Chapter 9

In this moment, the door of the palace was opened again, and a tall figure, wearing a cloak, stepped out. The light from the corridor fell on the white hair of old Malapiero, returning to his house. Andrea looked up; the piercing irony of his situation became evident to his soul. There walked the man from whom he wanted to protect Venice, the defenceless flock of aristocrats and commoners, and, last but not least, his German friend. There he came, lonely enough, along his way, only shrouded by a secret which his enemy had found out; nothing prevented him from attacking him, the dagger was right there -; but this dagger had been desecrated by innocent blood, there was nothing any more to set the judge and avenger apart from the one against whom he wanted to execute the verdict, except that here a treacherous, blind coincidence had struck the blow, while those irresponsible executioners had their goals safely and infallibly in their sights.

All of this was raging through Andrea's mind. He picked himself up, pulled the dagger out of the wound, and fled, still being unnoticed by the aged triumvir, keeping in the shadows, across the narrow bridge over the canal, towards his house. When it occurred to him that the old Malapiero had to find the corpse and would be grateful to his unknown murderer, that he had spared him the trouble he would otherwise have gone through, he had to bite on his teeth in order to avoid uttering a savage scream.

Thus, he reached the front door of his house and found it open. Looking up the staircase, he saw at its top, where the old woman usually sat, her daughter, standing by the uppermost step and looking down, leaning far over the banister, holding on to it with both of her arms. "Are you finally coming!" she whispered at him. "Where have you been at this late time of day? I heard you leaving and couldn't sleep."

He did not reply a single word; with difficulties, he ascended the staircase and wanted to get past her. Then, she saw the dagger, which he did not care to conceal at all, and suddenly, she fell right before his feet, uttering a choked exclamation. He left her lying there and walked to his room. There was not any room left inside of him for sympathy with small human pains. He saw nothing but the mother, impatiently awaiting her son to return from abroad, but being destined to receive his coffin instead.

But as soon as he had locked himself in his room, he perceived Marietta knocking and her quiet voice asking to be let in.

"Go to bed," he said. "There is nothing left for me to share with people of the world. Early tomorrow, go to the Doges' Palace. There are three thousand zecchini for you to receive. You'll be able to report that one of the conspirators had been rendered harmless. Don't fear that they might apprehend me alive. Good night!"

Persistently, she remained at the door. "Let me in," she said. "I know, you'll do something to yourself, if you'll stay alone. You're thinking that I could betray you, because I've seen you coming in with the dagger. Oh, you're safe from me putting you into danger. Let me in, look into my face, and then tell me whether you'd think that I would do anything bad to you. Haven't I already suspected for a long time that you were the one they've been looking for? In my dreams, I've seen you stained with blood. But still, I don't hate you. I knew that you were unhappy; I could give my life, if you asked me to."

She put her ear against the door, but there was no answer. Instead, she heard him stepping to the window opening onto the canal and busying himself there with something. A mortal fear came over her, she rattled at the door, she shouted again, she deplored him in the most moving words not to perform any desperate act - all in vain. When finally, everything had become quiet inside, she pushed, in terrible agony, hard against the door with her shoulders and tried to break the lock, employing all of her strength. The old woodwork broke, only the frame held. The hole, which she had broken into the door, allowed her slender figure to just barely slip through.

The room was empty; she searched him in all niches in vain. When she stepped to the open window, not doubting any longer that he had jumped into the canal, she hardly dared to peer down over the ledge into the depth. But what she saw restored her lost hope. A rope was hanging down the wall, being attached to a firm hook underneath the ledge. It extended down to the surface of the water. If someone would push himself off the wall with his feet, after having reached the lower end of the rope, he should easily be able to swing to the stairs on the other side by the palace of the countess and into the gondola, which was usually chained to the pole there. Today, it had disappeared, and the lonely girl, looking down the dark gorge of the canal in vain, trying to discover a trace of the fugitive, was at least left with the comforting belief that he could not have chosen a safer course, if he wanted to safe himself.

It had been his intention to make her believe that. He did not want to burden the soul of this innocent creature, whom he had already given enough grief, with the entire, harsh truth that there was nothing left which could save him, since he was unable to flee from himself.

