The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano Part 12

Darkness gathered round the train of mourners, and their husht rites, as the beauteous corpse sank down into the vault of her family.

When the crowd had disperst, the young stranger, who had followed the procession in wonder mixt with sadness, went up to an old priest who remained alone praying by the grave. He longed to learn who that majestic old man was, that had seemed to him gifted with G.o.d-like powers and more than earthly wisdom.

When the youth had laid his question modestly before the priest, the latter stood up and, by the light of a lamp that shone upon them from a window, lookt sharply into his eye.

The old man had a little spare form; his pale narrow face hightened the fire of his eyes yet more; and his pincht lips quivered, as with hoa.r.s.e voice he answered: "How! you don't know him? our far-famed Petrus of Apone, or Abano, of whom people talk in Paris, and London, and in the German Empire, and throughout all Italy? You know not the greatest of philosophers and physicians, of astronomers and astrologers, to learn from whom and to see whom the wild youth flock hither from the far parts of Poland?"

The young Spaniard, Alfonso, had moved back a step in delighted surprise; for the renown of this great teacher had driven him too from Barcelona over the sea. "Then it was he, it was himself!" he cried enthusiastically: "this too was why my heart felt so deeply moved. My spirit recognized his. O generous, pious man, how I love you for honouring him no less than do all the n.o.ble-minded and good in the Christian world!"

"You too mean perchance to study under him?" askt the priest with a bitter tone.

"Certainly," answered the other, "if he will vouchsafe to receive me among his scholars."

The old man stood still, laid his hand on the youth's shoulder, and then said mildly: "My dear young friend, there is yet time; listen even now to my fatherly warning, before it is too late. Do not deceive yourself, as so many, even without number, have done already; be on your guard, and watch over your soul. Are you then at your age thus beforehand aweary of your peace and future blessedness? would you requite your Saviour's love by becoming a runagate from him, and denying him, and taking up arms as a rebel against him?"

"I understand you not, old man," replied Alfonso: "did not you yourself see and hear how piously, how christianly, with what a heart-stirring majesty, the glorious man spake, and led back the erring footsteps of sorrowing love by his heavenly comfort into the right path?"

"What is there that he cannot, that he will not do, the trickster, the magician!" exclaimed the old priest warmly.

"Magician!" returned Alfonso. "So you too would take part in the folly of the rabble that is unable to appreciate the knowledge of lofty spirits, and would rather credit any absurdity than strengthen their own souls by gazing upon the grandeur of a fellow-creature.

"Only go on in this way," said the priest indignantly, "and you scarcely need go into his vaunted school. It is clear his magic has you already in its snares, just as he subdues every heart that but beats within his reach. Yes forsooth, the heathen, he has spoken and prophesied today like a priest, and has for once besmeared his lies with this varnish. In the same manner he is lord and master in the house of the Podesta. Poor Crescentia could hardly in her last hours find her way back to holy church: so bound and held fast was her soul by the false doctrines the wicked hypocrite had flung like poisonous nets around her young spirit. Now she has escaped him; the Lord has called her to himself, and has sent this disease to save her soul with the loss of her body."

The speakers were come into the large square before the church. The youth was irritated, and, to give his feelings vent, exclaimed: "What boots all this fierce envy, my ghostly sir? Do you not see, can you not perceive, how the world only falls away from you more and more, the more you by your excommunications and anathemas and persecutions strive to quench and stifle the new spirit? that spirit of eternal truth which is now awakening all nations from their sleep, and which in spite of your arts will never sink upon the pillow again to swallow your legends in submissive faith."

"Bravo!" said the old man in high wrath: "Have we not Averroes now instead of Christ, and Aristoteles instead of the Almighty, and this Pietro of yours, this Iscariot, instead of the Holy Ghost? And verily the spirit of the earth has built up a high and stately body for him, and has crowned it with a n.o.ble brow, and has set an eye of fire in it and the sweet mouth of persuasion, and has poured grace and majesty over his motions, that he may juggle and delude: while I, the unworthy servant of the Lord, walk about here sickly and weak and without all comeliness of feature, and have only my own confession, only my faith, to give a.s.surance that I am a christian. I cannot descend like him into the depths of dazzling knowledge, nor measure the course of the stars, nor foretell good and evil fortune; I am reviled and scorned by the overwise; but I bear it humbly, for the love of him who has laid all this upon me. Wait however until the end, and see whether his seven spirits whom he holds under his magical spell, can save him then; whether his Familiar, that sp.a.w.n of h.e.l.l, will then a.s.sist him."

