Chapter VIII: Part 8

He went away; and in the antechamber he found Beresynth, who with grinning mouth was catching flies and then tossing them to a monkey. Both seemed engaged in a match which could make the most portentous faces. His master now called aloud for the servant, and the monster hopt in. Antonio heard a loud squabble, and Pietro appeared to be violently angry. Whining and yelling Beresynth came out of the room; a stream of blood was rushing down from his enormous nose.

"Can't he keep his doors shut himself," howled the abortion, "allsapient and allpotent as he is? When the master is a blockhead, the servant must bear the blame. Betake you yourself, most honorablest sir, up to your most attic study, and leave me with my good friend, my dear Pavian here, in peace. He has still a human heart, the dear faithful creature. Merry comrade as he is, in his tender moments he is the most exquisite fellow. Come march! Pylades would feast on some more flies, which his Orestes must catch for him."

Antonio left the room almost stupefied.

* * * * *

The Florentine youth had taken up his abode in his teacher's house, for the sake of giving himself up without any interruption to his sorrows and his studies. He had chosen the most retired and highest room in the whole building, to be quite alone and unvisited by anybody. When he lookt from hence over the beautiful and fruitful fields about the city, and followed the course of the river with his eyes, he thought the more intensely of his, lost love. He had got her picture from her parents, as well as some toys she had played with in her childhood; above all he delighted in a nightingale, that in its moving plaints seemed to him to be only pouring forth the woes of his own heart. This bird had been fostered by Crescentia with the utmost care and fondness; and Antonio preserved it like something holy, as the last relic of his earthly happiness.

With other young men of his own age he never mingled, excepting the Spaniard Alfonso, to whom he was united by their equally enthusiastic admiration of Pietro Abano. The Podesta Ambrosio had resigned his office and left the city: he meant to spend the rest of his life at Rome, for the sake of getting beyond the reach of his relations at Venice. He had given up the thought of ever again finding the twin daughter who had been stolen from him in her infancy; and his grief had been embittered by Antonio's calling back this hope with such a shock into his soul. He was convinced the young man had misled him and himself been deceived by the fevered dreams of that night.

In the morning Pietro set off with his trusty servant. Antonio was left alone in the large house, the rooms of which were all lockt up. The night had past over him in sleeplessness. That terrific figure was evermore standing before his eyes, which, greatly as it had appalled him, had yet reawakened all his most delightful feelings. It was as though all power of thinking had died away within him; visions which he could not hold fast kept moving in ever-rolling circles before his imagination. It was a frightful feeling to him, that he knew not what to think of his venerated teacher, that he had a boding of lawless mysteries, and of a horrour which since that look into the chamber seemed to be awaiting him, to strip him of all optimism, and to deliver him up to madness and despair.

The nightingale began singing before his window, and he saw that it was blowing hard and raining. His fondness for the bird made him take it in and set it atop of a high old wardrobe. He clambered up and was leaning over to place the cage steadily, when the chain from which the portrait of his beloved was hanging broke, and the picture slid to the wall and down behind the old oak chest. The unhappy are terrified by the veriest trifles. He got down hastily to seek for his darling treasure. He stoopt down to the ground, but his search was vain; it was not to be seen beneath the large heavy cabinet. Everything, whether of great or little moment, in his life seemed to be persecuting him as it were under some spell. He shoved at the old piece of furniture and tried to push it out of its place; but it was fastened to the wall. His impatience grew more vehement with every hinderance. He seized an old iron bar which he found in the anteroom, and laboured with all his strength to move the wardrobe; and at last, after much heaving and wrenching and a hundred fruitless efforts, it gave way with a loud cracking as if an iron cramp or chain had snapt. The cabinet now by degrees came forward, and Antonio was at length able to squeeze himself in between it and the wall. He immediately saw his beloved portrait. It was lying upon the broad knob of a door, which jutted out of the wall. He kist it, and turned the handle, which yielded. A door opened; and he resolved to push the great wardrobe somewhat further away, and to explore this strange matter; for he thought the owner of the house himself could hardly be acquainted with this secret passage, which had been concealed with so much care, and, as it appeared, for so long a time.

