There were but few affairs of sufficient importance to be treated
personally by the Cardinal. The order was given to clear the hall. The
crowd retired into the lateral corridors. While the councilors of the
prince were attending to the minor affairs in the hall, Emanuel
withdrew to his private chamber to hear and adjudicate the more weighty
matters.
The private chamber was not large, but it was furnished with a
feeling for beauty. In the center was a walnut table covered with books
and papers and surrounded by a few high backed and exquisitely inlaid
chairs. A very rich carpet lay on the floor and long curtains of velvet
concealed the windows and the door. The ceiling was a prodigy of
decoration. Upon the walls hung portraits of the Madruzzo ancestors.
Here only a few months before, a beautiful and innocent girl had been
imprisoned by order of Emanuel Madruzzo—his niece, Filiberta. The
unhappy girl was the only daughter of the dead Count Victor Madruzzo,
and thus heiress to all the family wealth. Accordingly, as the
chroniclers relate, many sought her hand in marriage, knights and
princes of Italy and of Germany, under conditions which would have
brought the Bishop glory and tranquillity.
Emanuel had rejected them all. He rejected the intervention of great
princes and sovereigns. He desired instead to give her in marriage to
Vincent Particella, son of the Councilor Ludovico, a young man of most
noble qualities. But Filiberta loved, with a love that was profoundly
reciprocated, the Count Antonio di Castelnuovo.
From this arose the quarrel with the uncle who perhaps dreamed of
finding in the house of Particella the heir of the Principate. Finally
he sent her into virtual imprisonment in the Convent of the Holy
Trinity.
The news of this imprisonment had profoundly excited the imagination
of the people, and the Cardinal lost thereby a great part of his
popularity, “drawing unto himself the hatred and aversion of many
citizens.” The petitions urged by the Count Antonio di Castelnuovo for
the liberation of Filiberta and for her hand, were shipwrecked upon the
irrevocable decision of the prince. It was said that he was influenced
by Claudia, against whom no one hesitated to cast the stones of calumny
and abomination. Claudia of the dark and devilish eyes, Claudia who
walked among the humble folk like a sorceress capable of any crime,
Claudia who had willed the seclusion of Filiberta, her troublesome and
dangerous rival—in this form the legend leaped from mouth to mouth.
Meanwhile Filiberta had refused the veil in the expectation that she
would be liberated. Months passed. And instead of the liberation so
ardently desired, came death. One evening the Mother Superior herself
opened the ancient creaking portal. For the visitor was none other than
the Bishop and Prince. Emanuel's valet and the coachman remained in the
courtyard.
Guided by a sister the Cardinal crossed a long corridor; from the
little closed cell could be heard the faint murmuring of prayer. At the
end of the corridor was the room occupied by Filiberta. Emanuel entered
with hesitating step. He placed his coat in one corner and approached
the bed on which the unhappy girl lay in agony.
The night had already descended and through the tiny window could be
heard the chirping of the crickets in the stubble. The room, a little
larger than the ordinary cells, contained but two chairs, a bed and the
little table upon which stood an oil lamp.
Gigantic black shadows were limned on the white walls. From time to
time a sob of the sick girl rent the silence. Phthisis had emaciated
Filiberta's countenance and a cadaverous pallor had taken the place of
the rose glow of first youth, but the eyes, which had become deeper,
preserved all their passionate intensity.
These eyes were fixed immovably on one point. The girl's disordered
hair fell over the pillow. Her hands lay underneath the covers, beneath
which her body was indicated by a scarcely visible line. Emanuel dared
not speak. The sight of Filiberta dying had turned him to stone. He was
the person solely and uniquely responsible for her miserable end. He
had had her imprisoned, yielding perhaps to the threats or the prayers
of Claudia. He had kept her imprisoned, caring not for the protests of
the people or for the prayers of her true lover. He had deprived his
niece of the sun and above all he had violated the instinct of her
heart by seeking to marry her to a man whom she did not love and could
never love.
Emanuel Madruzzo must now eat of the fruit of his obstinacy. Before
him lay the innocent victim. Remorse clutched his heart. He could not
succeed in calming himself with illusory hopes and the projects for the
future which were crossing his imagination. Too late! All his faith,
all his riches and his titles, his blood itself, would not have
arrested the progress of the malady nor exorcised the imminent
catastrophe. Horrible situation! The uncle responsible for Filiberta's
death! If a miracle could have saved her he would have flung open all
the doors of the convent to give her to liberty, to life, to the man
whom she loved. Too late! Emanuel fixed his eyes upon those of
Filiberta. He sought to penetrate them, to read within the motionless
pupils the thoughts passing through the soul of the dying girl. What
were those eyes saying? Was she pardoning him or cursing him? Emanuel
leaned over the pillow, stroked the damp forehead, and cried;
“Filiberta!—Filiberta!”
But he obtained no response.
“Call her,” said Emanuel to the sister who was praying at the foot of
the bed. And the sister called:
“Filiberta!—Filiberta!”
In vain. Filiberta did not reply.
“Hear me, Filiberta!” Emanuel implored her again. “Hear me: I am your
uncle; I have come to get you and make you well and take you away—”
A nervous shudder seized the head of the dying girl. Did she perhaps
hear the frantic call?
She sank again into her previous immobility. The sobbing ceased.
Emanuel knelt down, took Filiberta's hand, and covered it with kisses,
continuing to call to her. The desperation of this fifty-year-old man,
who had come to be present at the death-agony of his victim, was
perhaps more tragic than the destiny of the unhappy one who was dying.
In a broken voice he repeated:
“Filiberta, forgive me!—Forgive me the evil that I have done
you—Forgive your old uncle!”
Suddenly as though impelled by the lash, Emanuel rushed out of the
cell, dashed up the stairway, and entered the convent church. His steps
awoke long and fearful echoes; the church was immersed in darkness. A
tiny hanging lamp indicated the high altar. Emanuel knelt down with his
forehead touching the ground. The stones of the pavement gave forth a
hollow sound: beneath were the crypts of the dead.
Classified
