Valperga (18 page)

Euthanasia passed an anxious day. She was alone; if one may be
called alone, whose thoughts descended not to the calm of solitary
meditation, but were actively engaged in the imagination of events
passing but a few miles distant. It was a warm April day, but
sunless: for the Libeccio had veiled the blue heavens with clouds
which seemed to press down the atmosphere, that unmoved by any
breeze appeared even by its weight to encumber the flowers, and to
destroy all elasticity either in vegetable or animal life. Poor
Euthanasia walked restlessly on the plot of ground before the gate
of her castle; and her languid eyes, bent towards Lucca, were able
to discern objects afar off, sharpened as their sight was by love
and fear. In the afternoon she saw a band of soldiers ride along
the road beneath the rock on which her castle was built, directing
their course towards the northern mountains. She thought that she
could distinguish the uncouth figure of Uguccione in the tallest
among the horsemen who led the troop; while in the rear she felt
sure that she beheld the form of Ranieri.

Her heart was now relieved from many of its fears; and she
watched with greater calmness the fading hues of sunset, and the
moon, now but a day older than when Castruccio had foretold the
overthrow of the tyrant. She had a favourite retreat near a spring
that issued from the rock behind her castle. The mountain was
almost perpendicular from which it gushed; but a rude flight of
steps had been cut, by which she ascended to it through a postern.
The spring rose from a rift above, and fell first on a narrow rocky
platform about seventy steps above the castle. Euthanasia had
caused a basin to be scooped here for the reception of the water,
and had covered it with a light portico, supported by fluted
columns of the Etruscan order made of the finest marble; a few
mossy seats surrounded the fountain. The rock shaded her as she
sat, on whose stony face grew nothing but heath, and such shrubs as
seem to find nutriment and growth in stone itself; but the top was
crowned by ilex trees and stunted myrtle underwood. Thither she now
retired, and watched the coming night; when suddenly she thought
she heard a rustling above her, and a small bunch of myrtle fell on
her lap; she looked up; and, gazing earnestly, perceived
Castruccio, with one hand grasping a myrtle shrub, leaning from the
summit of the precipice.

"Euthanasia!--Victory!" he cried.

"Victory and security!" she repeated with a deep sigh
of joy.

"And glory, and all the blessings of Heaven!" he
replied. She answered, but he was far above, and could scarcely
hear the words she spoke; he threw another sprig of myrtle, and
said, "To-morrow!" and retreated. She continued to look
upwards to the spot where he had leaned; the rustling of the leaves
was still--the myrtles that had bent as he leaned upon them, slowly
upraised themselves--yet still she thought that she heard his
voice, until the murmuring of the near stream recalled her to
herself, and told her how moveless every thing else was.

And now Euthanasia was happy--too happy; and fast-falling and
many tears alone relieved her full heart. She was happy in the
assurance of the safety and triumph of her friend; but it was his
love that touched her heart, and made her thrill with delight. What
sweeter meed is there in life, than the approbation and sincere
friendship of those whom we approve and admire? But to be loved by
such a one; to feel the deep sympathy of united affections, the
delicious consciousness of being loved by one whom all the world
approves, by one who fully justifies his claim to the world's
esteem by an oblivion of self, and heroic sacrifice of personal
felicity for the public cause, touches a chord--opens a spring of
feeling which those have never known, whose hearts have not been
warmed by public feeling, or who have not entered with interest
into the hopes and fears of a band struggling for liberty. The
human soul disdains all restraint, and ever seeks to mingle with
nature itself, or with kindred minds; to hope and fear for oneself
alone often narrows the heart and understanding; but if we are
animated by these feelings in unison with a multitude, bound by the
same desires and the same perils, such participation of triumph or
sorrow exalts and beautifies every emotion.

Yet triumph is a feeling which oppresses the human heart; and
that strangely fashioned instrument seems more adapted for
suffering than enjoyment; it is rather a passive, than an active
principle; abundant joy fills it with melancholy, but it can
extract pleasure from the depths of despair. Euthanasia was
overpowered; and she felt, in that moment of satisfaction to her
hopes, an agitation and unquiet repining, which, though it were
indeed only the rebellion of the heart against peace, seemed to her
in after times as the foreboding of the unlooked for catastrophe to
so much happiness.

