The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano Part 15

Hereupon a medley of voices were suddenly heard as in a quarrel, then again as in talk: they whispered; they shouted and laught; songs darted from among them, together with the jumbled notes of strange instruments. All the vessels grew alive, and strode forward, and went back again; and out of the walls in every room gusht creatures of every kind, vermin and monsters and hideous abortions in the richest confusion.

"Master!" screamed Beresynth: "the house is growing too tight. What shall we do with all these ghosts? they must eat one another. O woe! O woe! they are all with cub, and are come here to whelp: new brutes keep sprouting out of the old ones, and the child is always wilder and frightfuller than its dam. My wits are leaving me in the lurch. And then this music into the bargain, this ringing and piping, and laughter athwart it, and funeral hymns enough to make one cry! Look master! look! the walls, the rooms are stretching themselves, and spreading out into vast halls; the ceilings are running away out of sight; and the creatures are still shooting forth, and thicken as fast as the s.p.a.ce grows. Have you no counsel? have you no help?"

In complete exhaustion Pietro now raised himself; his whole form was changed, and he seemed to be dying. "Look out once more," he said faintly: "turn thine eyes toward the dome, and bring me tidings of what thou seest."

"I am treading the rabble here on the head," roared Beresynth, totally bewildered; "they are disporting themselves in twining about me like serpents, and are laughing me to scorn. Are they ghosts? are they demons, or empty phantoms? Get away! Well, if you won't move out of my path, I'll stamp downright upon your green and blue snouts. Everybody must take care of number one, even if a devil is to be the sufferer."

He stumbled out muttering.

Things now grew tranquil, and Pietro stood up. He waved his arm, and all those strange forms which had been crawling about the floor and twisting around each other in the air, vanisht. He wiped off the sweat and tears, and drew his breath more freely.

His servant came back and said: "Master, all is quiet and well; but sundry light forms flitted by me and lost themselves in the dark sky.

Thereupon, while I kept staring immovably toward the dome, a mighty crash sounded, as if all the strings of a harp were breaking at once, and a clap came that made the streets and the houses all tremble. The great door of the church burst open; flutes warbled sweetly and lovelily; and a soft light brightness streamed forth from the heart of the church. Immediately after the form of a woman stept into the radiance, pale, but glancing, bedeckt with crowns of flowers; she glided through the door, and gleams of light strewed a path for her to tread along. Her head upright, her hands folded, she is floating hither toward our dwelling. Is this she for whom you have been waiting?"

"Take the golden key," answered Pietro, "and unlock the innermost richest chamber of my house. See that the purple tapestries are spread out, that the perfumes are scattering their sweetness. Then away, and get thee to bed. Make no further inquiry into what happens. Be obedient and silent, as thou valuest thy life."

"I know you too well," returned the dwarf, and walkt off with the key, casting back another look of something like mischievous delight.

Meanwhile a lovely murmur approacht. Pietro went into the entrance-hall, and in glided the pale body of Crescentia, in her robe of death, still holding the crucifix in her folded hands. He stood still before her; she drew up the lids from her large eyes, and shrank back from him with such a quick start that the wreaths of flowers dropt down from her shaking head.

Without speaking a word he wrested her fast-claspt hands asunder; but in the left she kept the crucifix tightly clencht. By the right hand he led her through room after room, and she moved by his side stiffly and with indifference, never looking around.

They reacht the furthest chamber. Purple and gold, silk and velvet, were its costly garniture. The light only glimmered in faintly by day through the heavy curtains. He pointed to the couch; and the unconscious holder of a charmed life stoopt and bent down like a lily that the wind shakes; she sank upon the red coverlet and breathed painfully.

From a golden vial the old man poured a precious essence into a little crystal cup, and set it before her mouth. Her pale lips sipt the wonderous draught; she again unfolded her eyes, fixt them on her former friend, turned away from him with an expression of loathing, and fell into a deep sleep.

The old man carefully closed the chamber again. Everything in the house was quiet. He betook himself to his own room, there in the midst of his books and magical instruments to await the rising of the sun and the business of the day.

When the unhappy youth, Antonio, had rested, the Podesta rode forth on the following day with him and with a large train of armed followers, to seek for the hut with the hideous old woman and the robbers, and to take them prisoners. On hearing Antonio's story, the disconsolate father became very eager to see the damsel who was said to be so like his lost daughter. "Can it be," said the old man on their way, "that a dream to which I have only too often abandoned myself, is about to become true?"

