Book: Hauntings

V >> Vernon Lee >> Hauntings




_Dec. 14th_.--

I don't think I have ever felt so happy about my work. I see it all so
well--that crafty, cowardly Duke Robert; that melancholy Duchess
Maddalena; that weak, showy, would-be chivalrous Duke Guidalfonso; and
above all, the splendid figure of Medea. I feel as if I were the
greatest historian of the age; and, at the same time, as if I were a
boy of twelve. It snowed yesterday for the first time in the city, for
two good hours. When it had done, I actually went into the square and
taught the ragamuffins to make a snowman; no, a snow-woman; and I had
the fancy to call her Medea. "La pessima Medea!" cried one of the
boys--"the one who used to ride through the air on a goat?" "No, no," I
said; "she was a beautiful lady, the Duchess of Urbania, the most
beautiful woman that ever lived." I made her a crown of tinsel, and
taught the boys to cry "Evviva, Medea!" But one of them said, "She is a
witch! She must be burnt!" At which they all rushed to fetch burning
faggots and tow; in a minute the yelling demons had melted her down.

_Dec. 15th_.--

What a goose I am, and to think I am twenty-four, and known in
literature! In my long walks I have composed to a tune (I don't know
what it is) which all the people are singing and whistling in the
street at present, a poem in frightful Italian, beginning "Medea, mia
dea," calling on her in the name of her various lovers. I go about
humming between my teeth, "Why am I not Marcantonio? or Prinzivalle? or
he of Narni? or the good Duke Alfonso? that I might be beloved by thee,
Medea, mia dea," &c. &c. Awful rubbish! My landlord, I think, suspects
that Medea must be some lady I met while I was staying by the seaside.
I am sure Sora Serafina, Sora Lodovica, and Sora Adalgisa--the three
Parcae or _Norns_, as I call them--have some such notion. This
afternoon, at dusk, while tidying my room, Sora Lodovica said to me,
"How beautifully the Signorino has taken to singing!" I was scarcely
aware that I had been vociferating, "Vieni, Medea, mia dea," while the
old lady bobbed about making up my fire. I stopped; a nice reputation I
shall get! I thought, and all this will somehow get to Rome, and thence
to Berlin. Sora Lodovica was leaning out of the window, pulling in the
iron hook of the shrine-lamp which marks Sor Asdrubale's house. As she
was trimming the lamp previous to swinging it out again, she said in
her odd, prudish little way, "You are wrong to stop singing, my son"
(she varies between calling me Signor Professore and such terms of
affection as "Nino," "Viscere mie," &c.); "you are wrong to stop
singing, for there is a young lady there in the street who has actually
stopped to listen to you."

I ran to the window. A woman, wrapped in a black shawl, was standing in
an archway, looking up to the window.

"Eh, eh! the Signor Professore has admirers," said Sora Lodovica.

"Medea, mia dea!" I burst out as loud as I could, with a boy's pleasure
in disconcerting the inquisitive passer-by. She turned suddenly round
to go away, waving her hand at me; at that moment Sora Lodovica swung
the shrine-lamp back into its place. A stream of light fell across the
street. I felt myself grow quite cold; the face of the woman outside
was that of Medea da Carpi!

What a fool I am, to be sure!



Part II

Dec. 17th.--I fear that my craze about Medea da Carpi has become well
known, thanks to my silly talk and idiotic songs. That Vice-Prefect's
son--or the assistant at the Archives, or perhaps some of the company
at the Contessa's, is trying to play me a trick! But take care, my good
ladies and gentlemen, I shall pay you out in your own coin! Imagine my
feelings when, this morning, I found on my desk a folded letter
addressed to me in a curious handwriting which seemed strangely
familiar to me, and which, after a moment, I recognized as that of the
letters of Medea da Carpi at the Archives. It gave me a horrible shock.
My next idea was that it must be a present from some one who knew my
interest in Medea--a genuine letter of hers on which some idiot had
written my address instead of putting it into an envelope. But it was
addressed to me, written to me, no old letter; merely four lines, which
ran as follows:--

"To Spiridion.--

"A person who knows the interest you bear her will be at the Church of
San Giovanni Decollato this evening at nine. Look out, in the left
aisle, for a lady wearing a black mantle, and holding a rose."

