My Ten Years' Imprisonment [82]
a companion with whom I had so long suffered, and who had given me so many proofs of more than fraternal affection, and I tortured my imagination with the idea of a thousand disasters which might have befallen my family. Not even so many years of captivity had deadened the energy and susceptibility of my feelings! but it was a susceptibility only to pain and sorrow.
I felt, too, on my return, a strange desire to visit Udine, and the lodging-house, where our two generous friends had assumed the character of waiters, and secretly stretched out to us the hand of friendship. But we passed that town to our left, and passed on our way.
CHAPTER XCIV.
Pordenone, Conegliano, Ospedaletto, Vicenza, Verona, and Mantua, were all places which interested my feelings. In the first resided one of my friends, an excellent young man, who had survived the campaigns of Russia; Conegliano was the district whither, I was told by the under-jailers, poor Angiola had been conducted; and in Ospedaletto there had married and resided a young lady, who had more of the angel than the woman, and who, though now no more, I had every reason to remember with the highest respect. The whole of these places, in short, revived recollections more or less dear; and Mantua more than any other city. It appeared only yesterday that I had come with Lodovico in 1815, and paid another visit with Count Porro in 1820. The same roads, the same squares, the same palaces, and yet such a change in all social relations! So many of my connections snatched away for ever--so many exiled--one generation, I had beheld when infants, started up into manhood. Yet how painful not to be allowed to call at a single house, or to accost a single person we met.
To complete my misery, Mantua was the point of separation between Maroncelli and myself. We passed the night there, both filled with forebodings and regret. I felt agitated like a man on the eve of receiving his sentence.
The next morning I rose, and washed my face, in order to conceal from my friend how much I had given way to grief during the preceding night. I looked at myself in the glass, and tried to assume a quiet and even cheerful air. I then bent down in prayer, though ill able to command my thoughts; and hearing Maroncelli already upon his crutches, and speaking to the servant, I hastened to embrace him. We had both prepared ourselves, with previous exertions, for this closing interview, and we spoke to each other firmly, as well as affectionately. The officer appointed to conduct us to the borders of Romagna appeared; it was time to set out; we hardly knew how to speak another word; we grasped each other's hands again and again,--we parted; he mounted into his vehicle, and I felt as if I had been annihilated at a blow. I returned into my chamber, threw myself upon my knees, and prayed for my poor mutilated friend, thus separated from me, with sighs and tears.
I had known several celebrated men, but not one more affectionately sociable than Maroncelli; not one better educated in all respects, more free from sudden passion or ill-humour, more deeply sensible that virtue consists in continued exercises of tolerance, of generosity, and good sense. Heaven bless you, my dear companion in so many afflictions, and send you new friends who may equal me in my affection for you, and surpass me in true goodness.
CHAPTER XCV.
I set out the same evening for Brescia. There I took leave of my other fellow-prisoner, Andrea Torrelli. The unhappy man had just heard that he had lost his mother, and the bitterness of his grief wrung my heart; yet, agonised as were my feelings from so many different causes, I could not help laughing at the following incident.
Upon the table of our lodging-house I found the following theatrical announcement:- Francesca da Rimini; Opera da Musica, &c. "Whose work is this?" I inquired of the waiter.
"Who versified it, and composed the music, I cannot tell, but it is the Francesca da Rimini which everybody knows."
"Everybody! you must be wrong there.
I felt, too, on my return, a strange desire to visit Udine, and the lodging-house, where our two generous friends had assumed the character of waiters, and secretly stretched out to us the hand of friendship. But we passed that town to our left, and passed on our way.
CHAPTER XCIV.
Pordenone, Conegliano, Ospedaletto, Vicenza, Verona, and Mantua, were all places which interested my feelings. In the first resided one of my friends, an excellent young man, who had survived the campaigns of Russia; Conegliano was the district whither, I was told by the under-jailers, poor Angiola had been conducted; and in Ospedaletto there had married and resided a young lady, who had more of the angel than the woman, and who, though now no more, I had every reason to remember with the highest respect. The whole of these places, in short, revived recollections more or less dear; and Mantua more than any other city. It appeared only yesterday that I had come with Lodovico in 1815, and paid another visit with Count Porro in 1820. The same roads, the same squares, the same palaces, and yet such a change in all social relations! So many of my connections snatched away for ever--so many exiled--one generation, I had beheld when infants, started up into manhood. Yet how painful not to be allowed to call at a single house, or to accost a single person we met.
To complete my misery, Mantua was the point of separation between Maroncelli and myself. We passed the night there, both filled with forebodings and regret. I felt agitated like a man on the eve of receiving his sentence.
The next morning I rose, and washed my face, in order to conceal from my friend how much I had given way to grief during the preceding night. I looked at myself in the glass, and tried to assume a quiet and even cheerful air. I then bent down in prayer, though ill able to command my thoughts; and hearing Maroncelli already upon his crutches, and speaking to the servant, I hastened to embrace him. We had both prepared ourselves, with previous exertions, for this closing interview, and we spoke to each other firmly, as well as affectionately. The officer appointed to conduct us to the borders of Romagna appeared; it was time to set out; we hardly knew how to speak another word; we grasped each other's hands again and again,--we parted; he mounted into his vehicle, and I felt as if I had been annihilated at a blow. I returned into my chamber, threw myself upon my knees, and prayed for my poor mutilated friend, thus separated from me, with sighs and tears.
I had known several celebrated men, but not one more affectionately sociable than Maroncelli; not one better educated in all respects, more free from sudden passion or ill-humour, more deeply sensible that virtue consists in continued exercises of tolerance, of generosity, and good sense. Heaven bless you, my dear companion in so many afflictions, and send you new friends who may equal me in my affection for you, and surpass me in true goodness.
CHAPTER XCV.
I set out the same evening for Brescia. There I took leave of my other fellow-prisoner, Andrea Torrelli. The unhappy man had just heard that he had lost his mother, and the bitterness of his grief wrung my heart; yet, agonised as were my feelings from so many different causes, I could not help laughing at the following incident.
Upon the table of our lodging-house I found the following theatrical announcement:- Francesca da Rimini; Opera da Musica, &c. "Whose work is this?" I inquired of the waiter.
"Who versified it, and composed the music, I cannot tell, but it is the Francesca da Rimini which everybody knows."
"Everybody! you must be wrong there.