Valperga (4 page)

From time to time Ruggieri renewed his affectionate
exhortations. His parental tenderness did not desert him in his
last moments; and he died making a sign that in Heaven they should
again meet. Castruccio was overwhelmed by grief at his loss. But
grief was soon silenced by pain: he had inhaled the pestilential
air from the dying breath of his father, and was speedily like him
stretched on the bed of sickness. Yet not like him had he any
tender nurse, to watch his fever, and administer to his wants:
every one fled from the chance of death; and it was only the
excellent constitution of the boy that enabled him to recover.

In a month after his father's death, himself in appearance
more dead than alive, he crawled out from his apartment to breathe
the enlivening air of the sea. A wind swept over it, and chilled
his frame, while the dusky sky filled him with despondency. But
this was a transient feeling: day by day he gained strength, and
with strength and health returned the buoyant spirits of youth. The
first lively feeling that he experienced, was an ardent desire to
remove from Ancona. During his illness he had bitterly felt the
absence of many whom he considered dear and firm friends. When he
was able to enquire for those whom he had inwardly reproached as
false, he found that they were dead. The pestilence had visited
them, and felled them to the ground, while he, bruised and half
broken, raised his head when the deadly visitation was over. These
disappointments and losses pressed on his soul; and he experienced
that feeling which deceives us at every age, that by change of
place, he could exchange his unhappy sensations for those of a more
genial nature. The rainy season had begun; but he would not delay
his departure; so, taking an agonizing farewell of the graves of
his friends, and of those of his beloved parents whom he could
never see more, he left Ancona.

The beauty of the mountains and the picturesque views for a
while beguiled his thoughts. He passed through the country where
Asdrubal, the brother of Hannibal, was defeated and slain on the
mountain which still bears his name. A river runs at the base; and
it was clothed by trees now yellow and red, tinged thus by the
winds of autumn, except where a cluster of ilexes gave life to the
scenery. As he advanced, the rains poured down, and the hills, now
more distant, were hid in mist; while towards the east the gloomy
Adriatic filled the air with its restless murmurs. Castruccio had
passed swiftly through this country before, when he went to the
Festa d'Inferno at Florence. It was then adorned by the fresh
spring; the sunbeams illuminated the various folds of the
mountains, and the light waves coursed one another, dancing under
the dazzling light. Castruccio remembered this; and he gazed
sullenly on the sky obscured by a thick woof of black clouds, and
reproached that with changing, as his fortune changed. Yet,
reflecting on the chances that had occurred during his last
journey, his imagination wandered to Euthanasia, and paused there,
resting with delight on her beloved image.

He passed through many towns, among which he had no friends, and
sought for none. Yet, if he had desired protection, several of
these were ruled by Ghibeline lords, who would have welcomed him
with hospitality. Rimini was then governed by the husband of
Francesca, whose hapless fate is immortalized by Dante. She was
dead; but the country people, with a mixture of pity and religious
horror, still spoke of her as the loveliest creature that had ever
dwelt on earth, yet for whose lost soul, condemned to eternal
pains, they dared not even pray.

Castruccio journeyed slowly on. He was weak and unable to endure
continued exercise. Yet his mind recovered by degrees its wonted
strength; and imagination, ever at work, pictured his future life,
brilliant with glowing love, transcendent with glory and success.
Thus, in solitude, while no censuring eye could check the exuberant
vanity, he would throw his arms to the north, the south, the east,
and the west, crying,--"There--there--there, and there, shall
my fame reach!"--and then, in gay defiance, casting his eager
glance towards heaven:--"and even there, if man may climb the
slippery sides of the arched palace of eternal fame, there also
will I be recorded."

He was yet a boy in his seventeenth year when he said this. His
desires were afterwards to a considerable extent fulfilled: would
he not have been happier, if they had failed, and he, in blameless
obscurity, had sunk with the millions that compose the nations of
the earth, into the vast ocean of oblivion? The sequel of his
history must solve the riddle.