By this time I understood that I was the object of a conspiracy, the
victim of a hoax. I turned the letter round and round. It was written
on paper such as was made in the sixteenth century, and in an
extraordinarily precise imitation of Medea da Carpi's characters. Who
had written it? I thought over all the possible people. On the whole,
it must be the Vice-Prefect's son, perhaps in combination with his
lady-love, the Countess. They must have torn a blank page off some old
letter; but that either of them should have had the ingenuity of
inventing such a hoax, or the power of committing such a forgery,
astounds me beyond measure. There is more in these people than I should
have guessed. How pay them off? By taking no notice of the letter?
Dignified, but dull. No, I will go; perhaps some one will be there, and
I will mystify them in their turn. Or, if no one is there, how I shall
crow over them for their imperfectly carried out plot! Perhaps this is
some folly of the Cavalier Muzio's to bring me into the presence of
some lady whom he destines to be the flame of my future _amori_.
That is likely enough. And it would be too idiotic and professorial to
refuse such an invitation; the lady must be worth knowing who can forge
sixteenth-century letters like this, for I am sure that languid swell
Muzio never could. I will go! By Heaven! I'll pay them back in their
own coin! It is now five--how long these days are!

_Dec. 18th._--

Am I mad? Or are there really ghosts? That adventure of last night has
shaken me to the very depth of my soul.

I went at nine, as the mysterious letter had bid me. It was bitterly
cold, and the air full of fog and sleet; not a shop open, not a window
unshuttered, not a creature visible; the narrow black streets,
precipitous between their, high walls and under their lofty archways,
were only the blacker for the dull light of an oil-lamp here and there,
with its flickering yellow reflection on the wet flags. San Giovanni
Decollato is a little church, or rather oratory, which I have always
hitherto seen shut up (as so many churches here are shut up except on
great festivals); and situate behind the ducal palace, on a sharp
ascent, and forming the bifurcation of two steep paved lanes. I have
passed by the place a hundred times, and scarcely noticed the little
church, except for the marble high relief over the door, showing the
grizzly head of the Baptist in the charger, and for the iron cage close
by, in which were formerly exposed the heads of criminals; the
decapitated, or, as they call him here, decollated, John the Baptist,
being apparently the patron of axe and block.

A few strides took me from my lodgings to San Giovanni Decollato. I
confess I was excited; one is not twenty-four and a Pole for nothing.
On getting to the kind of little platform at the bifurcation of the two
precipitous streets, I found, to my surprise, that the windows of the
church or oratory were not lighted, and that the door was locked! So
this was the precious joke that had been played upon me; to send me on
a bitter cold, sleety night, to a church which was shut up and had
perhaps been shut up for years! I don't know what I couldn't have done
in that moment of rage; I felt inclined to break open the church door,
or to go and pull the Vice-Prefect's son out of bed (for I felt sure
that the joke was his). I determined upon the latter course; and was
walking towards his door, along the black alley to the left of the
church, when I was suddenly stopped by the sound as of an organ close
by, an organ, yes, quite plainly, and the voice of choristers and the
drone of a litany. So the church was not shut, after all! I retraced my
steps to the top of the lane. All was dark and in complete silence.
Suddenly there came again a faint gust of organ and voices. I listened;
it clearly came from the other lane, the one on the right-hand side.
Was there, perhaps, another door there? I passed beneath the archway,
and descended a little way in the direction whence the sounds seemed to
come. But no door, no light, only the black walls, the black wet flags,
with their faint yellow reflections of flickering oil-lamps; moreover,
complete silence. I stopped a minute, and then the chant rose again;
this time it seemed to me most certainly from the lane I had just left.
I went back--nothing. Thus backwards and forwards, the sounds always
beckoning, as it were, one way, only to beckon me back, vainly, to the
other.

At last I lost patience; and I felt a sort of creeping terror, which
only a violent action could dispel. If the mysterious sounds came
neither from the street to the right, nor from the street to the left,
they could come only from the church. Half-maddened, I rushed up the
two or three steps, and prepared to wrench the door open with a
tremendous effort. To my amazement, it opened with the greatest ease. I
entered, and the sounds of the litany met me louder than before, as I
paused a moment between the outer door and the heavy leathern curtain.
I raised the latter and crept in. The altar was brilliantly illuminated
with tapers and garlands of chandeliers; this was evidently some
evening service connected with Christmas. The nave and aisles were
comparatively dark, and about half-full. I elbowed my way along the
right aisle towards the altar. When my eyes had got accustomed to the
unexpected light, I began to look round me, and with a beating heart.
The idea that all this was a hoax, that I should meet merely some
acquaintance of my friend the Cavaliere's, had somehow departed: I
looked about. The people were all wrapped up, the men in big cloaks,
the women in woolen veils and mantles. The body of the church was
comparatively dark, and I could not make out anything very clearly, but
it seemed to me, somehow, as if, under the cloaks and veils, these
people were dressed in a rather extraordinary fashion. The man in front
of me, I remarked, showed yellow stockings beneath his cloak; a woman,
hard by, a red bodice, laced behind with gold tags. Could these be
peasants from some remote part come for the Christmas festivities, or
did the inhabitants of Urbania don some old-fashioned garb in honor of
Christmas?

