The Genius (Carl Grosse)/Chapter 4
CHAP. IV.
At this trying period, my faithful Alfonso was of great service to me. The moment he heard of the danger I was in, he flew, forgetting his own recovery, to my assistance. He never lost sight of me, and studied every remedy to dispel the melancholy of my deep-diseased mind.
The first thing he did, during the paroxysms of my delirium, was, to detach me from every object, which at the lucid intervals of returning reason, could have reminded me of my loss. Without any mental perception as I was for several days, he could do with me as he pleased. With proper assistance, he provided a carriage, and drove me to an adjacent Villa of my father's, whom he apprised of my misfortune. The latter with all our family came to comfort and cheer me; a thousand schemes were tried to make me recover some part of my former gaiety, but sorrow was too deeply rooted in my bosom, to be plucked out by the contrivances of the moment; even the sweet adulations of the fair sex were used to put me in spirits, but their presence only ript open the gash my bosom had received by the loss of my incomparable bride; and the faculty at last gave it as their opinion, that nothing but a temporary solitude would cure my distempered imagination, and all other means merely tend to plunge me into a state of incurable insanity.
Their advice was strictly adhered to; my senses gradually resumed their lost functions, though it seemed a matter of doubt, whether my emaciated frame would be able to bear the first keen shocks of new roused sensibility.
At last I got better, but a shade of settled melancholy characterized all my actions. The adventure of the forest was always present to my remembrance. I had become more considerate, and even somewhat timorous. Without any person, in whom I thought proper to place my confidence, I wavered indecisively from one resolve to another. Don Antonio, the friend of my youth, was certainly most tender to me, but not sufficiently steady and serious. I wanted maturer experience, seasoned with prudential practice.
Accident soon gratified my wishes. Don Pedro Nunez, a young nobleman of Granada, purchased a country-residence close to my father's. Though still in the vigor of youth, yet misfortune had visited him earlier than me. Popular report stated him to have run his sword through the body of a once adored wife, whom he caught in the act of adultery, and to have made her seducer share the same punishment. With the possession of a once faithful consort, he had lost every relish for social life, and came to mourn in solitude the severe blows of treacherous fate,
His gardens being contiguous to mine, I often saw him in his lonely haunts, trying to obliterate the sense of his woes by the various amusements and occupations of gardening.
A little brook divided our respective domains. My side of the premises, being obscured by a thicker of high bushes, I could easily see him without being seen. I soon perceived a structure in form of a monument . with an urn at its top, raised by his orders. Here, in deep meditation, he would regularly pass certain hours of the day.
As there is a sort of kindred sympathy between those that suffer, I one day resolved to speak to him. After the usual forms of courteous salutation: "Sennor," cried I to him, "I cannot suppress the wish of getting nearer acquainted with you."
After returning the compliment with a pleased smile: "I have long been thinking as much, Don Carlos," replied he; "but as I well know your story, I was apprehensive lest my sufferings should only add to your own. I esteem you, and your friendship will make me infinitely happy."
From this time we sought the remedy of love, in the sweet communications of mutual friendship. But we carefully avoided reviving the images of past felicity, and contented ourselves with the recital of the less interesting particulars of our lives."
One day however, he swerved from the accustomed rule, by relating his story. It appeared, that he had married Donna Francisca, who, amidst the vortex of high-life had proved unfaithful to his bed, and eloped with another, without his having the least traces of the place of her retreat, Thus the rumor of her assassination was unfounded. Still he adored her—still would he have sacrificed his all, had she returned repentant to his arms.
I then informed him minutely all I the particulars of my own case.
—"Have you no conjectures," asked he, about the secret of the cabal?"
—"None but what might be collected from what Elmira imparted to me; it must be a great and powerful league whose influence reaches even the actions of private families, all over Spain."
—"And could you really never perceive the drift of its tendency?"
—"Not in the least, Sennor; not as much as guess at it."
—"Recollect once more all the circumstances of the hovel in the woods. Was there no latent interest that guided the actions of its tenants? No constraint, no feint in their demeanor?"
—"Certainly not, I surprised them. The women.could have nothing to fear; and such affection as Jago evinced for his wife, is beyond the sphere of dissimulation. The very infants partook in it."
—"And did the woman actually weep, as you went away?"
—"To me, it seemed so. But of Jago's tears I am certain."
—"Still I am in the dark. It seems, however, they are mere tools in the hands of the old fellow, who is their chief."
—"But I do not see, what reason they should have to brook such insulting slavery? After all, oppressed as they are by poverty, what would it now avail them to fly! They show indeed, that spontaneous and easy resignation, which indicates they are both contented with their humble lot."
—"I conceive you, Don Carlos, and this makes me still more curious of the secret of the cavern. They probably are members of the cabal, and solely actuated by its laws and principles. Their plan must be grand—"
—"But sanguinary, too, I am much afraid."
—"Consider, Sennor; always make allowance for accident. In this case, the actions are unjust only because our understanding cannot divine the motives. Who is he that boasts penetration sufficient to explore at the first glance every secret stimulus or cause of a design? For my part, I believe murder is, in some instances, justifiable. On a piece of wreck which can only carry one man with safety in a storm, the combat between two, tending to secure life by the death of a competitor, is justifiable by the first law of self-preservation."Object bears upon object throughout the creation. Each death opens the gate of some new existence; and the general good cannot always be brought about without individual harm."
—"Every body is not of the same opinion, Don Pedro; for my part, I am lost in the flattering dream."
"Don't you-take it quite for a dream, Don Carlos; my precepts are drawn from experience. You don't know the company that offered itself to you. Remember Jago and his happiness."
Here terminated this part of our conversation, by a digression to other topics.
