecrated host; trumpets announced the renewed presence of the Lord; and with a voice of triumph, with a face of high transport, her arms widely outspread, as she cried aloud "Hosannah!" so that the church resounded with it, the pale apparition dropt down, and lay dead, stiff, and motionless, before Pietro's feet.

The people rusht forward; the music stopt; curiosity, astonishment, horrour, and affright spake from every asking countenance; the n.o.bles and students went up to comfort and support the venerable old man, who appeared so deeply shockt; when Antonio with a yelling sound shouted: "Murder! Murder!" and began the most fearful charge, the most appalling tale, unfolded the h.e.l.lish arts, the accursed magic of the dismayed sinner, spake of himself and of Crescentia and of their awful meeting again, until anger and rage and imprecations and loathing and curses raved like a stormy sea around the criminal, and threatened to annihilate him, to tear him to pieces in the madness of their fury.

They talkt of gaolers and chains; the inquisitors drew near; when Pietro started up as in a frenzy, thrust and struck about him with clencht fists, and seemed to spread himself out to a gigantic size. He walkt up to Crescentia's body that lay smiling like the picture of a saint, gazed at her once more, and then pa.s.sed roaring and with flas.h.i.+ng eyes through the crowd.

A new horrour seized the people; they made room for the huge form; all moved out of his way. Thus Pietro came to the open street: but the mob now bethought themselves, and with cries and curses and revilings pursued the fugitive, who ran hastily onward, while his long robes flew far behind him, and the gold chain beat and rattled upon his breast and shoulders. The rabble, as they could not catch him, tore up the stones from the pavement, and threw them after him; and wounded, bleeding, dripping with sweat, his teeth chattering from fear, Pietro at last reacht the threshold of his house.

He hid himself in the innermost apartments; and Beresynth came forward inquisitively, asking all sorts of questions, to meet the mob and the rush of the people.

"Fall upon the maskt devil! the familiar!" they all shouted: "tear in pieces the profane creature who never yet set foot in a church!"

He was dragged and pusht into the street; no answer was made to his inquiries and intreaties, to his howls and shrieks, nor indeed was anything heard through the stormy tumult except curses and threats of death. "Bring me before the magistrate!" at length screamed the dwarf; "there my innocence will be made clear as day."

The constables were summoned, and seizing him led him toward the prison. All the people prest after him. "In here with him!" cried the chief of the officers: "chains and f.a.ggots are waiting for thee."

He tried to tear himself away from them; the constables laid hold on him and shoved him to and fro: one seized him by the collar, another by the arm, the next clung round his leg to hold him fast, a fourth caught his head to make quite sure of him.

While they were pulling him backward and forward in this way amid shouts and curses and laughter, on the sudden they all started off from one another; for each had got nothing but a piece of clothing, a sleeve, cap, or shoe of the monster; he himself was nowhere to be seen. He could not have run away; he seemed to have vanisht; but n.o.body could tell how.

When they had broken into Apone's chamber, those who rusht in found him lying on his bed, lifeless, having bled to death. They plundered the house; the magical implements, the books, the strange furniture, were all made over to the flames; and throughout the whole city nothing resounded except curses on the man whom but this morning all had honoured as a messenger from Heaven. This only embittered the loathing with which they now revolted from the phantom.

When the turmoil by which the people were agitated was somewhat allayed, the body of Pietro was silently buried at night, without the consecrated churchyard. Antonio and Alfonso renewed their friends.h.i.+p, and attacht themselves to the pious Theodore, who, after going through the solemn rites and p.r.o.nouncing a devout oration, had the body of the beautiful Crescentia laid a second time in the vault designed for her.

Antonio however could not bear to stay any longer at Padua; he resolved to revisit his native city, that he might settle his affairs, and then perhaps get admitted into a convent. Alfonso on the other hand determined to make a pilgrimage to Rome, where the holy Father had just been proclaiming a year of jubilee with a plenary indulgence for sins. Not only throughout Italy was every one in motion; but from France too, and Germany, and Spain, came numerous trains of pilgrims, to celebrate this till then unheard of solemnity, this great festival of the church, in the holy city.