The following evening Castruccio again visited her, and restored
her to calm. He sat at her feet, and fixing on her his dark eyes,
related the circumstances of his imprisonment and liberation.
"Did you not wonder," said he, "at your eagle's
visit yesternight? I would indeed that I had been one, so that I
could have cast myself at your feet, instead of the silly myrtle
that I threw! Yester evening, after the business of the day, I went
to the castle of Mordecastelli, which is on this same mountain, not
far from the Fairy's Fountain and the cypress, under which as
children we often sat--which we visited a few weeks ago, clambering
to it from the valley. When I left his castle, I passed by that
spot; and, pausing there, I thought that perhaps I could not only
attain the summit of the rock that overlooks your fountain, but in
some way get down to the alcove itself, and thus surprise your
retreat. I was disappointed; the precipice is too high above;--but
as I looked down, I caught a glance of your robe, and was repaid
for my toil, in being able to communicate to you the news of my
success. And now, dearest girl, be happy, and smile contentedly on
me; for now that I have overcome my domestic enemies, and have
supreme power in this hive of ours, you shall direct me, and there
shall be the peace that you love, and the concord you so much
desire between us and the proud republicans, your
friends."

Euthanasia smiled, and said, "Well may it please one so
nearly useless as I am, that I can save the lives of some of my
fellow-citizens. Do you not know, dearest Castruccio, that when you
draw your sword against the Florentines, it is always wetted with
the blood of my best friends? Love you indeed I always must; but I
know, for I have studied my own heart, that it would not unite
itself to yours, if, instead of these thoughts of peace and
concord, you were to scheme war and conquest."

"You measure your love in nice scales," replied
Castruccio, reproachfully; "surely, if it were as deep as
mine, it would be ruled alone by its own laws, and not by outward
circumstances."

Euthanasia answered earnestly, "So can it not be with me; I
have been bred in a city distracted by domestic faction, and which,
when it obtains a moment of peace in its own bosom, loses the
flower of its children in petty wars. A hatred and fear of war is
therefore a strong and ruling passion in my heart; but other
feelings mingle with these in my zeal for your concord with my
fellow-townsmen. Florence is my native city; its citizens are bound
to me by the ties of consanguinity and friendship: the families of
the Pazzi, the Donati, the Spini, and other noble or plebeian
Florentines, against whom you fight when you war with them, each
contains individuals whom I love and honour. I should be a traitor
to the best feelings of human nature, and a rebel to my country, if
I allied myself to its enemy: think you that I who have joined in
the social meetings of the Florentines, who as a child was caressed
by them, and as a woman loved, who have been present at their
marriages, and have mourned among them at their funerals,--when my
own beloved father was attended to his grave by these men whom you
call your enemies, and my own bitter sorrows assuaged by the
sympathy of their daughters,--think you, that thus linked by every
social tie, having prayed, and rejoiced, and wept with them, that I
could say to you, `Go, prosper!' when you should go to destroy
them? Dearest Castruccio, if, united to you, such an event were to
ensue, in that moment I must die, or live a death in
life."

Castruccio replied only by fresh assurances of his earnest
desire for peace, and kissed from the brow of Euthanasia the cloud
that for a moment had gathered there.

It had been a strange task to unveil the heart of Antelminelli,
and to disentangle the contradictory feelings that influenced him
at the moment. There can be no doubt that he never forgot his
designs for the aggrandizement of his native city; and he had seen
too much of courts, and felt too strongly his own superiority to
the men about him, to allow us to suppose that he entertained the
idea of establishing a free republic there, and submitting his
actions and intentions to be controlled by the people. It had long
been his earnest desire to raise and reinstate the fallen Ghibeline
party in Tuscany; and this was not to be accomplished except by the
humiliation of the Florentines: yet at this time his whole policy
was employed in concluding a peace with them,--a peace, which was
ratified the following April, and preserved for three years. These
three years it is true were not spent in inactivity, but in the
reduction of the surrounding country, and, latterly, in preparation
for the successful war he afterwards carried on against Florence.
Are therefore his protestations to Euthanasia to be considered as
wholly deceitful? His frank countenance and unembarrassed voice
forbade that idea for a moment to cross her imagination: we may
perhaps form this conclusion;--that he now found it for his
interest to conclude a peace with Florence; and he made the
sincerity of his present purpose lend its colour to his assurances
for the future.

