Part 13

“I must ask leave to pass rapidly over what follows; the recollection is most painful. In crossing part of the Apennines on foot, my poor father received a slight wound in the leg, from striking it against a rock. Notwithstanding our urgency, he neglected the wound, and insisted on walking during the following days. The weather was terribly hot. When we reached the coast of the Adriatic, where we were to embark, he found himself obliged to rest for some days, and we succeeded in inducing him to allow a surgeon to visit him. But what was our terror to find that mortification had commenced! We were at a mere village, far away from all competent aid. Our country surgeon, who was little more than a mere barber, spoke unconcernedly of amputating the leg. Would it have saved him, or hastened his death? In so horrible a dilemma, my mother and I knew not what to resolve. My father, with heroic courage, decided to have the leg taken off, and spoke of travelling about the world with a wooden leg. We dared not subject him to the knife of a butcher. I determined to hasten to Venice--it was only fifty leagues distant. I obtained a horse, set out, broke him down by night, abandoned him, bought another, and continued my journey. I reached the city exhausted, but alive. I applied to one of the first surgeons of Venice, and induced him to return with me by agreeing to pay him a sum equal to the whole of Sophia’s property. We took a boat and returned by sea, with a speed that filled me with hope and joy. Ah, monsieur! if I should live a thousand years, the memory of that terrible day would, I believe, be as bitter as it is now. I found Silvio Goffredi dead, and Sophia Goffredi insane.”

“Poor fellow!” said M. Goefle, as the great tears fell from Cristiano’s eyes.

“Well, well,” said the latter, hastily wiping them away, “it will not do to be surprised by emotions of that kind. It shows that one has too forcibly driven them out of his mind, and they revenge themselves for it once for all, when they can seize their rights.

“The skilful physician whom I had brought with me could neither cure my mother, nor give me any hope that she would ever be cured. He was only able, by studying the character of her insanity, to instruct me how to deal with its more violent attacks. It would be requisite to comply with all her desires, no matter how unreasonable, and, in other matters, to assume over her the sort of influence, and even authority, which a father exerts over his child.

“I carried her back to Perugia, along with the body of our poor friend, which we had embalmed, in order to deposit it in the mausoleum which his wife was imagining for him on the shore of lake Thrasymene. What I suffered at thus bringing back my father dead, and my mother insane, to the place from which we had so joyously departed not three weeks before, it is impossible for me to express. When we went, Sophia was laughing and singing all the way. On our return, also, she laughed and sang; but how mournful was the music, and how heart-breaking the laughter! I had to lead her along, to reason with her, to amuse and persuade her as one does a child--this woman, who had been so intelligent and strong; who but yesterday I relied upon as my guide and support; for, Monsieur Goefle, I was hardly nineteen years old.

“When the remains of Silvio Goffredi had been interred, his widow became more calm. Indeed, this calmness came upon her so suddenly, and was so extreme, that it seemed an appropriate last act of the sad drama of her destiny. I soon perceived that she had become, so to speak, a total stranger to herself; she became wholly absorbed in one idea: that of the monument to be erected to her beloved Silvio. From that day she would neither think nor talk about anything else. It was impossible for me to pursue any employments of my own, for she hardly slept at all, and allowed me only a few hours’ sleep, I will not say every day, but every week. It was out of the question to put her into the hands of any one but myself; under the care of any one else she became irritated, and fell into frightful paroxysms; while, with me, she never had a single attack of fury or despair. She talked to me endlessly, not about her husband, for she seemed no longer to retain any clear individual recollection of him; he had, as it were, become a wholly imaginary being, whom she had never seen; but she discussed the epitaphs, the emblematic designs, the carvings, etc., with which she proposed to embellish her husband’s monument.

“I think I must have drawn two or three thousand different designs for her. Each new one always pleased her for an hour or two, but at the end of that time she always found it unworthy of the memory of the ‘Magus,’ as she now always called the dear deceased. No emblematic design could embody the abstract and confused ideas that floated through her mind. She was constantly falling into profound meditations, when, taking out of my hands the pencil she herself had placed in them with a pretence of making some slight alteration, she would make me design some entirely new subject of a quite opposite character. As you will easily imagine, most of these designs were quite impracticable, and even meaningless. If I varied from her suggestions, she became so uneasy and agitated that I found it best to comply strictly with them. Thus I accumulated portfolio after portfolio full of designs, fantastic enough to have crazed any one who should have undertaken to interpret them.

“When some hours had been spent in this way, she used to take me out to see the pieces in marble that she had ordered of all the statuaries in the country. She had the court and garden full of them, and as soon as they were done she was dissatisfied with them.