The notions I had imbibed afforded me ample scope for reflection; but still I groped In the dark, and only felt a livelier desire of getting acquainted with the secret purposes of the mystic cabal.
The next day on meeting my neighbor, we resumed the lost thread of our preceding afternoon's conversation.
"How were it, Don Carlos," said he, "if we made some bold push to get at the bottom of the probabilities, on which we so much descanted yesterday." This was guessing my wishes, I perfectly coincided, with him, and we daily thought of proper steps to accomplish our 'purpose, but daily some new incident diverted us from it.
My friend Pedro had invited me one night to supper. He was rather unwell, and to avoid the draught of the air, had chosen our seats in a small lodge of the garden, from which we had a beautiful prospect of the closing beauties of the day. The cloth being drawn, I read to him the story of a favorite author. His back faced the door, and his melancholy looks were stedfastly fixed on my countenance. I was at the same time attentively occupied with my reading.
At once I heard a loud scream. Terrified I cast up my eyes; Pedro sinks fainting from his chair, and a wan and woe-worn face rests on his shoulder, I felt it from my soul;—it was Francisca.
After kneeling for some time, she rose, and embraced my friend, who was somewhat better, "Tranquillize yourself," cried she, "my dear spouse, compose yourself to pardon a wife, that comes to bid you a last farewel."
His speech still failed him, but he gave her his hand,
"No, I thank you, Pedro," said she, after kissing his hand, "I will not deceive you a second time. A repentant, tormented wife, that wrested herself from her seducer at the moment when she was a going to be for ever undone asketh your blessing."
She now threw herself again at his feet.
—"No Francisca," returned he, "I take back this repentant wife to my bosom. Long have I forgiven thee all my wrongs, and now I'll also bury them in everlasting oblivion."
—"You mistake me, Pedro, if you think me capable of abusing your bounty. No—take back your heart. You never can love a delinquent. 'Never can I give you happiness. I will not deceive you, Pedro; give me but your blessing."
My poor friend was quite distract at this nipping coldness of his confort. Those terrible words, uttered in the tone of a common conversation, caused a struggle in his heart between tenderness and pride, to exhaust which I judged would be death to him. I considered it as my duty to interpose in the business.
"You see, Madonna," began I, "the feeble and infirm fate of your husband. If you are come" hither to kill him with barbarity," it will require but little more to gain your end. But excuse me, Madonna, if I show myself anxious for the preservation of a life, which I have learn'd to value."
—"Dismiss me not," exclaimed she again, disdaining my remonstrances, "dismiss me not Pedro without thy forgiveness. This man wants to part us. Give me thy blessing, and joyfully will I be gone."
—"I cannot bless thee, Francisca," answered he with quavering lips; "'tis; only on a wretched female that one takes and rejects again, a man gives his blessing as a vengeance. Return to these tender arms, my ever dear, my ever beloved wife. Myself, perhaps, has partly occasioned thy errors, return and let me expiate the crime on thy bosom."
—"No, Pedro, thy wife's bosom has no solace, no joy more for thee. 'Tis a hell, burning with incessant pangs! No, Pedro, no! Or bless me—or grant me one last request!
—"And what is that Francisca?"
She rose, went out of the garden-gate, and so very sanguine was my expectation, that I was unable to use the interval to comfort my unhappy friend. In a few minutes she made her re-appearance, with a sweet little boy, about four years old, in her arms. Her very looks portended that her mind was brooding some great purpose.
"Come, Lorenzo," quoth she, kneeling a second time, "thou shalt see thy father. Here he is—go, and kiss him."
"Is it he, mother?" asked the prattling little innocent, "he says nothing to me."
—"What shall this mean, Francisca?" interrupted my friend.
—"Let me, my husband," said she, trespass for a few minutes on thy patience, You know, that on leaving you, I bore a pledge of your love, under my heart. It might grieve you to know it in bad hands, I will therefore return it now."
—"Ah, Francisca, that I never had a living witness of thy cruelty."
—"Interrupt me not, dear spouse. It is the last will, the last sigh of a dying woman. Rememberest thou, Pedro, the days of my bridal state, when I dropt into thy longing arms, a guiltless wife?—Behold, it was then, I received this pledge as the intended token of lasting bliss. The time is past; and here thou hast it again."
—"O! Must I live to see this?" exclaimed my bewildered friend.
"Hearken to me, Pedro! Thou wishest for no living witness of my cruelty. Such, too, is my opinion; I want none of my shame—I have been thinking of means," pursued she pausing, clapping her left hand on her front, and grasping with the right, a dagger from her bosom—"I will relieve us both"—Here she pointed the dagger at the babe's bosom, while suspecting the horrid attempt, I wrested it from her. "Alas! I am lost," cried she flushing with irresistible violence out,of doors, and running to overtake her, I found she had entirely vanished.
On my return, I found my hapless friend playing with the little prattler. It was a moving scene! The child had been long in his father's arms and quite delighted till he missed his mother, and the nbecame quite distressed. I talked to him, consoled, and played with him, and his presence opened a prospect of new hopes and expectations to the widowed parent. "Her maternal heart doated on this infant," said he, "she surely will return, and share my joys."
My principal care now was to divert his melancholy. We talked over the plan of going in search of the cavern in the forest. It was resolved to put it in execution in defiance of every diner that might thwart our design.
Having made every preparation, consistent with our safety, and determined to sell our lives at the dearest price, we allied forth one morning, and arrived at the hovel at midday. But it was empty, nor was there a single mark of a human vestige in the whole district. What could it mean? Pedro who had repented his rash enterprise all the way coming along, sought in this a frivolous presence, and finding me obstinate in the matter; rode off jeering, and left me behind.