When he had gained a little more room, he saw that behind the door there was a narrow winding staircase. He went down a few steps; the thickest darkness came round him. He descended lower and still lower; the stairs seemed to lead down almost to the bottom of the house. He was on the point of returning, when he struck against a stoppage; for the flight of steps was now at an end. As he groped up and down in the darkness, his hand hit on a brass ring, which he pulled, and instantly the wall opened, and a red glow streamed into his face. Before he passed through, he examined the door, and found that a spring which the ring had set in motion, had driven it back. He put it to and stept cautiously into the room.

It was covered with costly red tapestry; purple curtains of heavy silk hung down before the windows: a bed of brilliant scarlet embroidered with gold rose in the middle of the room. Everything was still; no sound was heard from the street; the windows lookt into a small garden.

A painful anxiety came over the youth as he stood in the midst of the chamber; he listened attentively, and at length seemed to hear the low whisper of a breath, as from a sleeper. With throbbing heart he turned round, and went forward, to spy whether any one was upon the bed; he spread open the silken hangings, and ... he thought he must be in a dream; for before him lay, pale as a corpse, but in a sweet slumber, the form of his beloved Crescentia. Her bosom heaved visibly; something like a slight blush had tinged her pale lips, which were softly closed, quivering imperceptibly as a gentle smile ever and anon flitted over them. Her hair was loose and lay in its dark heavy locks upon her shoulders. Her dress was white, with a golden clasp at her girdle. For a long time Antonio stood lost in gazing; at last as if driven by a supernatural power he snatcht the lovely white hand, and began to pull up the sleeper by force. She darted a plaintive cry forth; and frightened by it he let go the arm again, which dropt languidly upon the pillow.

But the dream, so seemed it, had flown away; the net of sleep which had held the wonderous form inclosed, was rent asunder: and as clouds and mists move along the side of the hills on the gentle morning breeze in wavy forms and now rise and now sink again, so the slumberer began to stir, stretcht herself as if powerless, and in slow and graceful motions seemed striving to emerge from her sleep. Her arms raised themselves, so that the broad sleeves fell back and displayed their full beauteous roundness; her hands folded themselves, and then dropt down again; the head arose, and the bright neck lifted itself freely up; but the eyes were still fast closed; the black tresses fell over the face, but the long taper fingers stroaked them back; now the fair one was sitting quite upright; she crost her arms over her breast, heaved a hard sigh, and on a sudden her large eyes stood wide open and glancing.

She gazed at the youth; but it was as though she saw him not; she shook her head; then she graspt the gold tassel which was fastened to the top of the bed, lifted herself strongly up, and the tall slender form was now standing on its feet raised up on high in the midst of the scarlet drapery. She then stept safely and firmly down from the couch, walkt a few paces up to Antonio who had drawn back, and with a childish exclamation of surprise, as when children are suddenly gladdened by a new plaything, she laid her hand upon his shoulder, smiled lovelily upon him, and cried with a soft voice: "Antonio!"

But he, pierced through and through with fear and horrour and joy and amazement and the deepest pity, knew not whether to fly from her, to embrace her, to cast himself at her feet, or to melt away in tears and die. That was the selfsame sound which of yore he had heard so often and with such delight, at which his whole heart had turned round.

"Thou livest?" he cried with a voice which the swell of his feelings stifled.

The sweet smile that had mounted from her pale lips over her cheeks even into her radiant eyes, suddenly split, and froze into a stiff expression of the deepest most unutterable woe.

Antonio could not endure the glance of those eyes; he covered his face with his hands, and shriekt: "Art thou a ghost?"

The figure came still closer, prest down his arms with her hands, so that his face lay bare, and said with a gently fluttering voice: "No, look at me; I am not dead; and yet I live not. Give me that cup there."

A fragrant liquid was floating in the crystal vessel; he held it out to her trembling; she set it to her mouth and sipt the drink by slow draughts. "Alas! my poor Antonio!" she then said: "I will only borrow these earthly powers that I may disclose the most monstrous of crimes to thee, that I may beseech thy aid, that I may prevail on thee to help me to that rest after which all my feelings so fervently yearn."