The father was in such haste that he gave the youth no further explanation. They came to the neighbouring wood; and here Antonio thought he recollected himself and had found his track again. But that night had so bewildered him, and excited such a turmoil throughout his whole frame, that he could not make out the way further on, which he had taken during the storm, half stunned by the roaring of the thunder, on foot, wandering over ploughed land and meadow.

They crost the large plain in every quarter; wherever trees or bushes were to be seen, thither Antonio spurred his horse, in the hope of meeting with that den of robbers and the marvellous apparition within it; or at least, should the inhabitants have absconded, as he might well expect, of gaining some sort of tidings about them.

At length the Podesta, after they had been roaming about thus for a great part of the day, began to fancy that the youth's heated imagination had merely beheld these phantoms in the wild ravings of his grief. "Such happiness," he exclaimed, "would be too great; and I am born only for misfortune."

On reaching a village they were forced to let their horses and servants bait. The inhabitants said they knew nothing of any such suspicious neighbours, nor had the bodies of the slain been found anywhere round about. After a short pause Antonio again set off, but the Podesta now followed him more mistrustingly. Inquiries were made of every peasant they fell in with; but none could give them any certain information.

Toward evening they got to a building that appeared to have been destroyed; ashes and rubbish lay around; some charred beams peered out from among the stones; the trees that stood near were scorcht.

Here the youth seemed to recognize what he saw. This, he affirmed confidently, had been the abode of the murderers and of that wonderous Crescentia. They made halt. Far and wide through the waste country there was no house to be seen, no human being to call to.

A servant rode to the next hamlet, and returned an hour after, bringing an old man on horseback. This old man said he knew that a good year since a hut had been burnt down there, having been set fire to by some soldiers; that the owner of the estate had already been ten years at Rome waiting for an office promist him in the church; and that his bailiff had taken a journey to Ravenna for the sake of getting in an old debt.

Vext and wearied the travellers rode back to the city. The Podesta Ambrosio determined to give up his office, to withdraw from public life, and to leave Padua, where everything reminded him only of his misfortunes.

Antonio resolved to learn in the school of the renowned Apone how to bear his wretchedness, and perchance to forget it. He removed into the house of that great man, who had long treated him with much kindness.

"So you too," said the little priest some time after to the melancholy Antonio, "have given yourself up to this ill-starred school, to this pernicious man who will ensnare your soul to its destruction."

"Why are you angry," answered Antonio courteously, "my pious friend?

May not religion and knowledge shake hands in amity, as they do in this admirable teacher? in him whom the whole world admires, whom princes esteem and cherish, whom our holy father himself means to raise to a spiritual dignity. Why are you incenst against him who comes forward to meet you and all mankind with his love? Did you know how his doctrine comforts me, how he lifts up my soul and guides it heavenward, how in his mouth piety and religion find the words and images of inspiration, which bear his scholars as with the wings of the spirit into the regions above the earth, you would not think and speak thus harshly of him. Learn to know him more nearly; seek his intercourse; and you will soon be moved by penitence and love to abjure your dislike and your over-hasty judgement against him."

"Love him!" cried the priest: "no, never! Keep yourself safe, young man, from his clutches and those of his servant with h.e.l.l's stamp upon him, who cannot gull any one with the same fair seeming as his master."

"True," rejoined Antonio, "little Beresynth is a queer figure, and a hideous one too. I wonder myself that our n.o.ble Pietro can endure to have him perpetually at his side, wherever he is and whatever he is doing. But ought a hump or any other such ugly mark to render us cruel toward a poor wretch whom nature has neglected?"

"Fine words! grand phrases!" exclaimed the priest impatiently: "such are the very sentiments to make conjurors and quacks thrive apace.

See, there comes the abomination! I cannot even bear to look upon him, much less to have any dealings with him. A creature whom the Lord has markt in this wise, is knowable enough; and let everybody in whom all human feeling is not yet quencht, get out of his way."

Beresynth, who had caught the last words, came up to them with divers ungainly jumps.

"My very reverend sir," he exclaimed, "do you then yourself happen to be of such mightily exquisite beauty, that you have a right to judge thus intolerantly? My master from his youth up has been a majestic and stately man; and yet he thinks far otherwise of me and my fellows.