As I was wondering, my eye suddenly caught that of a woman standing in
the opposite aisle, close to the altar, and in the full blaze of its
lights. She was wrapped in black, but held, in a very conspicuous way,
a red rose, an unknown luxury at this time of the year in a place like
Urbania. She evidently saw me, and turning even more fully into the
light, she loosened her heavy black cloak, displaying a dress of deep
red, with gleams of silver and gold embroideries; she turned her face
towards me; the full blaze of the chandeliers and tapers fell upon it.
It was the face of Medea da Carpi! I dashed across the nave, pushing
people roughly aside, or rather, it seemed to me, passing through
impalpable bodies. But the lady turned and walked rapidly down the
aisle towards the door. I followed close upon her, but somehow I could
not get up with her. Once, at the curtain, she turned round again. She
was within a few paces of me. Yes, it was Medea. Medea herself, no
mistake, no delusion, no sham; the oval face, the lips tightened over
the mouth, the eyelids tight over the corner of the eyes, the exquisite
alabaster complexion! She raised the curtain and glided out. I
followed; the curtain alone separated me from her. I saw the wooden
door swing to behind her. One step ahead of me! I tore open the door;
she must be on the steps, within reach of my arm!

I stood outside the church. All was empty, merely the wet pavement and
the yellow reflections in the pools: a sudden cold seized me; I could
not go on. I tried to re-enter the church; it was shut. I rushed home,
my hair standing on end, and trembling in all my limbs, and remained
for an hour like a maniac. Is it a delusion? Am I too going mad? O God,
God! am I going mad?

_Dec. 19th.--_

A brilliant, sunny day; all the black snow-slush has disappeared out of
the town, off the bushes and trees. The snow-clad mountains sparkle
against the bright blue sky. A Sunday, and Sunday weather; all the
bells are ringing for the approach of Christmas. They are preparing for
a kind of fair in the square with the colonnade, putting up booths
filled with colored cotton and woolen ware, bright shawls and
kerchiefs, mirrors, ribbons, brilliant pewter lamps; the whole turn-out
of the peddler in "Winter's Tale." The pork-shops are all garlanded
with green and with paper flowers, the hams and cheeses stuck full of
little flags and green twigs. I strolled out to see the cattle-fair
outside the gate; a forest of interlacing horns, an ocean of lowing and
stamping: hundreds of immense white bullocks, with horns a yard long
and red tassels, packed close together on the little piazza d'armi
under the city walls. Bah! Why do I write this trash? What's the use of
it all? While I am forcing myself to write about bells, and Christmas
festivities, and cattle-fairs, one idea goes on like a bell within me:
Medea, Medea! Have I really seen her, or am I mad?

Two hours later.--That Church of San Giovanni Decollato--so my landlord
informs me--has not been made use of within the memory of man. Could it
have been all a hallucination or a dream--perhaps a dream dreamed that
night? I have been out again to look at that church. There it is, at
the bifurcation of the two steep lanes, with its bas-relief of the
Baptist's head over the door. The door does look as if it had not been
opened for years. I can see the cobwebs in the windowpanes; it does
look as if, as Sor Asdrubale says, only rats and spiders congregated
within it. And yet--and yet; I have so clear a remembrance, so distinct
a consciousness of it all. There was a picture of the daughter of
Herodias dancing, upon the altar; I remember her white turban with a
scarlet tuft of feathers, and Herod's blue caftan; I remember the shape
of the central chandelier; it swung round slowly, and one of the wax
lights had got bent almost in two by the heat and draught.

Things, all these, which I may have seen elsewhere, stored unawares in
my brain, and which may have come out, somehow, in a dream; I have
heard physiologists allude to such things. I will go again: if the
church be shut, why then it must have been a dream, a vision, the
result of over-excitement. I must leave at once for Rome and see
doctors, for I am afraid of going mad. If, on the other hand--pshaw!
there _is no other hand_ in such a case. Yet if there were--why
then, I should really have seen Medea; I might see her again; speak to
her. The mere thought sets my blood in a whirl, not with horror, but
with... I know not what to call it. The feeling terrifies me, but it is
delicious. Idiot! There is some little coil of my brain, the twentieth
of a hair's-breadth out of order--that's all!

