CHAPTER XLVII.

The picture which my distracted fancy thus set before the eye of my mind, was not altogether verified in the event. After a thousand fruitless inquiries and perquisitions, I found, to my utter astonishment, that Charles, arresting his career at the town of Friborg, had returned upon his steps, and sought a second time the metropolis of Austrian Hungary. This was of the class of those events which we sometimes meet with in the world, that baffle all calculation, and strike us like magic, or like madness, in their authors.

I had nothing to do, as I conceived, on this occasion, but to follow the example of my son, and like him to resume the route of Presburg. I yet hoped to witness, if not to co-operate in, the reconciliation of Charles and Pandora. My spirits in this respect were revived, and my prospects made brighter, by the thoughts that these virtuous and meritorious lovers were at last likely to be once again enclosed within the cincture of the same city. Add to which, my Venetian confederate had not yet made his appearance at Presburg; and not only was I under engagements to give him the meeting there, but it was also clear that his errand could not be brought to its proper close without my assistance.

I once more entered the city to which Pandora owed her birth. Charles de Damville had preceded my arrival several days. I should without delay have repaired to his apartments, but that I found at my own lodgings a letter from Benedetto Cabriera of Venice, informing me that he was now in Presburg, and to avoid all cause for suspicion, had taken up his residence in a remote quarter of the town. From the inquiries I made, I became satisfied that my son had in some degree resumed his usual occupations, and that there was no appearance of his again immediately quitting the metropolis. I therefore felt my transaction with Cabriera more urgent than an immediate conference with Charles. Though I had sought that conference with earnest expedition, yet I dreaded it. It might require the maturest consideration and the nicest management, to render it effectual for the purposes I sought. I found from certain intelligence that Damville and Pandora had yet had no explanation with each other. I therefore regarded my exertions for that purpose as a final effort; and I was willing that every thing should be in train, and the portion of Pandora fully adjusted, before I entered upon that interesting scene. With Cabriera I had little difficulty. The documents and evidences of his tale we had concerted at Venice; and I presently found that he told his story so plausibly, and supported it so consistently, that it was admitted by every one without the smallest suspicion.

No sooner had Cabriera opened his business to the parties to whom the cognizance of it most properly belonged, than I once more presented myself to the beautiful and engaging niece of Nadasti. The instant I entered her apartment, I was shocked with the extreme change of her personal appearance. All the airiness, alertness and vivacity, that had once so exquisitely adorned her, were gone. The roses in her cheek were faded, and had given place to a delicate, but sickly paleness. Her arms, though always what is called white, had before been round, and had been distinguished by the purest hue of health. They were now emaciated, skinny, and colorless. Her eyes were hollow, and her eyelids inflamed with weeping. All these changes had taken place in about five weeks that had elapsed since I saw her last. I was so struck with the sight, that I involuntarily started, and could scarcely command myself enough to refrain from tears. It was plain that she carried an arrow in her bosom, which one hand only in the universe could extract with safety. As I approached, she raised her lovely head that had been depressed with grief, and lifted her white arms with an expression of despair.

“Come nearer, my sweet Henry,” said she, “I rejoice to see you; though you have proved my worst enemy, the destroyer of my peace. But your intentions, my kind boy, my brother, for such I will still call you, have always been good and innocent. But, ah, Henry, you have deluded me; you urged me to banish despair; and every day I see more reason to despair.”

I asked if she had not seen the chevalier since his return to Presburg.

“It were better for me,” replied Pandora, “if I had not seen him. What has really happened, is worse than if I had been denied to see him. I have met him every day in the apartments of my aunt. To an indifferent eye it would have appeared as if he neither sought nor avoided me. He carries himself towards me with a cold and constrained civility. But he neither demands an interview, nor allows me the opportunity to utter a word to him in private. Oh, D’Aubigny, I see too well that I have lost him for ever. When he fled my presence, when he resolved to seek some distant region, cruel as that conduct was, it convinced me that I was of some importance to him. But now he passes by me in stern neglect; he has utterly driven me from his heart. Indeed, my brother, this last blow is too much; I feel that I shall never recover it.”

“And does the chevalier,” cried I, “appear at his ease? Does he exhibit the wonted symptoms of his health and triumphant spirit?”

“Away; too pleasing deluder!” replied Pandora. “Cheat me not with false hopes! flatter me not with unreal expectations! Damville does not appear to be well or happy. But you have deceived me too much; the disappointments that you prepared for me are too excruciating. I feel now at no time so high a degree of gloomy satisfaction and composure, as when I press despair firmly to my breast.