The poor girl was still looking out of the window, and her tears fell bitterly into the black waters below, when Andrea was already steering his gondola out into the Grand Canal. The palaces on both sides towered darkly over the face of the water. He passed by the house of Morosini, he saw the palace of Venier, and a sense of horror made his hair stand on ends. Here, his life lay before him like being encircled by a ring; what a beginning and what an end! -

When he rowed past the Giudecca and was now seeing the broad front of the Doges' Palace in the twilight of the moon's murky crescent, the thought was briefly flashing through his mind that this was the place where crimes would be punished. But for his crime, he would not find any judges here; for who may pass judgement on his own case? And was not still the hope with him that, nevertheless, out of his atrocious deed, salvation and liberation could flourish for his fellow citizens, that perhaps even the murder of an innocent man, for which popular opinion would surely blame the tribunal, would complete the work he had begun and push the measure of tyranny beyond its limits?

He himself would have destroyed this hope, if he had given himself up to the judges, if he had dispersed their fear of the invisible enemies, and if he had diverted the foreign powers' complaints away from them.

With strong strokes of the oar, he propelled the gondola towards the lido and crossed the basin of the harbour, where only the ships' lanterns were still standing guard. By the harbour's entrance, lay the large felucca, which had prevented even the smallest vessel from reaching the sea for the last week, unless the challenge of the guard was answered by the password of the inquisition. Like all other secret servants of the tribunal, Andrea had been told the word this morning. Unhindered, he was allowed to row out into the open sea.

The sea was calm. It were not the waves he had to struggle with as he rowed along the coast for several hours. But in this calm, lukewarm night, he only felt his agony even more harshly, and, from time to time, he beat the sea with the oar like a madman, just to hear a different sound than his friend's last words: "My mother, my poor mother."

It was already well past midnight, when he pushed the gondola ashore, jumped out, and walked towards a lonely monastery, which stood on a spit of land and was well known by the poor mariners. Capuchins dwelled here, who lived of the kindness of the people of Chioggia and of begging on the mainland and gave them spiritual comfort in return and have been a support for the people in many a time of need. Andrea pulled the bell-rope by the gate. Soon afterwards, he heard the porter's voice, asking who was out there.

"A dying man," Andrea answered. "Call Brother Pietro Maria, if he's in the monastery."

The porter left the door. In the meantime, Andrea sat on the bench of stone, pulled a piece of paper out of his wallet and wrote by the light of a lantern, which was shining on him from the porter's lodge, the following lines:

"To Angelo Querini.

"I have played the judge and have become a murderer. I have wrongfully executed the justice which God has reserved for Himself, and God has entangled me in my own blasphemous madness and has let me spill innocent blood. The offering I intended to make has been rejected. The time had not come yet, the sacred office of liberating Venice has been destined for other hands. Or is there no salvation at all?

"I am going to face God, the highest judge, who will justly weigh on His eternal scales my guilt and my suffering. There is nothing I could still hope to get from the people of this world; from you, I expect only generous sympathy for my error and my misfortune. Candiano."

The door of the monastery was opening, and a venerable monk with a bold head stepped outside towards him while he was still writing. Andrea stood up. "Pietro Maria," he said, "I thank you for coming. Have you brought my letter to the exiled man in Verona?"

The old man nodded.

"If you care for the last thanks of an wretched man, deliver this piece of paper also safely into the same hands. Will you promise me this?"

"I promise."

"It's good. God shall reward you for this! Farewell!"

He did not take the hand which the monk extended to him for the farewell. Without delay, he again boarded the gondola and rowed out to the open sea. When the old man, after quickly reading the lines, was calling out for him in dismay, deploring him to return once more, he did not answer. Being extremely agitated, the old servant of the republic saw the last member of an old family drifting out on the dreary waves, which now, being moved by an early morning wind, formed a few lively ripples. He pondered whether it was a good act, whether it was at all possible, to stand against the firm wish of a dying man. Then, the dark figure rose in the distant gondola, being clearly visible against the gray horizon; he who was about to quit his life seemed to have one final glance over the land and the sea and to gaze back at the city, the outline of which swam on the mists of the lagoons like on an island of clouds. Then, he jumped into the depth.

The monk, watching his end, folded his hands and prayed quietly and fervently. Then, he also boarded a boat and rowed out to sea, where the empty gondola was dancing on the surf. He did not find a trace of the wretched man who had steered it.

(C) 2000 Gunther Olesch. End of Andrea Delfin, by Paul Heyse (1830-1914) Translated by Gunther Olesch in 2000. (C) 2000 Gunther Olesch. You may enjoy this text for your personal pleasure. Any commercial exploitation requires the translator's consent.