Delphi Complete Works of Ann Radcliffe (Illustrated)

by Ann Radcliffe

  Vivaldi almost believed himself in the infernal regions; the dismal aspect of this place, the horrible preparation for punishment, and, above all, the disposition and appearance of the persons that were ready to inflict it, confirmed the resemblance. That any human being should willingly afflict a fellow being who had never injured, or even offended him; that, unswayed by passion, he should deliberately become the means of torturing him, appeared to Vivaldi nearly incredible! But when he looked at the three persons who composed the tribunal, and considered that they had not only voluntarily undertaken the cruel office they fulfilled, but had probably long regarded it as the summit of their ambition, his astonishment and indignation were unbounded.

  The grand inquisitor, having again called on Vivaldi by name, admonished him to confess the truth, and avoid the suffering that awaited him.

  As Vivaldi had on former examinations spoken the truth, which was not believed, he had no chance of escaping present suffering, but by asserting falshood: in doing so, to avoid such monstrous injustice and cruelty, he might, perhaps, have been justified, had it been certain that such assertion could affect himself alone; but since he knew that the consequence must extend to others, and, above all, believed that Ellena di Rosalba must be involved in it, he did not hesitate for an instant to dare whatever torture his firmness might provoke. But even if morality could have forgiven falshood in such extraordinary circumstances as these, policy, after all, would have forbidden it, since a discovery of the artifice would probably have led to the final destruction of the accused person.

  Of Ellena’s situation he would now have asked, however desperate the question; would again have asserted her innocence, and supplicated for compassion, even to inquisitors, had he not perceived that, in doing so, he should only furnish them with a more exquisite means of torturing him than any other they could apply; for if, when all the terrors of his soul concerning her were understood, they should threaten to increase her sufferings, as the punishment of what was termed his obstinacy, they would, indeed, become the masters of his integrity, as well as of his person.

  The tribunal again, and repeatedly, urged Vivaldi to confess himself guilty; and the inquisitor, at length, concluded with saying, that the judges were innocent of whatever consequence might ensue from his obstinacy; so that, if he expired beneath his sufferings, himself only, not they, would have occasioned his death.

  “I am innocent of the charges which I understand are urged against me,” said Vivaldi, with solemnity; “I repeat, that I am innocent! If, to escape the horrors of these moments, I could be weak enough to declare myself guilty, not all your racks could alter truth, and make me so, except in that assertion. The consequence of your tortures, therefore, be upon your own heads!”

  While Vivaldi spoke, the vicar general listened with attention, and, when he had ceased to speak, appeared to meditate; but the inquisitor was irritated by the boldness of his speech, instead of being convinced by the justness of his representation; and made a signal for the officers to prepare for the question. While they were obeying, Vivaldi observed, notwithstanding the agitation he suffered, a person cross the chamber; whom he immediately knew to be the same that had passed him in an avenue of the inquisition on a former night, and whom he had then fancied to be the mysterious stranger of Paluzzi. Vivaldi now fixed his eyes upon him, but his own peculiar situation prevented his feeling the interest he had formerly suffered concerning him.

  The figure, air, and stalk, of this person were so striking, and so strongly resembled those of the monk of Paluzzi, that Vivaldi had no longer a doubt as to their identity. He pointed him out to one of the officials, and inquired who he was. While he spoke, the stranger, was passing forward, and, before any reply was given, a door leading to the farther vaults shut him from view. Vivaldi, however, repeated the inquiry, which the official appeared unable to answer, and a reproof from the tribunal reminded him that he must not ask questions there. Vivaldi observed that it was the grand inquisitor who spoke, and that the manner of the official immediately changed.

  The familiars, who were the same that had conducted Vivaldi into the chamber, having made ready the instrument of torture, approached him, and, after taking off his cloak and vest, bound him with strong cords. They threw over his head the customary black garment, which entirely enveloped his figure, and prevented his observing what was farther preparing. In this state of expectation, he was again interrogated by the inquisitor.