CASTRUCCIO passed through Bologna, Ferrara and Rivigo, to arrive
at Este. It was not the most favourable period for a visit to
Lombardy. The beauty of that country consists in its exquisite
vegetation: its fields of waving corn, planted with rows of trees
to which vines are festooned, form prospects, ever varying in their
combinations, that delight and refresh the eye; but autumn had
nearly stripped the landscape, and the low lands were overflowed by
the inundation of various rivers. Castruccio's mind, fixed on
the imagination of future events, found no amusement in the wintry
scene; but he saw with delight the mountains that were the bourn of
his journey, become more and more distinct. Este is situated nearly
at the foot of the Euganean hills, on a declivity overlooked by an
extensive and picturesque castle, beyond which is a convent; the
hills rise from behind, from whose heights you discover the vast
plain of Lombardy, bounded to the west by the far Apennines of
Bologna, and to the east by the sea and the towers of Venice.

Castruccio ascended the hill immediately above the town, to seek
for the habitation of Guinigi. The autumnal wind swept over it,
scattering the fallen leaves of the chestnut wood; and the swift
clouds, driven over the boundless plain, gave it the appearance, as
their shadows came and went, of a heaving sea of dusky waters.
Castruccio found Guinigi sitting at the door of his house; it was a
low-roofed cottage, that seemed more fit for the habitation of a
peasant, than of a man bred in camps and palaces. Guinigi himself
was about forty years of age: the hardships of war had thinned the
locks on his temples before their time, and drawn a few lines in
his face, beaming as it was with benevolence. The sparkling
intelligence of his eye was tempered by gentleness and wisdom; and
the stately mien of the soldier had yielded somewhat to his late
rustic occupations; for, since his exile he had turned his sword to
a ploughshare, and he dwelt with much complacency on the
change.

As Castruccio first saw him, he was gazing with the most
heartfelt and benevolent pleasure on his boy, a child of seven
years of age, who was busy with the peasants, drawing off wine from
the vats; for it was just the time when the vintage was finished,
and the last labours were bestowed on the crushed grapes. The youth
paused: but for the air of dignity that was visible beneath his
rustic dress, he could not have believed that this was his
father's friend; his father, who in exile never forgot that he
was a soldier and a knight. He gave the letter; and, when Guinigi
had read it, he embraced the orphan son of his old comrade, and
welcomed him with a cordiality that warmed the heart of Castruccio.
The name of a stranger soon struck the ear of Arrigo, his little
son, who came with joy to greet him, bearing a large basket of
grapes and figs. Guinigi was much amused by the evident
astonishment with which his guest regarded the appearance of the
house and its master, and said:--"You come to the dwelling of
a peasant who eats the bread his own hands have sown; this is a new
scene for you, but you will not find it uninstructive. To my eyes,
which do not now glance with the same fire as yours, the sight of
the bounties of nature, and of the harmless peasants who cultivate
the earth, is far more delightful than an army of knights hasting
in brilliant array to deluge the fields with blood, and to destroy
the beneficial hopes of the husbandman. But these are new doctrines
to you; and you perhaps will never, like me, in the deep sincerity
of your heart, prefer this lowly cottage to yonder majestic
castle."

To say the truth, Castruccio was greatly disappointed. As he had
ascended from the town, and saw a gay banner waving from the keep
of the castle, as he heard the clash of armour, and beheld the
sun-beams glitter on the arms of the centinel, he hoped that he
should find his future protector a favourite with the happy chief.
He would, he felt, have accosted him with more respect, if he had
found him a monk in the neighbouring monastery, than a contented
farmer, a peasant whose narrow views soared not beyond the wine-vat
and the ox's stall.