She had sunk back into the arm-chair, and Antonio was sitting at her feet. "Hellish arts," she again began, "have seemingly awakened me from death. The same man whom my inexperienced youth honoured as an apostle, is a spirit of darkness. He gave me this shadow of life. He loves me, as he says. How my heart shrank back from him when my awakening eye beheld him. I sleep, I breathe; I may, if I choose, be restored to life altogether, so that wicked man has promist me, if I will give myself up to him with my whole heart, if in secret concealment I will let him become my husband.... O Antonio, how hard is every word to me, every thought! All his art crumbles before my longing for death. It was frightful, when my spirit, already at rest, with new visions already unfolding before it, was summoned back so cruelly out of its calm peace. My body was already a stranger to me, a hostile and hateful thing. I came back like the freed slave to chains and a dungeon. Help me, my true lover; save me."

"How!" said Antonio: "Oh God in Heaven! what have I lived to! in what a state do I find thee again! And thou canst not, mayst not return to life altogether? thou canst not again be mine, again be thy parents' dear child?"

"Impossible!" cried Crescentia with a tone of anguish, and her paleness became yet whiter from dismay. "Alas! Life! How can any one seek it again, who has once been set free from it? Thou, my poor Antonio, conceivest not the deep longing, the love, the rapture, wherewith I think upon death and pant for it. Even more intensely than of yore I loved thee, even more fervently than my lips at the Easter festival pined for the holy wafer, do I now yearn for death. Then I shall love thee more freely and more wholly in God; then I shall be given back to my parents. Then I shall live; formerly I was dead; now I am a cloud and a shadow, a riddle to myself and to thee. Alas, when thy love and our youth have gleamed in upon me in my present state, when I have heard my well-known nightingale from above pouring her song into my loneliness, what a sweet shuddering, what a dark joy and pain have then rippled through the dusk of my being! O help me to get loose from this chain."

"What can I do for thee?" askt Antonio.

Her talking had again broken the strength of the apparition: she paused awhile with closed eyelids; then she spake faintly: "Alas! if I could go into a church, if I could be present when the Lord is lifted up and appears to the congregation in the sacrament, then in that blessed moment I should die of rapture."

"What should hinder me," said Antonio, "from informing against the villain, and delivering him up to the tribunals and to the inquisition?"

"No! no! no!" groaned the figure in the greatest terrour: "thou dost not know him; he is too mighty; he would make his escape, and again tear me to him within the circle of his wickedness. Quietly and by silence alone can we succeed; he must feel secure. A chance has brought thee to me. Thou must make him believe himself quite safe, and keep everything secret."

The youth collected his senses; he talkt much with his former betrothed; but speaking became more and more difficult to her; her eyelids dropt down; she drank once more of the wonderous potion; then she made him lead her to the couch.

"Farewell!" she said, as if already in a dream; "do not forget me."

She mounted upon the bed, laid herself gently down; her hands searcht for the crucifix, which she kist with her eyes closed; then she held out her hand to her lover, and beckoned him away as she stretcht herself out to sleep.

Antonio gazed at her awhile; then with the spring he shut the invisible door again, crept back up the narrow winding stairs to his chamber, fixt the wardrobe in its old place, and burst into hot tears as the song of the nightingale welcomed him with the swell of its mournful notes. He too longed for death, and only wisht beforehand to release her, who but a few days since was to have been his earthly bride, from her marvellous and awful state.

* * * * *

In order to be out of the way when his teacher returned from his journey, Antonio had bent his steps toward the loneliest part of the wood. It was an annoyance to him to meet his friend, the Spaniard, here; for he was in no mood to carry on a conversation. However, as there was no avoiding his comrade, he resigned himself in silent sadness to the society which at other times had been a pleasure to him and a comfort. He only half listened to what his friend said, and answered but sparingly. As was almost always the case, Pietro was again the theme of Alfonso's boundless admiration.

"Why are you thus stingy of your words today?" he at length began, somewhat vext: "is my company troublesome to you? or are you no longer as capable as you used to be of honouring our great teacher and giving him the glory he deserves?"

Antonio was forced to collect himself, not to sink away entirely into his dreamy state.

"What is the matter with you?" askt Alfonso again: "it seems I have offended you."

"No, you have not;" cried the Florentine; "but if you have any regard for me, if you would not excite my anger, if you would not have the bitterest feelings rend my heart, do give over chaunting the praises of your idolized Pietro for today. Let us talk on some other subject."

