Authors: George W. M. Reynolds,James Malcolm Rymer
“Nisida,” exclaimed Fernand,
cruelly bewildered, “you drive me to despair. I know not whether to loathe thee
for this avowal which thou hast made, or to snatch thee to my arms, abandon all
hope of salvation, and sacrifice myself entirely for one so transcendently
beautiful as thou art. But thy suspicions relative to Agnes are ridiculous,
monstrous, absurd. For, as surely as thou art there, Nisida—as the heaven is
above us and the earth beneath us—as surely as that I love thee so well as to
be unable to reproach thee more for the deed which thou hast confessed—so
surely, Nisida, was Agnes my own granddaughter, and I—I, Fernand Wagner—young,
strong, and healthy as thou beholdest me, am fourscore and fifteen years of
age.”
Nisida started in affright, and
then fixed a scrutinizing glance upon Fernand’s countenance; for she feared
that his reason was abandoning him—that he was raving.
“Ah! Nisida, I see that you do
not credit my words,” he exclaimed; “and yet I have told thee the solemn,
sacred truth. But mine is a sad history and a dreadful fate; and if I thought
that thou would’st soothe my wounded spirit, console, and not revile me, pity,
and not loathe me, I would tell thee all.”
“Speak, Fernand, speak!” she
cried; “and do me not so much wrong as to suppose that I could forget my love
for thee—that love which made me the murderer of Agnes. Besides,” she added,
enthusiastically, “I see that we are destined for each other; that the dark
mysteries attached to both our lives engender the closest sympathies; that we
shall flourish in power, and glory, and love, and happiness together.”
Wagner threw his arms around
Nisida’s neck, and clasped her to his breast. He saw not in her the woman who
had dealt death to his granddaughter; he beheld in her only a being of
ravishing beauty and wondrous mind, so intoxicated was he with his passion, and
so great was the magic influence which she wielded o’er his yielding spirit.
Then, as her head reclined upon his breast, he whispered to her, in a few
hurried, but awfully significant words, the nature of his doom, the dread
conditions on which he had obtained resuscitated youth, an almost superhuman
beauty, a glorious intellect, and power of converting the very clods of the
earth into gold and precious stones at will.
“And now, dearest,” he added, in
a plaintive and appealing tone, “and now thou may’st divine wherefore on the
last day of every month I have crossed these mountains; thou may’st divine,
too, how my escape from the
prison of Florence was accomplished; and, though no mortal power can abridge my
days—though the sword of the executioner would fall harmless on my neck, and
the deadly poison curdle not in my veins—still, man can bind me in chains, and
my disgrace is known to all Florence.”
“But thou shalt return thither,
Fernand,” exclaimed Nisida, raising her countenance and gazing upon him, not
with horror and amazement, but in pride and triumph; “thou shalt return
thither, Fernand, armed with a power that may crush all thine enemies, and
blast with destructive lightning the wretches who would look slightingly on
thee. Already thou art dearer, far dearer to me than ever thou wast before; for
I love the marvelous—I glory in the supernatural—and thou art a being whom such
women as myself can worship and adore. And thou repinest at thy destiny? thou
shudderest at the idea of that monthly transformation which makes thy fate so
grand, because it is so terrible? Oh, thou art wrong, thou art wrong, my
Fernand. Consider all thou hast gained, how many, many years of glorious youth
and magnificent beauty await thee! Think of the power with which thy boundless
command of wealth may invest thee. Oh, thou art happy, enviable, blest. But
I—I,” she added, the impassioned excitement of her tone suddenly sinking into
subdued plaintiveness as her charming head once more fell upon his breast—“I am
doomed to fade and wither like the other human flowers of the earth. Oh, that
thought is now maddening. While thou remainest as thou art now, vested with
that fine, manly beauty which won my heart when first I saw thee, and before I
knew thee: I shall grow old, wrinkled, and thou wilt loathe me. I shall be like
a corpse by the side of one endowed with vigorous life. Oh, Fernand; this may
not be; and thou canst purchase the power to bestow unperishing youth,
unchanging beauty upon me; the power, moreover, to transport us hence, and
render us happy in inseparable companionship for long, long years to come.”