A whole year was spent in the arrangement of the treaty.
Euthanasia passed all that time at her castle; and her content was
again disturbed by the successes of Castruccio; who in treating for
peace did not fail to make it more desirable to his enemies, by
seizing every opportunity to defeat their forces, and lay waste
their country; nor did the knowledge of the pain which these
operations caused his friend, in any degree check his activity.
Euthanasia loved Castruccio; but her judgement was penetrating, and
she was so accustomed to meditate on the events and feelings of
each day, that during this time, she in part penetrated the
character of her lover. He was formed for victory and daring,
rather than for magnanimity: he was swift of design and steady in
execution; bold, valiant, yet gentle of manner; his wit was keen;
his penetration into the dispositions of men instantaneous; and he
possessed also, as by instinct, the faculty of adapting himself to
every character, and of acquiring the love of all around him: men
always love those who lead them successfully through danger. He was
temperate in his habits; and in his mien, though the exterior were
ardent and even rash, there might be perceived underneath a reserve
of caution, a presence of mind, which never permitted him to be
carried beyond the dictates of prudence, and an eagle-eye which
caused him swiftly to distinguish danger from impracticability. He
trod the most perilous acclivities, but his foot was sure like that
of the chamois; and he could discern from afar where the path was
broken, and would check himself in the most headlong course. All
this was well; but, underneath a frankness of behaviour, and an
apparent nobleness of nature, there was the craft of a grey--haired
courtier, and even at times the cruelty of a falling tyrant.
Euthanasia saw not all this; but a times a glance, a tone seemed to
open a mine of undiscovered evil in his character, that made her
shudder in the very depths of her nature: yet this sensation would
pass away, and she, prompt to forget evil in others, thought no
more of it.

This year might be called the happiest of her life; yet it was
that which first schooled her to the pain and anguish which were
afterwards her portion. The flower of love can never exist without
its thorns. She loved, and was beloved:--her eyes beamed with a
quicker fire; and her whole soul, perfectly alive, seemed to feel
with a vividness and truth she had never before experienced. Nature
was invested for her with new appearances; and there was a beauty,
a soul, in the breeze of evening, the starry sky, and uprising sun,
which filled her with emotions she had never before so vividly
felt. Love seemed to have made her heart its chosen temple; and he
linked all its beatings to that universal beauty which is his
mother and his nurse.

There are feelings, which overpower the human soul, and often
render it morbid and weak, if virtuous action does not give dignity
to reverie. Euthanasia had many occupations, and among them the
glorious and delightful one of rendering her numerous dependents
happy. The cottages and villages over which she presided, were
filled by a contented peasantry, who adored their countess, and
knew her power only by the benefits she conferred on them.
Castruccio often accompanied her in her visits to these; and he,
accustomed as he was to count men as the numerals of a military
arithmetic, even he was touched by her care for the sick, her many
ways of displaying her judgement and abounding benevolence towards
her people. Yet sometimes he laughed at the difference between her
practice and her theory, and asked the youthful sovereign, why she
did not erect her states into a republic?

She smiled; but then, collecting herself, answered seriously;
"When I first inherited my mother's power, I gave much
consideration to this very question; not of forming a separate
republic of my poor villages, but of incorporating them, as many
nobles have done, and as doubtless the lords of Valperga will one
day be obliged to do, with some neighbouring and more powerful
republic. My inclinations led me to join myself to Florence; but
the distance of that city, and the immediate vicinity of Lucca,
shewed me the impracticability of that project. Valperga must one
day fall into the hands of the Lucchese; but, if I had at any time
made an alliance with them, I should have destroyed the present
happiness of my people; there would have been war instead of peace,
instead of concord and plenty, party agitations and heavy taxes.
This, my friend, must be my excuse for my tyranny; but, when the
alliance between you and the Florentines can be sure, when Lucca is
as peaceful and happy as Valperga, believe me, I will no longer
arrogate a power to which I ought not to have a
pretension."