Italian Letters, Vols. I and II

My memory is up in arms. I cannot now imagine how I was induced to so decisive and adventurous a step. But I was full of the anguish of disappointment, and the resentment of despair. How assiduously was I comforted? What sympathy, what angelic tenderness seemed to flow from the lips of him, in whose heart perhaps there dwelt every dishonourable and unsated passion? It was all a chaos. My heart was tumultuous hurry, without leisure for retrospect, without a moment for deliberation. And do I dare to excuse myself? Was I not guilty, unpardonably guilty? Oh, a mind that knew St. Julian should have waited for ages, should have revolved every circumstance a thousand times, should have disbelieved even the evidence of sense, and the demonstration of eternal truth! Accursed precipitation! Most wicked speed! No, I have not suffered half what I have deserved. Heap horrors on me, thou dreadful dispenser of avenging providence! I will not complain. I will expire in the midst of agonies without a groan!

But these thoughts must be banished from my heart for ever. Wretched as I am, I am not permitted the consolation of penitence, I am not free to accuse and torment myself. No, that step has been taken which can never be repealed. The marquis of Pescara was my husband, and whatever were his true character, I will not crush his memory and his fame. I have, I fear, unadvisedly entered into connexions, and entailed upon myself duties. But these connexions shall now be sacred; these duties shall be discharged to the minutest tittle. Oh, poor and unprotected orphan, thou art cast upon the world without a friend! But thou shalt never want the assiduity of a mother. Thou, at least, are guileless and innocent. Thou shalt be my only companion. To watch over thee shall be the sole amusement that Matilda will henceforth indulge herself. That thou wilt remind me of my errors, that I shall trace in thee gradually as thy years advance, the features of him to whom my unfortunate life owed all its colour, will but make thee a more proper companion, an object more congenial to the sorrows of my soul.

Letter XVIII

_The Count de St. Julian to the Marchioness of Pescara

Cerenzo_

Madam,

You may possibly before this letter comes to your hands have learned an event that very nearly interests both you and me. If you have not, it is not in my power at this time to collect together the circumstances, and reduce them to the form of a narration. The design of my present letter is of a very different kind. Shall I call that a design, which is the consequence of an impulse urging me forward, without the consent of my will, and without time for deliberation?

I write this letter with a hand dyed with the blood of your husband. Let not the idea startle you. Matilda is advanced too far to be frightened with bugbears. What, shall a mind inured to fickleness and levity, a mind that deserted, without reason and without remorse, the most constant of lovers, and that recked not the consequences, shall such a mind be terrified at the sight of the purple blood, or be moved from its horrid tranquility by all the tragedies that an universe can furnish?

Matilda, I have slain your husband, and I glory in the deed. I will answer it in the face of day. I will defy that man to come forward, and when he views the goary, lifeless corse, say to me with a tone of firmness and conviction, "Thou hast done wrong."

And now I have but one business more with life. It is to arraign the fair and traiterous author of all my misfortunes. Start not at the black catalogue. Flinch not from the detail of infernal mischief. The mind that knows how to perpetrate an action, should know how to hear the story of it repeated, and to answer it in all its circumstances.

Matilda, I loved you. Alas, this is to say little! All my thoughts had you for their centre. I was your slave. With you I could encounter tenfold calamity, and call it happiness. Banished from you, the world was a colourless and confused chaos. One moment of displeasure, one interval of ambiguous silence crouded my imagination with every frantic apprehension. One smile, one word of soft and soothing composition, fell upon my soul like odoriferous balm, was a dulcet and harmonious sound, that soothed my anguish into peace, that turned the tempest within me to that still and lifeless calm, where not a breath disturbs the vast serene.

And this is the passion you have violated. You have trampled upon a lover, who would have sacrificed his life to save that tender and enchanting frame from the impression of a thorn. And yet, Matilda, if it had been only a common levity, I would have pardoned it. If you had given your hand to the first chance comer, I would have drenched the cup of woe in solitude and darkness. Not one complaint from me should have reached your ear. If you could have found tranquility and contentment, I would not have been the avenging angel to blast your prospects.