  “Was you ever in the church of the Spirito Santo, at Naples?” said he.

  “Yes,” replied Vivaldi.

  “Did you ever express there a contempt for the Catholic faith?”

  “Never,” said Vivaldi.

  “Neither by word or action?” continued the inquisitor.

  “Never, by either!”

  “Recollect yourself,” added the inquisitor. “Did you never insult there a minister of our most holy church?”

  Vivaldi was silent: he began to perceive the real nature of the charge which was to be urged against him, and that it was too plausible to permit his escape from the punishment, which is adjudged for heresy. Questions so direct and minute had never been put to him here on his former examinations; they had been reserved for a moment when it was believed he could not evade them; and the real charge had been concealed from him, that he might not be prepared to elude it.

  “Answer!” repeated the inquisitor.— “Did you ever insult a minister of the Catholic faith, in the church of the Spirito Santo, at Naples?”

  “Did you not insult him while he was performing an act of holy penance?” said another voice.

  Vivaldi started, for he instantly recollected the wellknown tones of the monk of Paluzzi. “Who asks the question?” demanded Vivaldi.

  “It is you who are to answer here,” resumed the inquisitor. “Answer to what I have required.”

  “I have offended a minister of the church,” replied Vivaldi, “but never could intentionally insult our holy religion. You are not acquainted, fathers, with the injuries that provoked— “

  “Enough!” interrupted the inquisitor; “speak to the question. Did you not, by insult and menace, force a pious brother to leave unperformed the act of penance in which he had engaged himself? Did you not compel him to quit the church, and fly for refuge to his convent?”

  “No,” replied Vivaldi. “‘Tis true, he left the church, and that in consequence of my conduct there; but the consequence was not necessary; if he had only replied to my inquiry, or promised to restore her of whom he had treacherously robbed me, he might have remained quietly in the church till this moment, had that depended upon my forbearance.”

  “What!” said the vicar-general, “would you have compelled him to speak, when he was engaged in silent penance? You confess, that you occasioned him to leave the church. That is enough.”

  “Where did you first see Ellena di Rosalba?” said the voice, which had spoken once before.

  “I demand again, who gives the question,” answered Vivaldi.

  “Recollect yourself,” said the inquisitor, “a criminal cannot make a demand.”

  “I do not perceive the connection between your admonition and your assertion,” observed Vivaldi.

  “You appear to be rather too much at your ease,” said the inquisitor. “Answer to the question which was last put to you, or the familiars shall do their duty.”

  “Let the same person ask it,” replied Vivaldi.

  The question was repeated in the former voice.

  “In the church of San Lorenzo, at Naples,” said Vivaldi, with a heavy sigh, “I first beheld Ellena di Rosalba.”

  “Was she then professed?” asked the vicar general.

  “She never accepted the veil,” replied Vivaldi, “nor ever intended to do so.”

  “Where did she reside at that period?”

  “She lived with a relative at Villa Altieri, and would yet reside there, had not the machinations of a monk occasioned her to be torn from her home, and confined in a
convent, from which I had just assisted to release her, when she was again seized, and upon a charge most false and cruel. — O reverend fathers! I conjure, I supplicate— “ Vivaldi restrained himself, for he was going to have betrayed, to the mercy of inquisitors, all the feelings of his heart.

  “The name of the monk?” said the stranger, earnestly.

  “If I mistake not,” replied Vivaldi, “you are already acquainted with it. The monk is called father Schedoni. He is of the Dominican convent of the Spirito Santo, in Naples, and the same who accuses me of having insulted him in the church of that name.”

  “How did you know him for your accuser?” asked the same voice.

  “Because he is my only enemy,” replied Vivaldi.

  “Your enemy!” observed the inquisitor; “a former deposition says, you were unconscious of having one! You are inconsistent in your replies.”

  “You were warned not to visit Villa Altieri,” said the unknown person. “Why did you not profit by the warning?”

  “I was warned by yourself,” answered Vivaldi. “Now I know you well.”

  “By me!” said the stranger, in a solemn tone.