What! you little stinted, stunted, stumpy, bile-faced animal, whose nose is for ever running crimson with spite! You with the crooked corners of your seesaw mouth, with the broken ridges and ditches in your shrivelled half-inch forehead, you would make an outcry about my ugliness! Why the bit of a dwarf can hardly peer out of its pulpit when it is hubbubbing there, and is so gossamer-shankt it durst not walk across the great square if the wind chance to be blowing strong; the congregation are hard put to find him out when he is grimacing and gesticulating before the altar, and need all their christian faith and hope to believe him actually corporeally present; and such a hop-o'-my-thumb, such a ghostly ne'er-to-be-seen, would take the tone of a Goliah here. With thy leave, thou most invisible man of G.o.dliness, one might cut out of my nose alone as stout a pillar of the faith as thou art; and I won't reckon in the brace of humps which my backbone and breastbone have built up in rivalry of each other."

The priest Theodore had already left them in anger before the end of this speech; and the melancholy Antonio chid the little dwarf for his wantonness. But the latter cried; "Now pray don't you also begin to preach. Once for all I will bear that from no one else than my master; for he came into the world on special purpose to teach morality and philosophy and their kin. But this weatherc.o.c.k of a priest here, that is driven round with such a creaking merely by his envy and malice, because he fancies that my n.o.ble master is lowering both his authority and his purse, he shall not unkennel his tongue from his toothless jaws, where I can but thrust in my unwasht mouth. And from a young student too I will brook no contradiction; for I used to have my beard shaved, while your father was still carried about in his chrisom-cloth; I was earning stripes at school and getting the fool's cap hung round my ears, when they put your wors.h.i.+pful grandfather into his first pair of breeches: so shew respect where it is due, and never forget whom you have before you."

"Don't be angry, little man," said Antonio: "I meant it well with thee."

"Mean it just as you please," returned the other. "My master is to be a prelate, do you know that yet? and lord rector of the university.

And he has received a new gold chain as a token of royal favour from Paris. And you must come to him; for he is going away from Padua, and wants to speak to you once more before he sets off. And don't crawl about so among the parsons, if you mean to be a philosopher."

Hopping and jumping to and fro from side to side he ran down the street again; and Antonio said to Alfonso, who now came up to him, and who for some time past had been forming a friends.h.i.+p with him: "I never know, when talking to that little abortion, whether it means its words in earnest or only in jest. He seems always to be scoffing at himself and at everything else in the world."

"This," answered Alfonso, "is a kind of necessary amends to him, a way of comforting himself for his deformity: by his sneers he to his own fancy makes all other creatures just like himself. But have you heard of the new honours that have been bestowed on our ill.u.s.trious teacher and master?"

"The world," replied Antonio, "acknowledges his high worth; and now that even our holy father, the pope, is making him a prelate, this will at length silence the envious priests and monks who are for ever trying to charge the virtuous and pious man with heresy."

They parted; and Antonio hurried home, to take leave of his teacher for some days. The little dwarf Beresynth was awaiting him in the doorway with a friendly grin.

It was already growing dark within the house; and as Beresynth left the youth to himself, he walkt, on not finding his teacher in the hall or even in the library, through a number of rooms, and thus advanced even to the innermost, which he had never yet entered. Here beside a dim lamp Pietro was sitting, and was no little surprised to see the Florentine come in; who on his part was astonisht at the skeletons, the strange instruments, and extraordinary machinery around the old man. Not without confusion the latter came up to him.

"I did not expect you here," said he, "but thought to find you without, or to look for you up in your own room. I must set off to meet the legate of our holy father, the pope, that with due humility and grat.i.tude I may receive the letter and the new dignity which his grace and paternal kindness have vouchsafed to confer upon me."

Antonio was embarrast, and seemed to be examining the instruments, having never seen any thing like them.

"You are wondering," said the old man after a while, "at all these things, which are necessary for my studies. When you have attended a course of my lectures on natural philosophy, I shall be able hereafter to explain everything which now perhaps you may deem incomprehensible."

But at this moment something happened that drew away Antonio's attention from all these objects. A door that seemed shut was only ajar; it opened, and he saw into a room filled with a red purplish light; and at the door in the midst of this roseate glow was standing a pale ghost that winkt and smiled.

With the speed of lightning the old man turned round, dasht the door thunderingly to, and fastened it with a gold key. Trembling and pale as a corpse he then threw himself into a chair, while large drops of sweat ran down from his forehead.

When he was somewhat recovered, he beckoned to Antonio, still trembling and said with a faltering voice: "This mystery also, my young friend, will hereafter become clear to you; think, my dearest son, the best of me. Thee above all, thou child of many sorrows and of my love, will I lead into the lowest depths of my knowledge; thou shalt be my true scholar, my heir. But leave me at present; go up to thy lonely chamber, and call in fervent prayer upon heaven and its holy powers to support thee."