_Dec. 20th.--_

I have been again; I have heard the music; I have been inside the
church; I have seen Her! I can no longer doubt my senses. Why should I?
Those pedants say that the dead are dead, the past is past. For them,
yes; but why for me?--why for a man who loves, who is consumed with the
love of a woman?--a woman who, indeed--yes, let me finish the sentence.
Why should there not be ghosts to such as can see them? Why should she
not return to the earth, if she knows that it contains a man who thinks
of, desires, only her?

A hallucination? Why, I saw her, as I see this paper that I write upon;
standing there, in the full blaze of the altar. Why, I heard the rustle
of her skirts, I smelt the scent of her hair, I raised the curtain
which was shaking from her touch. Again I missed her. But this time, as
I rushed out into the empty moonlit street, I found upon the church
steps a rose--the rose which I had seen in her hand the moment
before--I felt it, smelt it; a rose, a real, living rose, dark red and
only just plucked. I put it into water when I returned, after having
kissed it, who knows how many times? I placed it on the top of the
cupboard; I determined not to look at it for twenty-four hours lest it
should be a delusion. But I must see it again; I must.... Good Heavens!
this is horrible, horrible; if I had found a skeleton it could not have
been worse! The rose, which last night seemed freshly plucked, full of
color and perfume, is brown, dry--a thing kept for centuries between
the leaves of a book--it has crumbled into dust between my fingers.
Horrible, horrible! But why so, pray? Did I not know that I was in love
with a woman dead three hundred years? If I wanted fresh roses which
bloomed yesterday, the Countess Fiammetta or any little sempstress in
Urbania might have given them me. What if the rose has fallen to dust?
If only I could hold Medea in my arms as I held it in my fingers, kiss
her lips as I kissed its petals, should I not be satisfied if she too
were to fall to dust the next moment, if I were to fall to dust myself?

_Dec. 22nd, Eleven at night.--_

I have seen her once more!--almost spoken to her. I have been promised
her love! Ah, Spiridion! you were right when you felt that you were not
made for any earthly _amori_. At the usual hour I betook myself
this evening to San Giovanni Decollato. A bright winter night; the high
houses and belfries standing out against a deep blue heaven luminous,
shimmering like steel with myriads of stars; the moon has not yet
risen. There was no light in the windows; but, after a little effort,
the door opened and I entered the church, the altar, as usual,
brilliantly illuminated. It struck me suddenly that all this crowd of
men and women standing all round, these priests chanting and moving
about the altar, were dead--that they did not exist for any man save
me. I touched, as if by accident, the hand of my neighbor; it was cold,
like wet clay. He turned round, but did not seem to see me: his face
was ashy, and his eyes staring, fixed, like those of a blind man or a
corpse. I felt as if I must rush out. But at that moment my eye fell
upon Her, standing as usual by the altar steps, wrapped in a black
mantle, in the full blaze of the lights. She turned round; the light
fell straight upon her face, the face with the delicate features, the
eyelids and lips a little tight, the alabaster skin faintly tinged with
pale pink. Our eyes met.

I pushed my way across the nave towards where she stood by the altar
steps; she turned quickly down the aisle, and I after her. Once or
twice she lingered, and I thought I should overtake her; but again,
when, not a second after the door had closed upon her, I stepped out
into the street, she had vanished. On the church step lay something
white. It was not a flower this time, but a letter. I rushed back to
the church to read it; but the church was fast shut, as if it had not
been opened for years. I could not see by the flickering
shrine-lamps--I rushed home, lit my lamp, pulled the letter from my
breast. I have it before me. The handwriting is hers; the same as in
the Archives, the same as in that first letter:--

"To Spiridion.--

"Let thy courage be equal to thy love, and thy love shall be rewarded.
On the night preceding Christmas, take a hatchet and saw; cut boldly
into the body of the bronze rider who stands in the Corte, on the left
side, near the waist. Saw open the body, and within it thou wilt find
the silver effigy of a winged genius. Take it out, hack it into a
hundred pieces, and fling them in all directions, so that the winds may
sweep them away. That night she whom thou lovest will come to reward
thy fidelity."