  “By you!” repeated Vivaldi: “you who also foretold the death of Signora Bianchi; and you are that enemy — that father Schedoni, by whom I am accused.”

  “Whence come these questions?” demanded the vicar general. “Who has been authorised thus to interrogate the prisoner?”

  No reply was made. A busy hum of voices from the tribunal succeeded the silence. At length, the murmuring subsided, and the monk’s voice was heard again.

  “I will declare thus much,” it said, addressing Vivaldi; “I am not father Schedoni.”

  The peculiar tone and emphasis, with which this was delivered, more than the assertion itself, persuaded Vivaldi that the stranger spoke truth; and, though he still recognized the voice of the monk of Paluzzi, he did not know it to be that of Schedoni. Vivaldi was astonished! He would have torn the veil from his eyes, and once more viewed this mysterious stranger, had his hands been at liberty. As it was, he could only conjure him to reveal his name, and the motives for his former conduct.

  “Who is come amongst us?” said the vicar general, in the voice of a person, who means to inspire in others the awe he himself suffers.

  “Who is come amongst us?” he repeated, in a louder tone. Still no answer was returned; but again a confused murmur sounded from the tribunal, and a general consternation seemed to prevail. No person spoke with sufficient preeminence to be understood by Vivaldi; something extraordinary appeared to be passing, and he awaited the issue with all the patience he could command. Soon after he heard doors opened, and the noise of persons quitting the chamber. A deep silence followed; but he was certain that the familiars were still beside him, waiting to begin their work of torture.

  After a considerable time had elapsed, Vivaldi heard footsteps advancing, and a person give orders for his release, that he might be carried back to his cell.

  When the veil was removed from his eyes, he perceived that the tribunal was dissolved, and that the stranger was gone. The lamps were dying away, and the chamber appeared more gloomily terrific than before.

  The familiars conducted him to the spot at which they had received him; whence the officers who had led him thither, guarded him to his prison. There, stretched upon his bed of straw, in solitude and in darkness, he had leisure enough to reflect upon what had passed, and to recollect with minute exactness every former circumstance connected with the stranger. By comparing those with the present, he endeavoured to draw a more certain conclusion as to the identity of this person, and his motives for the very extraordinary conduct he had pursued. The first appearance of this stranger, among the ruins of Paluzzi, when he had said that Vivaldi’s steps were watched, and had cautioned him against returning to Villa Altieri, was recalled to his mind. Vivaldi re-considered, also, his second appearance on the same spot, and his second warning; the circumstances, which had attended his own adventures within the fortress; — the monk’s prediction of Bianchi’s death, and his evil tidings respecting Ellena, at the very hour when she had been seized and carried from her home. The longer he considered these several instances, as they were now connected in his mind, with the certainty of Schedoni’s evil disposition towards him, the more he was inclined to believe, notwithstanding the voice of seeming truth which had just affirmed the contrary, that the unknown person was Schedoni himself, and that he had been employed by the Marchesa, to prevent Vivaldi’s visits to Villa Altieri. Being thus an agent in the events of which he had warned Vivaldi, he was too well enabled to predict them. Vivaldi paused upon the remembrance of Signor Bianchi’s death; he considered the extraordinary and dubious cirumstances that had attended it, and shuddered as a new conjecture crossed his mind. — The thought was too dreadful to be permitted, and he dismissed it instantly.

  Of the conversation, however, which he had afterwards held with the Confessor in the Marchesa’s cabinet, he recollected many particulars that served to renew his doubts as to the identity of the stranger; the behaviour of Schedoni when he was obliquely challenged for the monk of Paluzzi, still appeared that of a man unconscious of disguise; and above all, Vivaldi was struck with the seeming candour of his having pointed out a circumstance, which removed the probability that the stranger was a brother of the Santa del Pianto.