“Merciful heavens! Nisida,”
exclaimed Fernand, profoundly touched by the urgent, earnest appeal of the
lovely siren whose persuasive eloquence besought him to seal his own eternal
damnation—“would’st thou have me yield up my soul to the enemy of mankind?”
“Do you hesitate? Can you even
pause to reflect?” cried Nisida, with whose tongue the demon himself was as it
were speaking. “Oh, Fernand, you love me not, you have never, never loved me.”
And she burst into a flood of tears. Wagner was painfully moved by this
spectacle, which constituted so powerful an argument to support the persuasive
eloquence of her late appeal. His resolution gave way rapidly—the more
agonizing became her sobs the weaker grew his self-command; and his lips were
about to murmur the fatal assent to her prayer—about to announce his readiness
to summon the enemy of mankind and conclude the awful compact—when suddenly
there passed before his eyes the image of the guardian angel whom he had seen
in his vision, dim and transparent as the
thinnest
vapor, yet still perceptible and with an expression of countenance profoundly
mournful. The apparition vanished in a moment; but its evanescent presence was
fraught with salvation. Tearing himself wildly and abruptly from Nisida’s
embrace, Wagner exclaimed in a tone indicative of the horror produced by the
revulsion of feeling in his mind, “No—never—never!” and, fleet as the startled
deer he ran—he flew toward the mountains. Frightened and amazed by his sudden cry
and simultaneous flight, Nisida cast her eyes rapidly around to ascertain the
cause of his alarm, thinking that some dreadful spectacle had stricken terror
to his soul. But ah—what sees she? Why do her glances settle fixedly in one
direction? What beholds she in the horizon? For a few moments she is
motionless, speechless, she cannot believe her eyes. Then her countenance,
which has already experienced the transition from an expression of grief and
alarm to one of suspense and mingled hope and fear, becomes animated with the
wildest joy; and forgetting the late exciting scene as completely as if it had
never taken place, but with all her thoughts and feelings absorbed in the
new—the one idea which now engrosses her—she turns her eyes rapidly round
toward the mountains, exclaiming, “Fernand, dearest Fernand! a sail—a sail.”
But Wagner hears her not: she
stamps her foot with impatient rage upon the sand; and in another moment the
groves conceal her lover from view.
Yes; Wagner looked not round;
heard not the voice of Nisida invoking him to return, but continued his rapid
flight toward the mountains, as if hurrying in anguish and in horror from the
meshes which had been spread to ensnare his mortal soul. And now Nisida became
all selfishness; there was at length a hope, a sudden hope that she should be
speedily enabled to quit the hated monotonous island, and her fine, large dark
eyes were fixed intently upon the white sails which gradually grew more and
more palpable in the azure horizon. She was not deceived; there was no doubt,
no uncertainty, as to the nature of the object which now engrossed all her
thoughts, and filled her heart with the wildest joy. It was indeed a ship, and
its course was toward the island; for, as she gazed with fixed and longing
eyes, it by degrees assumed a more defined shape; and that which had at first
appeared to be but one small white piece of canvas, gradually developed the
outlines of many sails, and showed the tapering spars, until at last the black
hull appeared, completing the form of a large and noble vessel. Joy! joy—she
should yet be saved from the island. And, ah—do the chances of that hoped-for
safety multiply? Is it indeed another ship which has caught her eye in the
far-off horizon? Yes; and not one only, but another, and another, and another,
until she can count seven vessels, all emerging from the mighty distance, and
spreading their snow-white canvas to the breeze which wafts them toward the
isle.
Crowds of conflicting thoughts
now rush to the mind of Nisida; and she seats herself upon the strand to
deliberate as calmly as she may upon the course which she should adopt.
