Chapter 7.V. The Inmate of the Tower.
The night slowly advanced, and in the highest chamber of that dark and
rugged tower which fronted the windows of the Cesarini's palace sate a
solitary prisoner. A single lamp burned before him on a table of stone,
and threw its rays over an open Bible; and those stern but fantastic
legends of the prowess of ancient Rome, which the genius of Livy has
dignified into history. ("Avea libri assai, suo Tito Livio, sue storie di
Roma, la Bibbia et altri libri assai, non finava di studiare." - "Vita di
Cola di Rienzi", lib. ii. cap. 13. See translation to motto to Book VII.
page 202.) A chain hung pendent from the vault of the tower, and confined
the captive; but so as to leave his limbs at sufficient liberty to measure
at will the greater part of the cell. Green and damp were the mighty
stones of the walls, and through a narrow aperture, high out of reach, came
the moonlight, and slept in long shadow over the rude floor. A bed at one
corner completed the furniture of the room. Such for months had been the
abode of the conqueror of the haughtiest Barons, and the luxurious dictator
of the stateliest city of the world!
Care, and travel, and time, and adversity, had wrought their change in the
person of Rienzi. The proportions of his frame had enlarged from the
compact strength of earlier manhood, the clear paleness of his cheek was
bespread with a hectic and deceitful glow. Even in his present studies,
intent as they seemed, and genial though the lecture to a mind enthusiastic
even to fanaticism, his eyes could not rivet themselves as of yore steadily
to the page. The charm was gone from the letters. Every now and then he
moved restlessly, started, re-settled himself, and muttered broken
exclamations like a man in an anxious dream. Anon, his gaze impatiently
turned upward, about, around, and there was a strange and wandering fire in
those large deep eyes, which might have thrilled the beholder with a vague
and unaccountable awe.
Angelo had in the main correctly narrated the more recent adventures of
Rienzi after his fall. He had first with Nina and Angelo betaken himself
to Naples, and found a fallacious and brief favour with Louis, king of
Hungary; that harsh but honourable monarch had refused to yield his
illustrious guest to the demands of Clement, but had plainly declared his
inability to shelter him in safety. Maintaining secret intercourse with
his partisans at Rome, the fugitive then sought a refuge with the Eremites,
sequestered in the lone recesses of the Monte Maiella, where in solitude
and thought he had passed a whole year, save the time consumed in his visit
to and return from Florence. Taking advantage of the Jubilee in Rome, he
had then, disguised as a pilgrim, traversed the vales and mountains still
rich in the melancholy ruins of ancient Rome, and entering the city, his
restless and ambitious spirit indulged in new but vain conspiracies!
(Rainald, Ann. 1350, N. 4, E. 5.) Excommunicated a second time by the
Cardinal di Ceccano, and again a fugitive, he shook the dust from his feet
as he left the city, and raising his hands towards those walls, in which
are yet traced the witness of the Tarquins, cried aloud - "Honoured as thy
prince - persecuted as thy victim - Rome, Rome, thou shalt yet receive me
as thy conqueror!"
Still disguised as a pilgrim, he passed unmolested through Italy into the
Court of the Emperor Charles of Bohemia, where the page, who had probably
witnessed, had rightly narrated, his reception. It is doubtful, however,
whether the conduct of the Emperor had been as chivalrous as appears by
Angelo's relation, or whether he had not delivered Rienzi to the Pontiff's
emissaries. At all events it is certain, that from Prague to Avignon, the
path of the fallen Tribune had been as one triumph. His strange adventures
- his unbroken spirit - the new power that Intellect daily and wonderfully
excited over the minds of the rising generation - the eloquence of
Petrarch, and the common sympathy of the vulgar for fallen greatness, - all
conspired to make Rienzi the hero of the age. Not a town through which he
passed which would not have risked a siege for his protection - not a house
that would not have sheltered him - not a hand that would not have struck
in his defence. Refusing all offers of aid, disdaining all occasion of
escape, inspired by his indomitable hope, and his unalloyed belief in the
brightness of his own destinies, the Tribune sought Avignon - and found a
dungeon!
These, his external adventures, are briefly and easily told; but who shall
tell what passed within? - who narrate the fearful history of the heart? -
who paint the rapid changes of emotion and of thought - the indignant grief
- the stern dejection - the haughty disappointment that saddened while it
never destroyed the resolve of that great soul? Who can say what must have
been endured, what meditated, in the hermitage of Maiella; - on the lonely
hills of the perished empire it had been his dream to restore; - in the
Courts of Barbarian Kings; - and above all, on returning obscure and
disguised, amidst the crowds of the Christian world, to the seat of his
former power? What elements of memory, and in what a wild and fiery brain!