"Was his Familiar with him?" askt Alfonso eagerly.

"Did not you observe the monster," answered the monk, "that had trickt itself out like a clown? the abortion with that hump, those twisted hands and arms, those crooked legs, those squinting eyes, and that enormous nose jutting out from its unsightly face."

"I took all that for a mask;" said the youth.

"No, this creature," replied the old man, "need not put on a mask.

Such as he is, he is mask enough, and spectre, and imp of h.e.l.l, this Beresynth, as they call him.... Will you pa.s.s the night in our convent, young man, until you have found a lodging?"

"No," rejoined he very positively; "I will be indebted for no hospitality to a man thus unjust and slanderous toward the n.o.ble being whose name I heard with rapture while yet in my own country, and who shall walk and shine before me here as my guide and model. It is bad enough that I have been forced to hear such language from you, from a man whose condition and age forbid my calling him to account for it.

If he alone is to be esteemed G.o.dly, who despises science and knowledge, he alone a christian, who in a waking slumber dozes away the days of his life and the powers of his soul, I depart out of the dull communion. But it is not so; nor is it the man, the christian, or the priest, that has been speaking from your lips, but your guild and fraternity. Farewell, if with such feelings you can."

They parted, both much out of temper.

The young Florentine who had met the funeral procession in the city, dasht like a madman through the gate, and then gallopt with reckless vehemence across field and wood. When he found himself in the open country, he hurled forth imprecations against the world and fate, tore his hair, curst his stars and his youth, and then rusht almost unconsciously onward. He spurred in the face of the wind that arose at nightfall, as though seeking to cool the fire in his cheeks.

When it grew later, his horse, which had often stumbled already, and which he had pulled up furiously every time, dropt exhausted to the ground, and he was forced to pursue his way on foot. He knew not where he was, still less whither he should go; only there stood before him with inextinguishable features his own misery, and the vanity of the world, and the treacherous inconstancy of all happiness.

"Accursed madness of life!" cried he in his despair through the darkness: "thus, thus cruelly dost thou awaken me out of my slumber! I cannot choose but hate thee mortally for thy jugglings, thy presumption, and for all those senseless hopes which smile upon our youth and go along with us so like friends upon our journey, and, when they have beguiled us into the wilderness, fly away from us and grin and make mows at us. Life! what is this web of folly, this silly dream of a feversick heart? One faint shivering-fit follows another; one crazy phantom drives another out; our wishes caper around in the bald waste, and do not even know themselves again. O death! O rest! O nothingness! come to me, let me embrace thee, and set this stormy heart free. O that I could but gasp out my last convulsive breath this very instant! that tomorrow's sun might no more find my place upon earth, that no thought might rise within me to greet its returning ray! Am I not the very wretchedest creature that breathes? and so much the poorer, for that a few hours since I deemed myself the happiest.

Woe be to youth! woe to love! Woe to the feelings of the heart, that let themselves be so readily, so grossly deceived!"

A shower now drizzled through the cold air, and soon the drops grew larger and thicker. The youth knew not whither he had strayed; the wood lay already far behind him; no shelter was near. He began to gather up his recollections; his grief became gentler; tears flowed from his eyes. He already hated life less; it seemed to him as though the night itself wisht to comfort him and to soothe his sorrow.

Uncertain whether to seek for his fallen horse again, or to hide himself in some hollow from the rain, he lookt once more around, and at length far below him across a valley and at the back of some trees discovered a little dancing light, that like a friendly eye winkt to him through the thick darkness and called him to approach it. He hastened toward the dubious gleam, which now vanisht, and now again shone forth. All his powers, all his feelings were bound as in sleep; his whole being had as it were past away into a dream.

A storm now got up, and heavy low-hanging thunderclouds were rolling slowly along. He was already approaching some trees, as it appeared to him; but the darkness made it impossible to distinguish anything whatever. A flash of lightning here dazzled him and a loud clap of thunder stunned him, so that he fell into a ditch.

On lifting himself up again, the light which had allured him was close at hand. He knockt at the little window that peept through some trees, and begged for admittance and shelter from the rain and storm. A loud hoa.r.s.e voice answered from within; but the youth did not catch a word; for the wind and thunder and rain, and the rustling of the trees, all now raged so violently at once, that every sound beside them fell dead.