After the friends had parted, Antonio pursued his lonely path, shunning the great road, partly for the sake of brooding uninterruptedly over his sorrows, and partly to avoid the swarms that were flocking along the highway, and were often troublesome at the nightly resting-places.

Thus following his own mood, he roamed through the plains and through the vallies of the Apennines. One evening the sun set and no inn was to be seen. As the shades were deepening, he heard a hermit's little bell tinkling in a wood on one side. He bent his steps toward the sound, and when the darkness of night was already closing, he arrived at a small hut, to which a narrow plank led across a brook, surrounded by bushes.

He found an aged infirm man praying with the deepest devotion before a crucifix. The hermit received the youth, who greeted him courteously, with kindness made up a couch of moss for him in a recess of the rock which was separated by a door from his cell, and placed some of his fruit, some water, and a little wine before him. When Antonio was refresht, he was greatly pleased with the conversation of the monk, who in earlier times had lived in the world, and served as a soldier in many campaigns. In this way it had grown late in the night, and the youth betook himself to his bed, just as another weak and sickly monk entered, who meant to pa.s.s the night with the hermit in prayer.

When Antonio had rested about an hour he started suddenly out of his sleep. It seemed to him as though loud voices were disputing. He sat up; and all doubt about the quarelling and squabbling was removed. The tones too struck him as if he knew them; and he askt himself whether he was not dreaming. He went to the door, and found a crevice through which he could pry into the front room.

How was he amazed at beholding Pietro Abano, whom he could not but deem dead, speaking loudly, with eyes of rage and a red face, and striding about with violent gestures! Over against him stood little Beresynth's hideous carcase.

"So you have got your persecutor," cried the latter with a croaking voice, "who has made you thus wretched, the lovesick G.o.dly fool, here under your roof! he has run of his own accord like a silly rabbit into the snare: and you are s.h.i.+llishallying about cutting his throat."

"Silence!" cried the large figure: "I have already taken counsel with my spirits; they will not consent; I have no hold upon him; for he is imprisoned in no sin."

"Smite him dead then," said the little one, "without your spirits, with your own gracious hands: so his virtue and his sinlessness will not avail him much; and I should be a sorry servant if I were not to stand by you in so praiseworthy an exploit."

"Well then!" said Pietro: "let us go to work; take thou the hammer; I'll carry the axe; he is fast asleep now."

They advanced toward the door; but Antonio tore it back, to meet the villains boldly in the face. He had drawn his sword; but he remained like a statue, standing with uplifted arm, when he saw two sickly decrepit hermits lying on their knees before the cross, mumbling their prayers.

"Do you want anything?" askt his host, rising toilsomely from the floor. Antonio was so astounded, he could make no answer.

"Why that drawn sword?" askt the weak stooping hermit; "and wherefore these menacing looks?"

Antonio drew back with the excuse that a frightful dream had scared and worried him. He could not fall asleep again; his senses were in such a tumult. Ere long he again plainly heard Beresynth's croaking voice; and Pietro said with a full clear tone: "Have done; thou seest he is armed and warned; he will not trust himself to sleep again."

"We must overpower him then;" screamed the little one: "now that he has recognized us, we are quite undone every way. The pious slave will go and give us up to the inquisition tomorrow; and the pious rabble will then be at hand in a trice with their f.a.ggots and flames."

Through the c.h.i.n.k in the door he perceived the two magicians. He again rusht in with his sword drawn, and again found two decrepit old men lying on the ground and whining their prayers. Enraged at the cheating forms, he seized them in his arms and wrestled violently with them; they defended themselves desperately; it was now Pietro, now the hermit, one moment the imp Beresynth, the next a crippled old monk.

After much screaming and raving, cursing and wailing, he at last succeeded in thrusting them out of the cell, which he then carefully fastened. He now heard a whining without and entreaties and groans, mixt up with the whispering of many voices, and with songs and yells; afterward rain and wind seemed to be stirring, and a storm afar off rolled athwart the mult.i.tudinous sound. Stunned at length by all this, Antonio fell asleep, leaning on his sword as he sat before the crucifix; and when the cold morning breeze awakened him, he found himself on the highest peak of a narrow ridge in the midst of a thick forest, and thought he heard bursts of scornful laughter behind him.