"Ha! by Heaven!" exclaimed Alfonso: "so the parsons have twisted your feeble senses round at last. Go your own way henceforward, young man; wisdom, I now well see, is too lofty a prize for you. Your head is too weak for this fare; and you are longing again for the pap you were wont to get from the former fathers of your soul. You will do better to stay with them, at least till your milk teeth have dropt out."

"You are talking overweeningly," cried Antonio in wrath; "or rather you are utterly ignorant of what you are saying, and I deserve not this language from you."

"How has our teacher deserved," said the Spaniard hastily, "he who has taken you in like a father, he who favours you so highly above all the young men of our university, who allows you to dwell in his house, who entrusts you with all the thoughts of his heart, by what offense has he deserved, that you should thus mean-spiritedly deny him?"

"If I were to answer now," returned Antonio angrily, "that you do not know him, that I have reasons, and the fullest, to think otherwise of him, again you would not understand me."

"Verily," said Alfonso with a sneer, "you have already scaled so high into the most secret places of his philosophy, that the common unfavoured child of earth is unable to follow you. Here again one sees that half-merit and quarter-merit puff themselves up the most. Pietro Abano is more lowly-minded than you, his feeble mimic."

"You are unmannerly!" exclaimed the young Florentine irritated to the utmost. "If I were now to assure you by my honour, by my faith, by heaven, and by everything which must needs be holy and venerable to you and me, that in all Italy, in all Europe, there is no such wicked villain, no so atrocious hypocrite as this...."

"Who?" shouted Alfonso.

"Pietro Abano," said Antonio now grown calm: "what would you say then?"

"Nothing!" furiously cried the other, who had not allowed him to finish: "save that you, and everybody else who dares to speak in that way, are the paltriest knaves that ever had the audacity to blaspheme holy things. Draw, if you would not be called a mean coward as well as a base slanderer."

Antonio's drawn sword met the challenger with the same speed; and it was in vain that a hoarse anxious voice cried out to them: "Hold!" Alfonso was wounded in the breast; and the blood at the same time ran from Antonio's arm.

The old priest, who had wisht to separate the quarrellers, now hastened forward; bound up their wounds and stancht the blood; then he called to some students that he had seen a little way off, and told them to carry the wounded Alfonso to the city.

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 pass 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 assured 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 hell? 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 mass 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 illustrious teacher, who walkt along amid the reverent salutations of the nobles, 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 multitude of the devout had poured into the church, the service began.

Theodore, the little priest, read mass 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 worship 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 muffled 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 mass now gusht and rolled in fuller symphonies; the muffled form disentangled itself slowly from its veils; the face became free; and those who were nearest with horrour recognized the dead Crescentia. A shudder passed through the whole church; even over those who were furthest off a secret shivering 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 nobles 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 hellish 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 passed roaring and with flashing 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 faggots 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 nobody 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 friendship, and attacht themselves to the pious Theodore, who, after going through the solemn rites and pronouncing 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 pass 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 godly fool, here under your roof! he has run of his own accord like a silly rabbit into the snare: and you are shillishallying 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 faggots and flames."

Through the chink 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 multitudinous 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 multitude, 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."

"And if hereafter, when it is already too late," exclaimed the mother, "our poor orphan child should be found again, may not the unhappy girl justly reproach us for not relying on the bounty and mercy of Heaven, and waiting for her return with a little more calmness and patience?"

Ambrosio cast a dark frown on the youth, and then said: "This too has come in over and above all the rest to deepen our wretchedness: you have infected my poor wife with your sick fancies, and have thereby robbed her of her peace, the only, the last blessing of life."

"What mean you by these words?" askt Antonio.

"Young man," answered the father, "ever since that ride of yours through field and forest, when you pinned that wild tale upon me about the events which you said had befallen you the night before...."

"Signor Ambrosio!" cried Antonio, and his hand fell involuntarily on his sword.