Alas, Fernand: thou wast not
then uppermost in the imagination of thy Nisida, although she had not entirely
forgotten thee. But the principal topic of her meditations, the grand question
which demanded the most serious weighing and balancing in her mind, was whether
she should again simulate the deafness and dumbness which she had now for many
months been accustomed to affect. Grave and important interests and a
deeply-rooted attachment to her brother on the one side urged the necessity of
so doing; but on the other, a fearful disinclination to resume that awful
duplicity—that dreadful self-sacrifice, an apprehension lest the enjoyment of
the faculties of hearing and speech for so long a period should have unfitted
her for the successful revival and efficient maintenance of the deceit; these
were the arguments on the negative side. But Nisida’s was not a mind to shrink
from any peril or revolt from any sacrifice which her interests or her aims
might urge her to encounter; and it was with fire-flashing eyes and a neck
proudly arching, that she raised her head in a determined manner, exclaiming
aloud, “Yes, it must be so. But the period of this renewed self-martyrdom will
not last long. So soon as thine interests shall have been duly cared for,
Francisco, I will quit Florence forever, I will return to this island, and here
will I pass the remainder of my days with thee, my beloved Fernand! And that I
do
love thee still, Fernand, although
thou hast fled from my presence as if I were suddenly transformed into a
loathsome monster, that I must ever continue to love thee, Fernand, and that I
shall anxiously long to return to thine arms, are truths as firmly based as the
foundations of the island. Thine, then, shall be the last name, thy name shall
be the last word that I will suffer my lips to pronounce ere I once more place
the seal upon them. Yes, I love thee, Fernand; oh! would to God that thou
could’st hear me proclaim how much I love thee, my beauteous, my
strangely-fated Fernand!”
It was almost in a despairing
tone that Nisida gave utterance to these last words; for as the chance of
escape from the island grew every moment less equivocal, by the nearer approach
of the fleet, which was, however, still far from the shore, the intensity of
her sensual passion for Wagner, that passion which she believed to be the
purest and most firmly rooted love, revived; and her heart smote her for her
readiness to abandon him to the solitude of that island. But as she was now
acquainted with all the mysteries of his fate, as she knew that he could not
die for many, many years to come, nor lose that glorious beauty which had
proved alike her pleasure and her pride, her remorse and her alarms were to a
considerable degree mitigated: for she thought within herself,
although
she now spoke aloud no more
; “Death will not snatch him from me,
disease will not impair his godlike features and elegant form, and he loves me
too well not to receive me with open arms when I shall be enabled to return to
him.” These were her thoughts: and starting upon her feet, she compressed her
lips tightly, as if to remind herself that she had once more placed a seal
there, a seal not to be broken for some time. An hour had now passed since
Fernand Wagner
and Nisida
separated on the seashore; and he did not come back. Meantime the fleet of
ships had drawn nearer, and though she more than once entertained the idea of
hastening after Wagner to implore him to accompany her whithersoever those
vessels were bound, or at least to part with the embrace of tenderness, yet her
fear lest the ships might sail past without touching at the island,
predominated over her softer feelings. And now, having settled in her mind the
course she was to adopt, she hastened to the stores which she had saved from
the wreck of the corsair vessel, and which had been piled up on the strand the
day after she was first thrown on that Mediterranean isle.
It will be remembered that
amongst the articles thus saved were changes of apparel, which Stephano Verrina
had procured for her use at Leghorn ere the corsair-bark set sail on that
voyage from which it never returned, and during Nisida’s long sojourn on the
island, she had frequently examined those garments, and had been careful to
secure them from the effects of rain or damp, in the hope that the day would
sooner or later come when she might assume them for the purpose of bidding
adieu to that lovely but monotonous island. And now that day has come; and the
moment so anxiously longed for appeared to be rapidly approaching. Nisida
accordingly commenced her toilet, as if she had only just risen from her couch
and was preparing to dress to go abroad amongst the busy haunts of human
beings.
Her dark luxuriant hair, which so
long had floated negligently upon her ivory shoulders, was now gathered up in
broad massive bands at the sides, and artistically plaited and confined at the
back of her well-shaped head. The tight bodice was next laced over the swelling
bosom: hose and light boots imprisoned the limbs which had so often borne her
glancing along in their nudity to the soft music of the stream in the vale or
of the wavelets of the sea; broidery set off the fine form of Nisida in all the
advantage of its glowing, full and voluptuous proportions. Then the large black
veil was fastened to the plaits of her hair, whence its ample folds swept over
that admirable symmetry of person, endowing her once more with the queen-like
air which became so well her splendid, yet haughty style of beauty! Yes: no
longer subdued by simplicity of attire—no longer tender and soft, was the
loveliness of Nisida; but grand, imperious, and dazzling did she now seem
again, as erst she seemed ere her foot trod that island-shore.