It was at the peril of his life that he climbed down the steep precipice, tearing his clothes, and wounding his face and hands and feet. He had then to wander wearisomely through the forest: there was not a soul to call to, not a hut to be discovered far around, often as he mounted the hights to explore. When it was almost night, faint with fatigue, hunger, and exhaustion, he fell in with an old collier who refresht him in his little hut. He learnt that he must be some twelve miles and upward from the hermitage he had met with the evening before. It was only late on the following day that, somewhat strengthened and cheered, he could pursue his journey toward Florence.

Antonio had returned to Florence for the sake of visiting his kindred and his paternal house again. He could not make up his mind on what course of life to enter, since all the happiness of existence had proved so treacherous, and even realities had shewn themselves to him under the aspect of a mad dream.

He settled his affairs, and gave himself up to his sorrow in the great palace of his fathers; where that fatal grotto and every well-known room only harast his mind with the liveliest images of his own and his parents misfortunes. He thought too of that hateful witch who was so entangled in his fate, and of that Crescentia who had appeared to him and then vanisht again in a way scarcely less marvellous than his bride. If he could have caught the slightest glimmering of hope, he might in time have grown reconciled to life again.

At last there rose up within his soul, like a pale star, the wish of making a pilgrimage to Rome, which he had never yet seen, there to partake in the graces bestowed upon the faithful, to visit the famous churches and holy relics, to divert his thoughts from himself in the midst of the streaming mult.i.tude, the throng of numberless strangers who had journied thither from all quarters of the earth, and to seek out his friend Alfonso. He also expected that he should find old Ambrosio in the great city, should receive comfort from this mourner who had meant to become his father, and might perhaps afford him too some comfort in his affliction. With these feelings and views he set out on his way, and after some time arrived at Rome.

He was astonisht when he entered the great city. He had framed no conception of her grandeur, her ancient monuments, or of such a concourse of innumerable strangers. It might well be deemed matter of wonder if one found out any friend or acquaintance, without being able beforehand to give an accurate account of where he lived. And yet this wonderful chance befell him in his suddenly meeting Ambrosio, as he was going up to the Capitol from which the old man was coming down.

The Podesta carried him to his house, where Antonio greeted the sorrowing mother. The rumour of Pietro's strange end, of Crescentia's return to life and second departure from it, had already been bruited as far as Rome: this marvellous story was in the mouth of every pilgrim, disfigured with confused additions and contradictions, and drest out by frequent repeating into the very reverse of the truth.

The parents listened with alternations of joy and woe to the story as Antonio told it, awestruck as they both were, especially the mother, who gave vent to her loathing in execrations against the old hypocritical magician, and in her rage more than half believed that he had himself been the cause of her daughter's death, having perhaps taken a bribe for that purpose from the family of Marconi, that he had poisoned her for the sake of awakening her corpse again to gratify his frantic abominations.

"Let us leave all this to heaven;" said the old man. "What happened and was notorious to the whole city and country, was quite horrible enough, without involving others, who may perhaps have been innocent, in this enormous wickedness. However, let the matter with regard to the Marconis stand as it may, I am perfectly resolved that they shall never be the better off for my fortune. By the help of my patrons here I shall obtain leave to make over my property to some convents or charitable foundations; and perhaps my weariness of life may lead me to end my own days as a monk or hermit."

"But what," threw in the mother weeping, "if it were possible after all to find out that second Crescentia again, of whom Antonio has told us! The child was stolen from me during your absence in a most incomprehensible manner; the witch who named the Marconis on that night, the likeness, all, all agrees so wonderfully, that surely we ought not to cast away hope, that first and chief good of life, too early, not too hastily, in our despair."

"Good Eudoxia," said the father, "have done, have done with all these dreams and stories and wild fancies: for us there remains in this world nothing that is certain, except death; and that ours may be pious and easy, is what we must wish and pray to heaven for."