But there are provocations that the human heart cannot withstand. I did not come from the hand of nature callous and intrepid, I was the stoic of philosophy and reason. To lose my mistress and my friend at once. To lose them!—Oh, ten thousand deaths would have been mercy to the loss! Had they been tossed by tempests, had they been torn from my eyes by whirlwinds, I would have viewed the scene with eye-balls of stiffened horn. But to find all that upon which I had placed my confidence, upon which I rested my weary heart, foul and false at once: to have those bosoms, in which I fondly thought I reigned adored, combined in one damned plot to overwhelm and ruin me—Indeed, Matilda, it was too much!

Well, well. Be at peace my soul. I have taken my revenge. But revenge is not a passion congenial to the spirit of St. Julian. It was once soft and tender as a babe. You might have bended and moulded it into what form you pleased. But I know not how it is, it is now remorseless and unfeeling as a rock. I have swam in horror, and I am not satiated. I could hear tales of distress, and I could laugh at their fancied miseries. I could view all the tragedies of battle, and walk up and down amidst seas of blood with tranquility. It is well. I did not think I could have done all this. But inexplicable and almighty providence strengthens, indurates the heart for the scenes of detestation to which it is destined.

And is it Rinaldo that I have slain? That friend that I held a thousand times to my bosom, that friend over whose interests I have watched without weariness? Many a time have I dropped the tear of oblivion over his youthful wanderings. I exulted in the fruits of all my toil. Yes, Matilda, I have seen the drops of sacred pity bedew his cheek. I have seen his bosom heave with generous resentment, and heroic resolution. Oh, there was a time, when the author of nature might have looked down upon his work, and said, "This is a man." What benefits did not I receive from his munificent character, and wide extended hand?

And who made me his judge and his avenger? What right had I to thrust my sword into his heart? He now lies a lifeless corse. Upon his breast I see the gaping and death-giving wound. The blood bursts forth in continued streams. His hair is clotted with it. That cheek, that lately glowed, is now pale and sallow. All his features are deformed. The fire in his eye is extinguished for ever. Who has done this? What wanton and sacrilegious hand has dared deface the work of God? It could not be his preceptor, the man upon whom he heaped a thousand benefits? It could not be his friend? Oh, Rinaldo, all thy errors lie buried in the damp and chilly tomb, but thy blood shall for ever rise to accuse me!

Letter XIX

_The Marquis of San Severino to the Marchioness of Pescara

Naples_

Madam,

I have just received a letter from your ladyship which gives me the utmost pain. I am sincerely afflicted at the unfortunate concern I have had in the melancholy affairs that have caused you so much uneasiness. I expected indeed that the sudden death of so accomplished and illustrious a character as your late husband, must have produced in a breast susceptible as yours, the extremest distress. But I did not imagine that you would have been so overwhelmed with the event, as to have forgotten the decorums of your station, and to have derogated from the dignity of your character. Madam, I sincerely sympathize in the violence of your affliction, and I earnestly wish that you may soon recover that self-command, which rendered your behaviour upon all occasions a model of elegance, propriety and honour.

Your ladyship proposes certain questions to me in your epistle of a very singular nature. You will please to remember, that they will for the most part be brought in a few days before a court of judicature. I must therefore with all humility intreat you to excuse me from giving them a direct answer. There would be an impropriety in a person, so illustrious in rank, and whose voice is of considerable weight in the state, forestalling the inferior courts upon these subjects. One thing however I am at liberty to mention, and your ladyship may be assured, that in any thing in my power I should place my highest felicity in gratifying you. There was indeed some misinformation upon the subject; but I have now the honour to inform you from authority upon which I depend, that the count de St. Julian is now, and has always remained single. I believe there never was any negociation of marriage between him and the noble house of Aranda.

Madam, it gives me much uneasiness, that your ladyship should entertain the smallest suspicion of any impropriety in my behaviour in these affairs. I believe the conduct of no man has been more strictly conformed, in all instances, to the laws of decorum than my own. Objects of no small magnitude, have upon various occasions passed under my inspection, and you will be so obliging as to believe that upon no occasion has my veracity been questioned, or the integrity of my character suffered the smallest imputation. The rectitude of my actions is immaculate, and my honour has been repeatedly asserted with my sword.

