Part 13 (2/2)

”What shall I tell?” said Antonio, with the deepest anguish: ”do not you seem to know everything, or else to have learnt it by soothsay?

Need I tell you that an old servant, Roberto, poisoned her, having been persecuted by her hatred and thus spurred on to revenge himself?

that this accursed villain attempted to throw the crime upon my father? He escapes from prison, scales the garden-wall, and in the grotto thrusts his dagger into my father's breast.”

”What old Roberto! Roberto!” cried the old woman almost with a shout of triumph: ”hey, only see how strangely some people will turn out!

Ay, ay, the sneak in his younger days was such a straitlaced hypocrite, such a holy-seeming dog; afterward however he grew a fine spirited fellow, as they tell me. It was in the grotto then? How cunningly things fit together, and sh.e.l.l off till one gets at the kernel! In that grotto your father in earlier days sat time after time with his first wife; there at their betrothal he first swore eternal love to her. In those times Roberto doubtless already wore that dagger; but he knew not what an odd use he was to make of it some twenty years after. In that grotto too the second spouse would often slumber beside the cool fountain; and again the husband would lie there at her feet. Well, Antonio, child, is not life a right merry, right silly, right absurd, and right horrible hodgepodge? No man can say: 'that's a thing I never will do'. The pangs and the feelings, the stings and the ravings, which the black crew forge in h.e.l.l's smithy, all these keep coming on and coming on, slowly, wonderously, nearer and ever nearer: on a sudden Horrour is in the house, and the frantic victim sits with it in the corner, and gnaws at it as a dog gnaws a bone. Drink, drink, my darling; this grape-juice sets all things to rights when its spirits once get into the soul.... Now, and you? do tell me a little more.”

”I swore to revenge my father,” said Antonio.

”That's just right;” returned the old woman: ”look you, my child, when such a firebrand has been once hurled into a house, it must never never go out again. From generation to generation down to grandchild and cousin the poison is entailed; the children rave already; the wound is always bleeding afresh; a new vein must be opened to save the disaster and set it upon its legs again, when but for that it might be in danger of breathing its last. O revenge, revenge is a goodly word!”

”But Roberto,” said Antonio, ”had escaped, and was nowhere to be found.”

”A pity, a pity!” exclaimed the old woman. ”Now of course thy revenge drives thee over the world?”

”Yes in truth; I wandered through Italy, searcht in every town, but could find no trace of the murderer. At last the fame of Pietro of Abano fixt me at Padua. I wisht to learn wisdom from him; but when I came into the house of the Podesta....”

”Well! speak out, child!”

”What shall I say? I know not whether I am raving or dreaming. There I saw his daughter, the sweet, the lovely Crescentia. And I here see her again before me ... yes it is herself ... that funeral procession was a wicked, unseemly jest ... and this disguise, this flight hither into the desert, is again a most unseemly piece of mummery. Acknowledge thyself to me at length, at length, beloved, beautiful Crescentia.

Thou knowest it well, my heart only lives within thy bosom. To what end these agonizing trials? Are thy parents perchance in the next room there, and listening to all we are saying? Let them come in now at last, at last; let us have done with this cruel probation, which will soon drive me mad.”

The pale Crescentia lookt at him with such an unutterable expression, such a weight of sadness over her face, that the tears gusht from his eyes.

”Faith, he is drunk already!” howled the old woman. ”Speak, tell me, is the Podesta's daughter dead then? Dead is she? and when?”

”This evening,” said the weeper, ”I met her corpse.”

”So she too!” continued the old woman merrily, as she filled her gla.s.s again. ”Well, now will the family of Marconi in Venice be right glad.”

”Why so?”

”Because they are now the only heirs to their rich kinsman. This is what the long-sighted knaves have always wisht, but could never hope for.”

”Woman!” exclaimed Antonio with new horrour; ”why thou knowest everything!”

”Not everything,” replied she, ”but some little. And then a good deal more may perhaps be guessed at. And I will not deny it, a little witchcraft now and then helps on the game. Only don't be too much frightened at it. Nor in truth was it altogether for nothing that their Florentine wors.h.i.+ps would have built me a throne of f.a.ggots: some petty trifling bits of reasons for this wish they might fairly enough have brought forward.... Look me in the face, boy! stroak away the curls from thy forehead: good! now give me thy left hand: the right: heyday! strange and marvellous! That's it; some near misfortune is hanging over thee; but if thou outlivest it, thou wilt see thy beloved again.”

”In the next world!” sighed Antonio.

”The next world? what is the next world?” cried the old hag in her drunkenness: ”no, in this world, here, on what we call earth. What words the fools make use of! There is no next world, you silly ninnyhammer! he who does not skim off the fat from the broth while he is here, is a wretched gull. This however is what they clack to their simple brood, that they may behave prettily, and keep within bounds, and go the way one would lead them: but whosoever believes none of their fabling, he is free on the strength of this, and can do what his heart l.u.s.teth after.”

Antonio eyed her wrathfully, and was about to make an indignant reply; but the pale Crescentia interposed such a humble beseeching look for her mother that his anger was disarmed.

The old woman yawned and rubbed her eyes, and it was not long before, stupefied as she was by the repeated draughts of strong wine, she fell fast asleep.

The fire on the hearth was gone out, and the lamp now only cast a faint glimmer. Antonio sank into a deep study, and Crescentia sat by the window on a low stool.

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