“Another fancy of hers, which I felt bound to gratify at whatever cost, was in respect of the material to be employed for this imaginary monument. She obtained specimens of all the varieties of marbles and of all known metals; and more models, both in sculpture and in casting, were executed than the house could contain. They were even piled upon the beds; and travellers used to take our house for a museum, and to come to it and ask the meaning of all the strange subjects represented there. Poor Sophia found pleasure in receiving these visitors, and in explaining her ideas to them; and so they departed, some pained and saddened, others laughing and shrugging their shoulders,--the brutes! Their sneers affected me like so many crimes.

“Meanwhile our property began to be exhausted. M. Goffredi had left to his wife the whole of his little fortune, which I was to have inherited after her. A family council of the kinsmen assembled under these circumstances, as was alleged, both in order to protect my interests, and to provide for carrying out my father’s intentions in this respect. One member, a lawyer, was of opinion that the control of the property should be taken away from poor Sophia; that all artists, founders, mechanics and tradesmen should be formally notified not to fill orders from her, and that she herself should be confined in a lunatic asylum, since the proposed measure, being contrary to her wishes, would certainly throw her into a paroxysm of fury, in which she would be dangerous to others.”

“The lawyer was right,” said M. Goefle. “It was a painful step, but a necessary one.”

“I really beg pardon, Monsieur Goefle, but I judged otherwise. As I was the sole heir of Goffredi, I had a perfect right to permit my guardian to expend my property.”

“No, you had not that right. You were a minor, and the law protects those who cannot protect themselves.”

“That is just what I was told; but I was so sufficiently able to protect myself, that I threatened to throw the lawyer out of the window if he did not withdraw his infamous proposition. To put my mother into a lunatic asylum! I should have had to be shut up with her, for she could not bear to be without me a moment; she would quickly have died under the distress of being attended by hirelings. To deprive her of this sole occupation that could quiet her; that exerted an influence upon her little less than magical! To prevent her from expressing and soothing her sorrows by these works--senseless and ruinous in themselves, I readily admit, but which neither harmed nor wronged any one! And what mattered our house full of tomb-stones to that fat and prosperous lawyer? No one obliged him to volunteer his regret for money thrown away, or to mock at the aberrations of the poor widow’s mind, unsettled by her grief. I persisted, the family blamed me, and the lawyer declared I was out of my wits myself; but my mother was kept comfortable.”

“Ah, ah, my boy!” said M. Goefle, smiling, “that’s the way you treat lawyers, is it? Come, give me your hand!” he added, looking upon Cristiano with eyes wet with tenderness and sympathy.

Cristiano pressed the hands of the worthy Goefle, and raised them to his lips, in the Italian manner.

“I accept your kind feelings to me,” he said, “but I cannot accept your praises for my conduct. It was perfectly natural; to have been influenced by selfish motives in such a situation would have been infamous. Have I not told you how much I had been loved, petted, indulged, by these two parents--for such I felt them, even by blood as well as by heart. Ah! I had been happy with them, very happy, Monsieur Goefle--so much so, that no matter what disasters shall come upon me, I shall never have the right to complain of Providence. I had certainly not deserved so much happiness before I was born. I surely was bound to try and deserve it after I had lived a little while!”

“And what became of poor Sophia?” asked M. Goefle, after a few moments’ meditation.

“Alas! I promised to tell you my story as gayly as possible, and I have only shown you its melancholy side! I ask your pardon; I have saddened you. All I need say is, that the poor lady is no longer living.”

“Of course, since you are here. It is easy to see that you would never have left her. But did she fall into actual want before her death? I am anxious to know the whole story.”

“No, thank God; she was spared that misfortune. I do not know what might have happened if all her means had been expended, and I had been obliged to leave her for the sake of earning our living. But that consideration was not the one that troubled me. Notwithstanding her calmness, I could see that she was rapidly failing. At the end of about two years, one evening when we were sitting by the shore of the lake, she took my hand and said, with a strange inflection in her voice:

“‘Cristiano, I think I have fever. Feel my pulse, and tell me what you think.’

“This was the first time, since her misfortunes, that she had referred to her health. I perceived that she was really in a violent fever. I took her into the house and sent for a physician.

“‘She is very ill, it is true,’ he said to me, ‘but possibly it may be a favorable crisis!’

“In fact, she had never had any fever at any time since her disorder had seized her.