What reflections to be conned in the dungeons of Avignon, by a man who had
pushed into all the fervour of fanaticism - four passions, a single one of
which has, in excess, sufficed to wreck the strongest reason - passions,
which in themselves it is most difficult to combine, - the dreamer - the
aspirant - the very nympholept of Freedom, yet of Power - of Knowledge, yet
of Religion!
"Ay," muttered the prisoner, "ay, these texts are comforting - comforting.
The righteous are not alway oppressed." With a long sigh he deliberately
put aside the Bible, kissed it with great reverence, remained silent, and
musing for some minutes; and then as a slight noise was heard at one corner
of the cell, said softly, "Ah, my friends, my comrades, the rats! it is
their hour - I am glad I put aside the bread for them!" His eye brightened
as it now detected those strange and unsocial animals venturing forth
through a hole in the wall, and, darkening the moonshine on the floor,
steal fearlessly towards him. He flung some fragments of bread to them,
and for some moments watched their gambols with a smile. "Manchino, the
white-faced rascal! he beats all the rest - ha, ha! he is a superior wretch
- he commands the tribe, and will venture the first into the trap. How
will he bite against the steel, the fine fellow! while all the ignobler
herd will gaze at him afar off, and quake and fear, and never help. Yet if
united, they might gnaw the trap and release their leader! Ah, ye are base
vermin, ye eat my bread, yet if death came upon me, ye would riot on my
carcass. Away!" and clapping his hands, the chain round him clanked
harshly, and the noisome co-mates of his dungeon vanished in an instant.
That singular and eccentric humour which marked Rienzi, and which had
seemed a buffoonery to the stolid sullenness of the Roman nobles, still
retained its old expression in his countenance, and he laughed loud as he
saw the vermin hurry back to their hiding-place.
"A little noise and the clank of a chain - fie, how ye imitate mankind!"
Again he sank into silence, and then heavily and listlessly drawing towards
him the animated tales of Livy, said, "An hour to midnight! - waking dreams
are better than sleep. Well, history tells us how men have risen - ay, and
nations too - after sadder falls than that of Rienzi or of Rome!"
In a few minutes, he was apparently absorbed in the lecture; so intent
indeed, was he in the task, that he did not hear the steps which wound the
spiral stairs that conducted to his cell, and it was not till the wards
harshly grated beneath the huge key, and the door creaked on its hinges,
that Rienzi, in amaze at intrusion at so unwonted an hour, lifted his eyes.
The door had reclosed on the dungeon, and by the lonely and pale lamp he
beheld a figure leaning, as for support, against the wall. The figure was
wrapped from head to foot in the long cloak of the day, which, aided by a
broad hat, shaded by plumes, concealed even the features of the visitor.
Rienzi gazed long and wistfully.
"Speak," he said at length, putting his hand to his brow. "Methinks either
long solitude has bewildered me, or, sweet sir, your apparition dazzles. I
know you not - am I sure? - " and Rienzi's hair bristled while he slowly
rose - "Am I sure that it is living man who stands before me? Angels have
entered the prison-house before now. Alas! an angel's comfort never was
more needed."
The stranger answered not, but the captive saw that his heart heaved even
beneath his cloak; loud sobs choked his voice; at length, as by a violent
effort, he sprung forward, and sunk at the Tribune's feet. The disguising
hat, the long mantle fell to the ground - it was the face of a woman that
looked upward through passionate and glazing tears - the arms of a woman
that clasped the prisoner's knees! Rienzi gazed mute and motionless as
stone. "Powers and Saints of Heaven!" he murmured at last, "do ye tempt me
further! - is it? - no, no - yet speak!"
"Beloved - adored! - do you not know me?"
"It is - it is!" shrieked Rienzi wildly, "it is my Nina - my wife - my - "
His voice forsook him. Clasped in each other's arms, the unfortunates for
some moments seemed to have lost even the sense of delight at their
reunion. It was as an unconscious and deep trance, through which something
like a dream only faintly and indistinctively stirs.
At length recovered - at length restored, the first broken exclamations,
the first wild caresses of joy over - Nina lifted her head from her
husband's bosom, and gazed sadly on his countenance - "Oh, what thou hast
known since we parted! - what, since that hour when, borne on by thy bold
heart and wild destiny, thou didst leave me in the Imperial Court, to seek
again the diadem and find the chain! Ah! why did I heed thy commands? -
why suffer thee to depart alone? How often in thy progress hitherward, in
doubt, in danger, might this bosom have been thy resting-place, and this
voice have whispered comfort to thy soul? Thou art well, my Lord - my
Cola! Thy pulse beats quicker than of old - thy brow is furrowed. Ah!
tell me thou art well!"