Your ladyship will do me the favour to believe, that though I cannot but regard your suspicions as equally cruel and unjust, I shall never entertain the smallest resentment upon their account. I have the honour to be, with all possible deference and esteem,

Madam,

Your ladyship's most faithful servant,

The marquis of San Severino.

Letter XX

_The Count de St. Julian to Signor Hippolito Borelli

Leontini_

My dear friend,

Travelling through the various countries of Europe, and expanding your philosophical mind to embrace the interests of mankind, you still are so obliging as to take the same concern in the transactions of your youthful friend as ever. I shall therefore confine myself in the letter which I now steal the leisure to write, to the relation of those events, of which you are probably as yet uninformed. If I were to give scope to the feelings of my heart, with what, alas, should I present you but a circle of repetitions, which, however important they may appear to me, could not but be dull and tedious to any person less immediately interested?

As I pursued with greater minuteness the enquiries I had begun before you quitted the kingdom of the two Sicilies, I found the arguments still increasing upon me, which tended to persuade me of the innocence of Matilda. Oh, my friend, what a letter did I address to her in the height of my frenzy and despair? Every word spoke daggers, and that in a moment when the tragical event of which I was the author, must naturally have overwhelmed her with astonishment and agony. Yes, Hippolito, this action must remain an eternal blot upon my character. Years of penitence could not efface it, floods of tears could not wash it away.

But before I had satisfied my curiosity in this pursuit, the time approached in which it was necessary for me to take a public trial at Naples. This scene was to me a solemn one. The blood of my friend sat heavy at my heart. It is true no provocation could have been more complicated than that I had received. Take it from me, Hippolito, as my most mature and serious determination, that a Gothic revenge is beneath the dignity of a man. It did not become me, who had aimed at the character of unaccommodating virtue, to appear in defence of an action that my heart disallowed. To stand forward before the delegated power of my country with the stain of blood upon me, was not a scene for a man of sensibility to act in. But the decision of my judges was more indulgent than the verdict of my own mind.

One of the persons who was most conspicuous upon this occasion, was the marquis of San Severino. Hippolito, it is true, I have been hurried into many actions that have caused me the severest regret. But I would not for ten thousand worlds have that load of guilt upon my mind, that this man has to answer for. And yet he bore his head aloft. He was placid and serene. He was even disengaged and gay. He talked in as round a tone, of honour and integrity, of veracity and virtue, as if his life were spotless, and his heart immaculate. The circumstances however that came out in the progress of the affair, were in the highest degree disadvantageous to him. The general indignation and hatred seemed gradually to swell against him, like the expansive surges of the ocean. A murmur of disapprobation was heard from every side, proceeded from every mouth. Even this accomplished villain at length hung his head. When the court was dissolved, he was encountered with hisses and scorn from the very lowest of the people. It was only by the most decisive exertions of the guards of the palace, that he was saved from being torn to pieces by the fury of the populace.

You will be surprized to perceive that this letter is dated at the residence of my fathers. Fourteen days ago I was summoned hither by the particular request of my brother, who had been seized with a violent epidemical distemper. It was extremely sudden in its operation, and before I arrived he was no more. He had confessed however to one of the friends of our house, before he expired, that he had forged the will of my father, instigated by the surprize and disappointment he had felt, when he understood that that father, whom he had employed so many unjustifiable means to prepossess, had left his whole estate, exclusive of a very small annuity, to his eldest son. Since I have been here, I have been much employed in arranging the affairs of the family, which, from the irregular and extemporary manner in which my brother lived, I found in considerable disorder.

Letter XXI

The Count de St. Julian to the Marchioness of Pescara

Leontini

Madam,

I have waited with patience for the expiration of twelve months, that I might not knowingly be guilty of any indecorum, or intrude upon that sorrow, which the tragical fate of the late marquis so justly claimed. But how shall I introduce the subject upon which I am now to address you? Where shall I begin this letter? Or with what arguments may I best propitiate the anger I have so justly incensed, and obtain that boon upon which the happiness of my future life is so entirely suspended?