“But I felt no hope. She fell into a state of profound lethargy, upon which no treatment produced the least effect, and the progress of her decline was so rapid as to be plainly visible. A few moments before she died she seemed to recover strength, and to awaken as if from a long dream. She asked me to lift her in my arms, and feebly whispered in my ear:

“‘I bless you, Cristiano; you have saved me. I think I have been insane, and that I have been a trouble to you. Silvio has this moment been blaming me for it. I just saw him, there; he told me to rise up and follow him. Help me to escape out of the tomb where I have shut myself up so foolishly! Come! The ship is setting sail! Let us go!’

“And with one supreme effort to arise, she fell back dead into my arms.

“I know nothing of what happened for some days. I felt as if I had no further concern with life, since I had no longer any one but myself to care for.

“I had the remains of my dear parents deposited in one tomb, and placed over it the simplest and whitest of the monuments that had been accumulated in our home, cutting upon it, with my own hands, the beloved names, with no other epitaph. You may well suppose that I felt a horror of formulas and emblems. When I returned to our home, I was notified that it belonged not to me, but the creditors. This I knew very well, and, indeed, I was so entirely ready to depart from it, that I had mechanically packed up my own property, while the women were wrapping the body in the winding-sheet. I left the business of settlement in the hands of the family, for I had been orderly enough, in the midst of my carelessness, to know that though nothing should be left for me, no debts would be left unpaid.

“I was about leaving my home, when the little Jew of whom I spoke came in. I supposed he came to get a cheap bargain of some of M. Goffredi’s precious antiques, which were to be sold at auction; but if he had any such purpose, he had delicacy enough not to mention it to me, and, as I sought to avoid him, he followed me into the garden where I was gathering a few flowers--the only material souvenirs which I proposed to carry away with me. He put into my hands a well-filled purse, and would have retreated without any explanation.

“I had so little thought of any relations other than those whom I had just lost, that I concluded this was an alms which the Jew had been employed to bring me; I flung the purse away upon the ground, in order to make him return and pick it up. He did so, and said:

“‘This is yours--it really is. It is money which I owed Goffredi, and I wish to repay it to you.’

“I refused, for this might be just the amount necessary to enable the estate to meet all the claims against it. Then the Jew said:

“‘The money comes from your real parents. They deposited it with me, and I engaged to deliver it to you whenever you should need it.’

“‘I need none of it,’ I replied, ‘I have enough to carry me to Rome, where M. Goffredi’s friends will find me some employment. Make my parents easy about me. I presume they are not rich, since they have been unable to bring me up under their own eyes. Thank them for having remembered me, and say to them that, at my age, and with the education I have received, it is my duty to be of assistance to them, if they should need it. Whether they reveal themselves to me or not, I will do this with pleasure. They intrusted me to such good hands, and I have been so happy in consequence, that I owe them the liveliest gratitude.’

“Those were my real sentiments, Monsieur Goefle. I was not dissembling at all, for they are my sentiments still. I have never felt any inclination to accuse or question the motives of those who gave me life, and I do not understand the feelings of illegitimate children who complain of not having been born into such or such a condition of society as they would have chosen--as if every living being had not been from all eternity destined to live, and as if it were not God who calls us, or sends us, into this world, under such conditions as it pleases Him to establish.

“‘Your parents are no longer living!’ replied the little Jew; ‘pray for them, and accept this gift from a friend!’

“This being a third account, different from the two preceding, I felt a secret distrust.

“‘Perhaps it is you yourself,’ I said, ‘who are so good as to offer me this friendly assistance?’

“‘No,’ he replied, ‘I am simply the agent, nothing more.’

“‘Very well: say to those who employed you that I thank them, but decline to accept anything, either from friends who disclose themselves or who hide themselves. Are you authorized by my family to give me any information?’

“‘No, none,’ he said, ‘but I may probably do so hereafter. Where do you intend to stop at Rome?’

“‘I have no idea.’

“‘Very good; I shall learn, however, for I am under obligations not to lose sight of you. Farewell, and remember that if you fall into trouble this money is yours, and that you have only to give me notice, and I will account to you for it!’

“He seemed to say this with sincerity, but it was possible that he was one of those bold speculators who furnish means to the necessitous with the intention of amply reimbursing themselves afterwards. So I thanked him rather coldly, and departed with my pockets almost empty.

“I felt but very little anxiety about the future. It would be impossible for me now to think of travelling, and instead, I should have to find employment and work for my support. Although, for a considerable time, I had been unable to pursue my studies, my memory was so good that I had not forgotten what I already knew. My attainments were sufficiently varied, and their elements still clear enough in my mind, to render me quite competent to become the private tutor of some young lad, and I was especially desirous of finding such a position, so that I might continue my own pursuits, by encroaching on my sleep.