"Well,' said Rienzi, mechanically. "Methinks so! - the mind diseased
blunts all sense of bodily decay. Well - yes! And thou - thou, at least,
art not changed, save to maturer beauty. The glory of the laurel-wreath
has not faded from thy brow. Thou shalt yet - " then breaking off abruptly
- "Rome - tell me of Rome! And thou - how camest thou hither? Ah! perhaps
my doom is sealed, and in their mercy they have vouchsafed that I should
see thee once more before the deathsman blinds me. I remember, it is the
grace vouchsafed to malefactors. When I was a lord of life and death, I
too permitted the meanest criminal to say farewell to those he loved."
"No - not so, Cola!" exclaimed Nina, putting her hand before his mouth. "I
bring thee more auspicious tidings. Tomorrow thou art to be heard. The
favour of the Court is propitiated. Thou wilt be acquitted."
"Ha! speak again."
"Thou wilt be heard, my Cola - thou must be acquitted!"
"And Rome be free! - Great God, I thank Thee!"
The Tribune sank on his knees, and never had his heart, in his youngest and
purest hour, poured forth thanksgiving more fervent, yet less selfish.
When he rose again, the whole man seemed changed. His eye had resumed its
earlier expressions of deep and serene command. Majesty sate upon his
brow. The sorrows of the exile were forgotten. In his sanguine and rapid
thoughts, he stood once more the guardian of his country, - and its
sovereign!
Nina gazed upon him with that intense and devoted worship, which steeped
her vainer and her harder qualities in all the fondness of the softest
woman. "Such," thought she, "was his look eight years ago, when he left my
maiden chamber, full of the mighty schemes which liberated Rome - such his
look, when at the dawning sun he towered amidst the crouching Barons, and
the kneeling population of the city he had made his throne!"
"Yes, Nina!" said Rienzi, as he turned and caught her eye. "My soul tells
me that my hour is at hand. If they try me openly, they dare not convict -
if they acquit me, they dare not but restore. Tomorrow, saidst thou,
tomorrow?"
"Tomorrow, Rienzi; be prepared!"
"I am - for triumph! But tell me what happy chance brought thee to
Avignon?"
"Chance, Cola!" said Nina, with reproachful tenderness. "Could I know that
thou wert in the dungeons of the Pontiff, and linger in idle security at
Prague? Even at the Emperor's Court thou hadst thy partisans and
favourers. Gold was easily procured. I repaired to Florence - disguised
my name - and came hither to plot, to scheme, to win thy liberty, or to die
with thee. Ah! did not thy heart tell thee that morning and night the eyes
of thy faithful Nina gazed upon this gloomy tower; and that one friend,
humble though she be, never could forsake thee!"
"Sweet Nina! Yet - yet - at Avignon power yields not to beauty without
reward. Remember, there is a worse death than the pause of life."
Nina turned pale. "Fear not," she said, with a low but determined voice;
"fear not, that men's lips should say Rienzi's wife delivered him. None in
this corrupted Court know that I am thy wife."
"Woman," said the Tribune, sternly; "thy lips elude the answer I would
seek. In our degenerate time and land, thy sex and ours forget too basely
what foulness writes a leprosy in the smallest stain upon a matron's
honour. That thy heart would never wrong me, I believe; but if thy
weakness, thy fear of my death should wrong me, thou art a bitterer foe to
Rienzi than the swords of the Colonna. Nina, speak!"
"Oh, that my soul could speak," answered Nina. "Thy words are music to me,
and not a thought of mine but echoes them. Could I touch this hand, could
I meet that eye, and not know that death were dearer to thee than shame?
Rienzi, when last we parted, in sadness, yet in hope, what were thy words
to me?"
"I remember them well," returned the Tribune: "'I leave thee,' I said, 'to
keep alive at the Emperor's Court, by thy genius, the Great Cause. Thou
hast youth and beauty - and courts have lawless and ruffian suitors. I
give thee no caution; it were beneath thee and me. But I leave thee the
power of death.' And with that, Nina - "
"Thy hands tremblingly placed in mine this dagger. I live - need I say
more?"
"My noble and beloved Nina, it is enough. Keep the dagger yet."
"Yes; till we meet in the Capitol of Rome!"
A slight tap was heard at the door; Nina regained, in an instant, her
disguise.
"It is on the stroke of midnight," said the gaoler, appearing at the
threshold.
"I come," said Nina.
"And thou hast to prepare thy thoughts," she whispered to Rienzi: "arm all
thy glorious intellect. Alas! is it again we part? How my heart sinks!"
The presence of the gaoler at the threshold broke the bitterness of parting
by abridging it. The false page pressed her lips on the prisoner's hand,
and left the cell.
The gaoler, lingering behind for a moment, placed a parchment on the table.
It was the summons from the court appointed for the trial of the Tribune.