Among all the offences of which I have been guilty, against the simplest and gentlest mind that ever adorned this mortal stage, there is none which I less pardon to myself, than that unjust and precipitate letter, which I was so inconsiderate as to address to you immediately after I had steeped my hand in the murder of your husband. Was it for me, who had so much reason to be convinced of the innocence and disinterested truth of Matilda, to harbour suspicions so black, or rather to affront her with charges, the most hideous and infamous? What crime is there more inexcusable, than that of attributing to virtue all the concomitants of vice, of casting all those bitter taunts, all that aggravated and triumphant opprobrium in the face of rectitude, that ought to be reserved only for the most profligate of villains? Yes, Matilda, I trampled at once upon the exemptions of your sex, upon the sanctity of virtue, upon the most inoffensive and undesigning of characters. And yet all this were little.

What a time was it that I chose for an injury so atrocious! A beautiful and most amiable woman had just been deprived, by an unforeseen event, of that husband, with whom but a little before she had entered into the most sacred engagements. The state of a widow is always an afflictive and unprotected one. Rank does not soften, frequently aggravates the calamity. A tragedy had just been acted, that rendered the name of Matilda the butt of common fame, the subject of universal discussion. How painful and humiliating must this situation have been to that anxious and trembling mind; a mind whose highest ambition coveted only the tranquility that reigns in the shade of retreat, the silence and obscurity that the wisest of philosophers have asserted to be the most valuable reputation of her sex? Such was the affliction, in which I might then have known that the mistress of my heart was involved.

But I have since learned a circumstance before which all other aggravations of my inhumanity fade away. The moment that I chose for wanton insult and groundless arraignment, was the very moment in which Matilda discovered all the horrid train of hypocrisy and falsehood by which she had been betrayed. What a shock must it have given to her gentle and benevolent mind, that had never been conscious to one vicious temptation, that had never indulged the most distant thought of malignity, to have found herself surprized into a conduct, to the nature of which she had been a stranger, and which her heart disavowed? Of all the objects of compassion that the universe can furnish, there is none more truly affecting, than that of an artless and unsuspecting mind insnared by involuntary guilt. The astonishment with which it is overwhelmed, is vast and unqualified. The remorse with which it is tortured, are totally unprepared and unexpected, and have been introduced by no previous gradation. It is true, the involuntarily culpable may in some sense be pronounced wholly innocent. The guilty mind is full of prompt excuses, and ready evasions, but the untainted spirit, not inured to the sophistry of vice, cannot accommodate itself with these subterfuges. If such be the state of vulgar minds involved in this unfortunate situation, what must have been that of so soft and inoffensive a spirit?

Oh, Matilda, if tears could expiate such a crime, ere this I had been clear as the guileless infant. If incessant and bitter reproaches could overweigh a guilt of the first magnitude, mine had been obliterated. But no; the words I wrote were words of blood. Each of them was a barbed arrow pointed at the heart. There was no management, there was no qualification. And when we add to this the object against which all my injuries were directed, what punishment can be discovered sufficiently severe? The mind that invented it, must have been callous beyond all common hardness. The hand that wrote it must be accursed for ever.

And yet, Matilda, it is not merely pardon that I seek. Even that would be balm to my troubled spirit. It would somewhat soften the harsh outlines, and the aggravated features of a crime, which I shall never, never forgive to my own heart. But no, think, most amiable of women, of the height of felicity I once had full in view, and excuse my present presumption. While indeed my mind was guiltless, and my hand unstained with blood, while I had not yet insulted the woman to whose affections I aspired, nor awakened the anger of the gentlest nature, of a heart made up of goodness, and tenderness and sympathy, I might have aspired with somewhat less of arrogance. Neither your heart nor mine, Matilda, were ever very susceptible to the capricious distinctions of fortune.

But, alas, how hard is it for a mind naturally ambitious to mould and to level itself to a state of degradation. Believe me, I have put forth an hundred efforts, I have endeavoured to blot your memory from a soul, in which it yet does, and ever will reign unrivalled. No, it is to fight with impassive air, it is to lash the foaming tempest into a calm. Time, which effaces all other impressions, increases that which is indelibly written upon my heart. A man whose countenance is pale and wan, and who every day approaches with hasty and unremitted strides to the tomb, may forget his situation, may call up a sickly smile upon his countenance, and lull his mind to lethargy and insensibility. Such, Matilda, is all the peace reserved for me, if yet I have no power in influencing the determinations of your mind. Stupidity, thou must be my happiness! Torpor, I will bestow upon thee all the endearing names, that common mortals give to rapture!