“My father’s position in the province where we lived had been exceedingly honorable; but, strangely enough, my conduct in regard to Madame Goffredi was considered romantic, and quite unworthy a person of trustworthy character. I had allowed myself to be ruined,--so much the worse for me. As I was generally reputed to be a witless spendthrift, and a sort of lunatic, it would have been useless for me to seek employment. So I could not think of settling in Perugia. At Rome, one of my father’s friends found me a position as tutor in the family of a Neapolitan prince, who had two idle and stupid sons, besides a daughter, hump-backed, and of a coquettish and amorous disposition. At the end of two months I had to ask my dismission, so as to escape from the demonstrations of this heroine, of whom I did not choose to become the hero.

“At Naples, I met another of my father’s friends, a learned abbé, who obtained a place for me in a family less rich, but a great deal more disagreeable than that of the prince, and where my pupils were even less intelligent. Their mother, who was neither young nor handsome, quickly became unfriendly to me, because I was unwilling to deceive myself as to her charms. I made no pretensions to a savage degree of virtue, and did not think of claiming that I could fall in love only with a goddess,--I could have been quite contented with an ordinary mortal. But, even although this lady had been passably attractive, nothing would have induced me to be the lover of a woman who had authority over me, and who paid me my salary. So I went back to my learned abbé, and told him my troubles. He laughed, and said:

“‘It’s your own fault. You are a handsome fellow, and that makes you difficult.’

“I entreated him to get me a position with a widower or orphans, and, after some efforts, he informed me that he had found just what I wanted. The young Duke of Villareggia, who had lost his father and mother, and who had neither sisters nor aunts, was being educated by his uncle the cardinal. He already had a tutor, but wanted a professor of languages and literature. I was received into this post, and found it not only agreeable, but lucrative. The cardinal was a man of cultivation and intellect; and the nephew, now thirteen years of age, had a good mind and an amiable disposition. I became much attached to him, and brought him on rapidly, while at the same time pursuing my own studies with much ardor; for I had a lodging to myself, and all my evenings at my own disposal. The cardinal was so well satisfied with me, that he paid me quite liberally, so that I might dispense with seeking other pupils, and devote my self exclusively to the duke.

“For about a year, my conduct was studious and regular. I had suffered so much sorrow, and felt so deeply my social isolation, that my views of life were, perhaps, rather too serious. I might have become a mere pedant, had not the cardinal taken it into his head to urge me, in the most elegant and graceful manner, to mingle in the follies and corruptions of the day. He succeeded in making me a man of society, for which I am not sure that I am bound to be grateful. Gradually I came to waste a great deal of time on my toilet, and on my pleasures and intrigues. The cardinal’s palace was the rendezvous of all the wits of the day, and of the principal celebrities of the city. I was not expected to cultivate the moral character of my pupil, but merely to supply him with superficial accomplishments and pleasing social qualities. As for myself, all that was required of me was to make myself agreeable to everybody. This was not difficult, among people so amiable and frivolous. I was considered charming; indeed more so than was best for an orphan without position, fortune, or prospects.

“In the course of time I became quite dissipated, and was decidedly on the road to ruin. Indeed, I was encouraged, and, as it were, pushed downward in this career by all sorts of influences, and had nothing to restrain me but the memory of my parents, and the fear of becoming unworthy of the name which they had bequeathed me. I ought to have told you that my adoptive father had directed me, in his will, to assume the name of Cristiano Goffredi; and that I was thus known at Naples. With serious and learned people, this honorable name was an excellent recommendation, but it was thoroughly plebeian, and I too easily forgot that I needed, therefore, to exercise great prudence and reserve in my intercourse with the young nobles with whom I was in the habit of associating at the cardinal’s house. I suffered myself to be carried away by their engaging manners, and was much liked, because I had neither the awkward manners nor the austere principles of a professional pedagogue. I was invited everywhere, and was a favorite member of all the gay assemblies of the most fashionable youth of the city.

“The cardinal congratulated me upon my ability to reconcile suppers, balls, and late hours with the accuracy and lucidity which I unfailingly brought to the instruction of his nephew. Yet I myself perceived very plainly, and suffered from the consciousness, that I was no longer cultivating my own intellect with sufficient assiduity. I felt that I had stopped short in my progress, that I was insensibly becoming a mere showy and shallow talker, that I was turning into a parlor comedian and poet; and furthermore, was laying up nothing from my salary with a view to securing my future independence and respectability. My linen was too fine and my brains were too empty; in short, I had abandoned myself to dissipation and vacuity of mind, and from between these prison-walls there was great danger that I would never escape.