"Leave that alone," continued the old man calmly: "far be from me the wish to accuse you of a falsehood; I have too long known your noble character, and your love for truth. But has it never struck you, my poor young friend, without my putting it into your head, that ever since the night when you met my daughter's coffin, having come with the thought to carry her home with you the next day as your bride, your senses have got into disorder, your reason has been much weakened? During that lonely night, beneath that storm, in the strongly excited state of your passions, you fancied you saw my lost child again; and the recollections of your unfortunate father, of your long-lost mother, connected themselves with her image. In this way were those visions bred, and fixt themselves firmly in your brain. Did we find a single trace of the hut? Was a human creature in the neighbourhood able to tell us a word about the robbers you killed? That awful meeting again with my real daughter, in which I perforce must believe, is of itself enough to fever the very coldest feelings into madness; and need one marvel then at your talking of having encountered another impossibility, at your story about finding the dead Pietro come to life among the mountains, and not knowing him again, and about those almost farcical tricks of jugglery that were played you, all which you have related to us with the very same assurance? No, my good Antonio, pain and grief have distracted your sounder senses, so that you see and believe in things which have no real existence."

Antonio was perplext and knew not what to reply. Greatly as the loss of his beloved had shaken all the faculties of his soul, he still was too clearly conscious of the events he had past through, to bring their reality thus in question.

He now felt a new motive to activity: he wisht at least to prove that the story of that night was no dreamy phantom, that his second Crescentia was an actual being; and thus it became his liveliest desire to find her again, and to restore her to her afflicted parents, or at least make Ambrosio acknowledge that he had misjudged him.

In this mood he left his old friend, and wandered about the city to and fro, prest by the concourse of people, and half stunned by shouts, and questions, and stories in all the languages of the earth. Thus, shoved and pusht about, he had been driven on as far as the Lateran, when he fancied that, as the crowd now and then opened a little, he distinctly perceived, though some way off, that selfsame hideous old woman, the mother of the beautiful maiden, who bore the name of his Crescentia.

He endeavoured to get up to her, and seemed to be succeeding, when a train of pilgrims came pouring from a cross street, who cut him off entirely, and made all further advance impossible. While he was struggling with all his might, and working his way up the steps of St John's Church, that he might be able to overlook the multitude, he felt a friendly slap on his shoulder, and a wellknown voice pronounced his name. It was the Spaniard Alfonso.

"So I find you exactly in the place," said he joyfully, "where I lookt for you."

"What do you mean by that?" askt Antonio.

"First let us get out of the way of this torrent of human flesh," cried the other: "in this place, from the myriads of tongues that are wagging, from the ceaseless buz of this monstrous Babylonian beehive, one can't hear a single word."

They took a walk out into the country; and here Alfonso confest to his friend that, since he had been at Rome, he had devoted himself to the science of astrology, divination, and other like things, which he had formerly held in abhorrence, having been of opinion that they could only be acquired by accursed means and by the help of evil spirits. "But since the day," he continued, "when I made acquaintance with the incomparable Castalio, this knowledge appears to me in a far higher and purer light."

"And is it possible," exclaimed Antonio, "that after all those fearful events at Padua, you can again expose your soul to such perils? Do you not clearly see that whatsoever is to be attained in a natural way and by means of our own reason does not repay the trouble, being nothing more than a set of petty tricks that can only excite merriment and laughter! that everything beyond on the other hand, which does not turn upon empty delusion, cannot possibly be called into being, unless by evil and damnable powers?"

"Declaiming," said the Spaniard, "is not proving. We are far too young to understand the whole of our own nature; much less can we comprehend the rest of the world and all its unexplored mysteries. When you once see the man whom I have so much to thank for, all your doubts will vanish. Pious, simple-hearted, nay childlike, as he is, every look of his eye pours the light of confidence into you."

"And how was it with Apone?" Antonio threw in.

"He," replied his friend, "always wanted to be coming forward in the light of a supernatural being: he was evermore labouring, consciously and purposely, to appear as a messenger from Heaven, and with counterfeit splendour to dazzle the ordinary sons of men. He delighted in pomp; he would indeed be condescending at times, but it was only to make the enormous distance between him and us more palpably felt. Did he not revel in the admiration which the nobles and citizens, the young and old, were all forced to pay him? But my present friend (for such he is, because he renders himself altogether my equal) has no wish to seem great and sublime: he smiles at the endeavours of so many men to do so, and considers this of itself as an assurance that there is something spurious and hollow to be concealed; since a clear consciousness of worth would only wish to pass for what it feels itself to be, and the wisest of mortals must after all acknowledge that he too, as well as the most ignorant vagabond, is merely a child of the dust."