  Some particulars, also, of the stranger’s conduct did not agree with what might have been expected from Schedoni, even though the Confessor had really been Vivaldi’s enemy; a circumstance which the latter was no longer permitted to doubt. Nor did those particular circumstances accord, as he was inclined to believe, with the manner of a being of this world; and, when Vivaldi considered the suddenness and mystery, with which the stranger had always appeared and retired, he felt disposed to adopt again one of his earliest conjectures, which undoubtedly the horrors of his present abode disposed his imagination to admit, as those of his former situation in the vaults of Paluzzi, together with a youthful glow of curiosity concerning the marvellous, had before contributed to impress them upon his mind.

  He concluded his present reflections as he had began them — in doubt and perplexity; but at length found a respite from thought and from suffering in sleep.

  Midnight had been passed in the vaults of the Inquisition; but it was probably not yet two o’clock, when he was imperfectly awakened by a sound, which he fancied proceeded from within his chamber. He raised himself to discover what had occasioned the noise; it was, however, impossible to discern any object, for all was dark, but he listened for a return of the sound. The wind only, was heard moaning among the inner buildings of the prison, and Vivaldi concluded, that his dream had mocked him with a mimic voice.

  Satisfied with this conclusion, he again laid his head on his pillow of straw, and soon sunk into a slumber. The subject of his waking thoughts still haunted his imagination, and the stranger, whose voice he had this night recognized as that of the monk of Paluzzi, appeared before him. Vivaldi, on perceiving the figure of this unknown, felt, perhaps, nearly the same degrees of awe, curiosity, and impatience that he would have suffered, had he beheld the substance of this shadow. The monk, whose face was still shrowded, he thought advanced, till, having come within a few paces of Vivaldi, he paused, and, lifting the awful cowl that had hitherto concealed him, disclosed — not the countenance of Schedoni, but one which Vivaldi did not recollect ever having seen before! It was not less interesting to curiosity, than striking to the feelings. Vivaldi at the first glance shrunk back; — something of that strange and indescribable air, which we attach to the idea of a supernatural being, prevailed over the features; and the intense and fiery eyes resembled those of an evil spirit, rather than of a human character. He drew a poniard from beneath a fold of his garment, and, as he displayed it, pointed with a stern frown to the spots which discoloured the blade; Vivaldi perceived they were of blood! He turned away his eyes in horror, and, when he again looked round in his dream, the
figure was gone.

  A groan awakened him, but what were his feelings, when, on looking up, he perceived the same sigure standing before him! It was not, however, immediately that he could convince himself the appearance was more than the phantom of his dream, strongly impressed upon an alarmed fancy. The voice of the monk, for his face was as usual concealed, recalled Vivaldi from his error; but his emotion cannot easily be conceived, when the stranger, slowly lifting that mysterious cowl, discovered to him the same awful countenance, which had characterized the vision in his slumber. Unable to inquire the occasion of this appearance, Vivaldi gazed in astonishment and terror, and did not immediately observe, that, instead of a dagger, the monk held a lamp, which gleamed over every deep furrow of his features, yet left their shadowdy markings to hint the passions and the history of an extraordinary life.

  “You are spared for this night,” said the stranger, “but for tomorrow” — he paused.

  “In the name of all that is most sacred,” said Vivaldi, endeavouring to recollect his thoughts, “who are you, and what is your errand?”

  “Ask no questions,” replied the monk, solemnly;— “but answer me.”

  Vivaldi was struck by the tone, with which he said this, and dared not to urge the inquiry at the present moment.

  “How long have you known father Schedoni?” continued the stranger, “Where did you first meet?

  “I have known him about a year, as my mother’s Confessor,” replied Vivaldi. “I first saw him in a corridor of the Vivaldi palace; it was evening, and he was returning from the Marchesa’s closet.”

  “Are you certain as to this?” said the monk, with peculiar emphasis. “It is of consequence that you should be so.”

  “I am certain,” repeated Vivaldi.

  “It is strange,” observed the monk, after a pause, “that a circumstance, which must have appeared trivial to you at the moment, should have left so strong a mark on your memory! In two years we have time to forget many things!” He sighed as he spoke.