On the brownish wax is the device--"AMOUR DURE--DURE AMOUR."

_Dec. 23rd.--_

So it is true! I was reserved for something wonderful in this world. I
have at last found that after which my soul has been straining.
Ambition, love of art, love of Italy, these things which have occupied
my spirit, and have yet left me continually unsatisfied, these were
none of them my real destiny. I have sought for life, thirsting for it
as a man in the desert thirsts for a well; but the life of the senses
of other youths, the life of the intellect of other men, have never
slaked that thirst. Shall life for me mean the love of a dead woman? We
smile at what we choose to call the superstition of the past,
forgetting that all our vaunted science of today may seem just such
another superstition to the men of the future; but why should the
present be right and the past wrong? The men who painted the pictures
and built the palaces of three hundred years ago were certainly of as
delicate fiber, of as keen reason, as ourselves, who merely print
calico and build locomotives. What makes me think this, is that I have
been calculating my nativity by help of an old book belonging to Sor
Asdrubale--and see, my horoscope tallies almost exactly with that of
Medea da Carpi, as given by a chronicler. May this explain? No, no; all
is explained by the fact that the first time I read of this woman's
career, the first time I saw her portrait, I loved her, though I hid my
love to myself in the garb of historical interest. Historical interest
indeed!

I have got the hatchet and the saw. I bought the saw of a poor joiner,
in a village some miles off; he did not understand at first what I
meant, and I think he thought me mad; perhaps I am. But if madness
means the happiness of one's life, what of it? The hatchet I saw lying
in a timber-yard, where they prepare the great trunks of the fir-trees
which grow high on the Apennines of Sant' Elmo. There was no one in the
yard, and I could not resist the temptation; I handled the thing, tried
its edge, and stole it. This is the first time in my life that I have
been a thief; why did I not go into a shop and buy a hatchet? I don't
know; I seemed unable to resist the sight of the shining blade. What I
am going to do is, I suppose, an act of vandalism; and certainly I have
no right to spoil the property of this city of Urbania. But I wish no
harm either to the statue or the city, if I could plaster up the
bronze, I would do so willingly. But I must obey Her; I must avenge
Her; I must get at that silver image which Robert of Montemurlo had
made and consecrated in order that his cowardly soul might sleep in
peace, and not encounter that of the being whom he dreaded most in the
world. Aha! Duke Robert, you forced her to die unshriven, and you stuck
the image of your soul into the image of your body, thinking thereby
that, while she suffered the tortures of Hell, you would rest in peace,
until your well-scoured little soul might fly straight up to
Paradise;--you were afraid of Her when both of you should be dead, and
thought yourself very clever to have prepared for all emergencies! Not
so, Serene Highness. You too shall taste what it is to wander after
death, and to meet the dead whom one has injured.

What an interminable day! But I shall see her again tonight.

Eleven o'clock.--No; the church was fast closed; the spell had ceased.
Until tomorrow I shall not see her. But tomorrow! Ah, Medea! did any of
thy lovers love thee as I do?

Twenty-four hours more till the moment of happiness--the moment for
which I seem to have been waiting all my life. And after that, what
next? Yes, I see it plainer every minute; after that, nothing more. All
those who loved Medea da Carpi, who loved and who served her, died:
Giovanfrancesco Pico, her first husband, whom she left stabbed in the
castle from which she fled; Stimigliano, who died of poison; the groom
who gave him the poison, cut down by her orders; Oliverotto da Narni,
Marcantonio Frangipani, and that poor boy of the Ordelaffi, who had
never even looked upon her face, and whose only reward was that
handkerchief with which the hangman wiped the sweat off his face, when
he was one mass of broken limbs and torn flesh: all had to die, and I
shall die also.

The love of such a woman is enough, and is fatal--"Amour Dure," as her
device says. I shall die also. But why not? Would it be possible to
live in order to love another woman? Nay, would it be possible to drag
on a life like this one after the happiness of tomorrow? Impossible;
the others died, and I must die. I always felt that I should not live
long; a gipsy in Poland told me once that I had in my hand the cut-line
which signifies a violent death. I might have ended in a duel with some
brother-student, or in a railway accident. No, no; my death will not be
of that sort! Death--and is not she also dead? What strange vistas does
such a thought not open! Then the others--Pico, the Groom, Stimigliano,
Oliverotto, Frangipani, Prinzivalle degli Ordelaffi--will they all be
_there?_ But she shall love me best--me by whom she has been loved
after she has been three hundred years in the grave!

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