And yet, Matilda, if I retain any of that acute sensibility to virtue and to truth, in which I once prided myself, there can be no conduct more proper to the heir of the illustrious house of Colonna, than that which my heart demands. You have been misguided into folly. What is more natural to an ingenuous heart, than to cast back the following scandal upon the foul and detested authors, with whom the wrong originated. You have done that, which if all your passions had been hushed into silence, and the whole merits of the cause had lain before you, you would never have done. What reparation, Matilda, does a clear and generous spirit dictate, but that of honestly and fearlessly acknowledging the mistake, treading back with readiness and haste the fatal path, and embracing that line of conduct which a deliberate judgment, and an informed understanding would always have dictated?

Is it not true,—tell me, thou mistress of my soul,—that upon your determination in this one instance all your future reputation is suspended? Accept the hand of him that adores you, and the truth will shine forth in all its native splendour, and none but the blind can mistake it. Refuse him, and vulgar souls will for ever confound you with the unfortunate Rinaldo, and his detested seducer. Fame, beloved charmer, is not an object that virtuous souls despise. To brave the tongue of slander cannot be natural to the gentle and timid spirit of Matilda.

But, oh, I dare not depend upon the precision of logic, and the frigidity of argumentation. Let me endeavour to awaken the compassion and humanity of your temper. Recollect all the innocent and ecstatic endearments with which erewhile our hours were winged. Never was sublunary happiness so pure and unmingled. It was tempered with the mildest and most unbounded sympathy, it was refined and elevated with all the sublimity of virtue. These happy, thrice happy days, you, and only you, can recall. Speak but the word, and time shall reverse his course, and a new order of things shall commence. Think how much virtue depends upon your fiat. Satisfied with felicity ourselves, our hearts will overflow with benevolence for the world. Never will misery pass us unrelieved, never shall we remit the delightful task of seeking out the modest and the oppressed in their obscure retreat. We will set mankind an example of integrity and goodness. We will retrieve the original honours of the wedded state. Methinks, I could rouze the most lethargic and unanimated with my warning voice! Methinks, I could breathe a spirit into the dead! Oh, Matilda, let me inspire ambition into your breast! Let me teach that tender and right gentle heart, to glow with a mutual enthusiasm!

Letter XXII

The Answer

Cosenza

My lord, It is now three weeks since I received that letter, in which you renew the generous offer of your hand. Believe me, I am truly sensible of the obligation, and it shall for ever live in my grateful heart. I am not now the same Matilda you originally addressed. I have acted towards you in an inexcusable manner. I have forfeited that spotless character which was once my own. All this you knew, and all this did not deter you. My lord, for this generosity and oblivion, once again, and from the bottom of my heart, I thank you.

But it is not only in these respects, that the marchioness of Pescara differs from the daughter of the duke of Benevento. Those poor charms, my lord, which were once ascribed to me, have long been no more. The hand of grief is much more speedy and operative in its progress than the icy hand of age. Its wrinkles are already visible in my brow. The floods of tears I have shed have already furrowed my cheeks. But oh, my lord, it is not grief; that is not the appellation it claims. They are the pangs of remorse, they are the cries of never dying reproach with which I am agitated. Think how this tarnishes the heart and blunts the imagination. Think how this subdues all the aspirations of innocence, and unnerves all the exertions of virtue. Perhaps I was, flattery and friendship had at least taught me to think myself, something above the common level. But indeed, my lord, I am now a gross and a vulgar soul. All the nicer touches are fretted and worn away. All those little distinctions, those minuter delicacies I might once possess are obliterated. My heart is coarse and callous. Others, of the same standard that I am now, may have the same confidence in themselves, the same unconsciousness of a superior, as nature's most favoured children. But I am continually humbled by the sense of what I was.