"You make me curious;" said Antonio: "so he knows both what is past and what is to come? the destinies of men? and could tell me how happy or unhappy the cast of my future life is to be? whether certain secret wishes can be accomplisht? Would he then be able to decipher and divine such parts of my history as are obscure even to myself?"

"It is in this very thing that his wisdom lies," answered Alfonso with enthusiasm; "by means of letters and numbers, in the simplest and most harmless way, he finds out everything for which those wretches have to employ conjurations and charms and yells and screams and the agonies of death. Hence too you will find none of that odious magical apparatus about him, no crystals with spirits blockt up in them, no mirrors and skeletons, no incense, and no nauseous imps: he has all his stores in himself. I told him about you; and he found out by his calculations that I was quite sure of meeting you today at this hour on the steps of the Lateran church. And so it has turned out at the very instant he foretold."

Antonio was desirous of becoming acquainted with this wonderfully gifted old man, in the hope of learning his destiny from him. They dined in a garden, and toward evening went back to the city. The streets had grown somewhat quieter; they could pursue their way with less hinderance. At dusk they came into the allies which pass close behind the tomb of Augustus. They walkt through a little garden; a friendly light glimmered upon them from the windows of a small house. They pulled the bell; the door opened; and full of the strangest and highest expectations Antonio entered with his friend into the hall.

* * * * *

Antonio was surprised at seeing before him a simple-mannered middle-sized young man, who from his appearance could not be much above thirty years old. With an unaffected air he greeted the youth on his entrance like an old acquaintance.

"Be welcome!" said he with a pleasing voice: "your Spanish friend has told me much good of you, so that I have long lookt forward with pleasure to becoming acquainted with you. Only you must by no means fancy that you are come to one of the sages, to an adept, or forsooth to a man before whom hell trembles in its foundations: you will find me a mere mortal, such as you yourself are and may become, as may every man whom such graver studies, and retirement from the vain tumult of the world, do not scare away."

Antonio felt comfortable and at ease, greatly as he was astonisht: he cast his eyes round the room, which beside a few books and a lute displayed nothing out of the way. In his own mind he compared this little house and its straightforward inmate with the palace and the pomp, the instruments and the mysteries, of his former teacher, and said: "In truth one sees no traces here of that high and hidden knowledge which my friend has been extolling to me, and in which you are said to be infallible."

Castalio laught heartily, and then replied: "No, my young friend, not infallible; no mortal can go so far as that. Only look around you; this is my sitting-room; there in that little chamber stands my bed: I have neither space nor means for hiding any instruments of fraud, or setting any artificial machinery in action. All those circles and glasses, those celestial globes and maps of the stars, which your conjurers need for their tricks, would find no room here: and those poor creatures after all are only deluded by the spirit of falsehood, because they will not labour to learn the powers of their own minds. He however who descends into the depths of his own soul, with humility and a pious disposition to guide him, he who is in earnest in wishing to know himself, will at the same time find every thing here which he would vainly strive by desperate means and devices to extort from Heaven and Hell. _Become like children._ In this exhortation the whole mystery lies hidden. Only let our feelings be pure, and we may again, even though it be but for hours or moments, cast off all that our first parents drew down upon themselves by their wanton disobedience; we walk again as in paradise; and Nature with all her powers comes forward as she did then, in the youthful bridal age of the world, to meet the transfigured man. Is not this the very thing which proves our spirit to be a spirit, that bodily hinderances, space and time, with the confusion they breed, cannot confine it? It soars even now on the wings of yearning and devotion far above all the circles of the stars: nothing checks its flight, save that earthly power which, when sin entered, pounced upon it and enslaved it. This however we can and ought to subdue, by prayer, by self-abasement before the Lord, by confessing our vast guilt, and by boundless gratitude to him for his unfathomable love; and then we see and hear the things that are curtained from us by space and time; we are here and there; the future comes forward and, like the past, pours out its secrets before us; the whole realm of knowledge, of comprehension, lies open to us; the powers of heaven become our willing servants: and yet to the truly wise man one glimpse into the mysteries of the Godhead, one emotion of his own heart when toucht by God's love, is far higher, and far more precious knowledge, than all the treasures which do homage to the inquiring mind, than the revealed soul of history or of the present time, than the bending knees of a thousand angels who are ready to call him their master."