Andrea Delfin Part 9

She put her ear against the door, but there was no answer.

Instead, she heard him stepping to the window opening onto the ca.n.a.l 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 ca.n.a.l, 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 ca.n.a.l 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 Ca.n.a.l. The palaces on both sides towered darkly over the face of the water. He pa.s.sed 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 flas.h.i.+ng 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 pa.s.s 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 s.h.i.+ps' 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 pa.s.sword 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 ash.o.r.e, 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 s.h.i.+ning 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 G.o.d has reserved for Himself, and G.o.d 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 G.o.d, 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. G.o.d 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.