These were the first feelings that occurred to Castruccio; but
he soon found that he was introduced to a new world in the society
of Guinigi; a world with whose spring of action he could not
sympathize, yet which he could not condemn. It was characterized by
a simple yet sublime morality, which resting on natural bases,
admitted no factitious colouring. Guinigi thought only of the duty
of man to man, laying aside the distinctions of society, and with
lovely humility recognized the affinity of the meanest peasant to
his own noble mind. Exercising the most exalted virtues, he also
cultivated a taste and imagination that dignified what the vulgar
would term ignoble, as the common clouds of day become fields of
purple and gold, painted by the sun at eve. His fancy only paused,
when he would force it to adorn with beauty vice, death, and
misery, when disguised by a kingly robe, by the trappings of a
victorious army, or the false halo of glory spread over the smoking
ruins of a ravaged town. Then his heart sickened, and the banners
of triumph or the song of victory could not drive from his
recollection the varieties of death, and the groans of torture that
occasion such exultation to the privileged murderers of the
earth.

When Guinigi and Castruccio became intimate, the youth would
reason with him, and endeavour to prove, that in the present
distracted state of mankind, it was better that one man should get
the upper hand, to rule the rest. "Yes," said Guinigi,
"let one man, if it be forbidden to more than one, get the
upper hand in wisdom, and let him teach the rest: teach them the
valuable arts of peace and love."

Guinigi was a strange enthusiast. Men, like Alexander and other
conquerors, have indulged the hope of subduing the world, and
spreading by their triumphs refinement into its barbarous recesses.
Guinigi hoped, how futilely! to lay a foundation-stone for the
temple of peace among the Euganean hills. He had an overflowing
affection of soul, that could not confine itself to the person of
his son, or the aggrandizement of his country, or be spiritualized
into a metaphysical adoration of ideal beauty. It bestowed itself
on his fellow-creatures; and to see them happy, warmed his heart
with a pleasure experienced by few. This man, his imaginative
flights, his glowing benevolence and his humble occupations, were
an enigma that Castruccio could never solve. But, while he neither
sympathized with nor understood him, he quickly loved him with the
warmest affection.

Castruccio wished to speak to him of his future destination;
Guinigi said, "Your father has recommended you to my counsels,
and you must allow me to become acquainted with you, before I can
give you advice. You are very young; and we need not hurry. Grant
me six months; we will not be idle. We will ramble about the
country: winter is the peasant's leisure time, so I am quite at
your service. We shall be much together, and will discuss many
subjects; and by degrees I shall understand the foundations on
which you are to build your future life."

They travelled to Padua, to lovely Venice, raising its head from
the waves of ocean; they rambled about the coast for days together,
having no other end than to enjoy the beauties of nature. Then,
coming nearer home, they climbed the Euganean hills, and penetrated
their recesses. Guinigi had an ultimate object in view; he wished
to impress on the mind of his pupil a love of peace, and a taste
for rural pleasures. One day they were on the summit of Monte
Selice, a conical hill between Este and Padua, and Guinigi pointed
to the country around.-- "What a Paradise is this!" he
said. "Now it is bare; but in the summer, when the corn waves
among the trees, and ripening grapes shade the roads; when on every
side you see happy peasants leading the beautiful oxen to their
light work, and the sun, and the air, and the earth are each
labouring to produce for man all that is necessary for his support,
and the ground is covered with vegetation, and the air quickened
into life, it is a spot, on which the Creator of the world might
pause, and be pleased with his work. How different was this some
years ago! You have heard of Ezzelino the tyrant of Padua, under
whose auspices the rivers ran blood, and the unfortunate peasant
found his harvests reaped by the sword of the invading soldier!
Look at those peasants on yonder road, conducting their cattle
crowned with flowers: habited in their holiday best, and moving in
solemn procession; their oxen are going to be blessed by St.
Antonio, to ward from them the evils of the ensuing seasons. A few
years ago, instead of peasants, soldiers marched along that road:
their close ranks shewed their excellent discipline; their
instruments filled the air with triumphant sounds; the knights
pricked their steeds forward, who arching their proud necks, seemed
to exult in their destination. What were they about to do? to burn
a town, to murder the old, and the helpless, the women, and the
children; to destroy the dwellings of peace; so that, when they
left their cruel work, the miserable wretches who survived had
nothing to shelter them but the bare, black walls, where before
their neat cottages had stood."