The door of the little house opened into the garden: he had to hasten through it; a female hand then took hold of him, led him along a dark pa.s.sage, and into a little room, from which the light of a lamp and the fire on the hearth shone in his eyes. In the corner by the lamp sat a hideous old woman spinning; the girl who had conducted him in set to work over the fire; and for a long time he was unable to examine the figures closelier by the doubtful quivering light; for a long time no conversation could be carried on, the roaring of the thunder overpowering every other sound.

"This is a cruel storm!" said the old woman during a pause with a croaking voice. "Whence do you come hither, young man?"

"I come from Padua since this evening."

"Far indeed," cried the old woman: "it lies six good leagues from here. And whither are you going? for there is no public road hereabout."

"I know not, and care not to know. The wretched cannot frame any plan or think about the future. Indeed how happy should I feel, were there no future at all for me!"

"You are talking nonsense, young man; and that must not be. Heyday!"

she exclaimed, as she lifted up the lamp and lookt at him more narrowly, "why he is a Florentine! That doublet and cape is what I have not seen this many a day. Well now, this must surely bode me some good. So the ugly weather has made me a present of a dear guest; for you must know, my young gentleman, I too am from that blessed land. Ay Florence! Ah, if one might but once more tread on thy ground and see thy dear hills and gardens again! And your name, my dear young gentleman?"

"Antonio Cavalcanti," said the youth, who felt more confidence in the old dame on finding that she was his countrywoman.

"O what an accent!" cried she almost rapturously: "Cavalcanti! such a one I too knew some years since, one Guido."

"He was my father," said Antonio.

"And is he no longer alive?"

"No," answered the young man; "my mother too was taken from me a long time ago."

"I know it, I know it, my dear pretty boy. Ay, ay, it must now be full fifteen years since she died. Alas yes, it was then, in those troublous times, that she had to give up the ghost. And your dear worthy father, he is the only person I have to thank for the judges not having treated me just like a f.a.ggot some years after: they had somehow got it into their pates that I was a witch, and there was no avail in denying it. But Signor Guido fought my battle, what with reason and what with ranting, what with entreaties and what with threats: so they merely banisht me out of the dear land. And now this thunderstorm brings me the son of my benefactor into my poor little cottage. Come, give me your hand on the strength of it, youngster."

Antonio gave it to the old woman shuddering; for now at length he was able to observe her more distinctly. She grinned at him friendly, and displayed two long black teeth standing out between her bristly lips; her eyes were small and sharp, her brow furrowed, her chin long; she stretcht out two gaunt shrivelled arms toward him; and being compelled, however loth, to embrace her, he felt the hump which made her ugliness still more disgusting.

"True!" she said with a forced laugh, "I am not remarkably pretty; I was not so even in my younger days. There is something whimsical about beauty; one can never tell or describe downrightly in what it consists; it is always only the want of certain things which, when you have them at their full size, make up what folks call ugliness. Come now, tell me, such as I am, what do you think the most hideous thing about me?"

"My dear old dame," said the youth in confusion....

"No," she cried, "plump out with the truth, and without any flattery.

Everybody, you know, has some odd maggot or other; and as for me, I pride myself no little on being utterly without all those things which in the world they christen handsome. Now let me see your taste! speak out!"

"If I must," stammered Antonio, while in spite of his grief a smile curled his lips, "those two teeth are ... to my mind...."

"Ha, ha!" cried the old woman laughing aloud, "my two dear good old black teeth are what pleases you the least about me. I can well believe it: they stand like two scorcht palisades among the ruins of a fortress in the wide empty s.p.a.ce there. But you should have seen me ten years back; then matters were much worse still. In those days I had a whole mouth full of such portentous grinders; and they who loved me would say it lookt frightful. Well, one by one they fell out, and these two alone are left behind the last of all their race. When they are once gone, my jaws will clap together like two doors, the upper lip will grow just thrice as long, and again one can't tell what sort of a face will come of it. Time, my dear young friend, is, as somebody found out many many years ago, a bungling workman; he makes a creature pretty enough; then he daubs and trims and pares and pulls and squeezes the thing about, draws the nose and chin out of their sheaths, knocks in the cheeks, eats ruts into the forehead, till he has turned it into a scarecrow; and then at last he gets ashamed, smashes the whole wretched concern to pieces, and shovels it over with earth that all the world may not see his disgrace. Your cheeks too, smooth and polisht as they are, will not be so like a roseleaf by and by. Here! let me look! verily you have the rarest pearls of toothikins! a pity they must be used in chewing bread and roast beef.

Hey, hey! shew them to me ... wider open with the mouth ... but they stand very oddly ... hem! and that eyetooth! there is meaning in all that."