“But you, Henry,” continued she, “are probably uninformed of my last and severest misfortune. I had a great uncle in the list of the adventurers that achieved the conquest of Peru; he has died, and unexpectedly bequeathed me a fortune, that sets the portionless Pandora upon a level with the wealthy heiresses of the great palatine himself. For a long time want of fortune was the only obstacle that stood between me and all my hopes of happiness. Now that poverty is no longer an evil to me, and wealth no longer desirable, I have obtained this unwelcome acquisition. You can have no conception how painful a sensation is produced by this mockery, the gift of ample possessions to the votary of despair.”

I endeavored somewhat to encourage Pandora; but she obstinately rejected my soothings. I was the less importunate on this subject, as, since the return of my son, I persisted to persuade myself that I should soon have something more substantial to offer her on his part, than mere guesses and conjectures. The day after this conversation, I boldly sought the presence of the chevalier. Till then, I had, since our return to Presburg, avoided to meet him. I now resolved to force from him a hearing; to assure him, with the most solemn asseverations, of my own innocence, and the constancy of his mistress; to represent to him in how eminent a degree the newly acquired estate of Pandora was calculated to facilitate their mutual wishes; and finally, to offer him any pledge he should desire of the sincerity of my declarations, even to the banishing myself from the presence and intercourse of him and the lovely Pandora for ever.

When I saw my son, his appearance and air advanced a forcible claim on my compassion. I will not now describe them. Suffice it, that they completely proved, how true was the sympathy, even to the minutest particulars, between him and his mistress. The difference was only in kind, and not in degree: hers a defenseless, a delicate and truly feminine grief; while his, amid all its aggravations, had something in it of the champion and the hero. When he felt most severely, he seemed to disdain himself for what he felt; and, though his struggles were excruciating, he resolutely smoothed his manly front, and the loftiness of his spirit produced on his cheek a generous and a settled blush.

I have just said that I had resolved to force from him a hearing. I was mistaken in my calculations on this point. Dejected as his habits had lately been, he no sooner saw me, than he advanced towards me with a fierce and imperative demeanor, that absolutely startled me.

“How is it, man!” cried he, “that you are at this hour out of custody?”

“Custody!” interdicted and astonished, repeated I.

“Yes, custody! If such a wretch as thou art, be permitted to go at large, what human institution, what human possessions, shall ever be secure?”

“Good God,” said I, “what am I to understand by your present rage? I know that you have considered me as your personal enemy and the underminer of your happiness. But, when first you accused me of this crime, you treated me in a manner less violent and disdainful than that which you now employ.”

“I brook not to explain. Read that letter. I received it at Friborg. That letter brought me back from the confines of France to the spot where now we meet.”

I took up the letter. Its contents were nearly as follow:—

LETTER.

“My dear Friend,—You will permit me to call you so, since to me, and me only, you have recently thought proper to confide your projects, and your unfortunate passion for the charming Pandora. What you related to me on the subject convinced me how much she was unworthy of your love, and how basely she has conducted herself towards you. Yet you will yourself feel some compassion for her, when you learn who it is upon whom she has bestowed this unmerited preference. Know then that this wretched D’Aubigny is no other than the notorious Chatillon, the infamous impostor, who, by his machinations about a year ago preserved the Turkish provinces of Hungary from being conquered by the christian arms. The man is moreover a magician, the pretended or real possessor of the philosopher’s stone. He is therefore doubly worthy of death, first as a traitor, the abettor and comforter of the common enemy of the christian faith, and, secondly, as a dealer in the black art, and a man notoriously sold and delivered over to the devil.

“I have received this information from the most unquestionable authority. A soldier in my old corps, who has lately escaped from a Turkish prison, no sooner saw him than he identified his person. I happened to be near the fellow at the moment, when, by an unexpected exclamation, he betrayed his discovery. It immediately struck me that the circumstance might be of importance to your interests; and, therefore, taking the soldier aside, I charged him not to mention to any one what he had observed. To render his secrecy the more secure, I have since removed him to a garrison at some distance from Presburg; and I have myself mentioned the circumstance to no living creature, that I might first receive your instructions on the subject, and act in all respects concerning it as you shall judge proper. The blackness of the character of the man sets all exaggeration at defiance. This very individual, whom you liberated from the bowels of the earth, who by the most treacherous arts won your confidence, and upon whom you lavishly heaped every imaginable distinction, was all the while conscious to himself, that he was the character that of all that live you hated most; in one word, the renegado Chatillon. He acted consistently with his preceding conduct and his recent disingenuousness, when he seduced from you the affections of the woman of your choice.

“I am concerned to add, that, on the very day that I made this discovery, this Chatillon D’Aubigny disappeared from Presburg, nor can I by any effort learn whither he is gone. It is impossible he should have been informed by any human means of the detection that had happened. But indeed it is vain to attempt to form any reasonable conjecture, respecting a character so mysterious and inexplicable.

“Your devoted friend,

“Andrew, count of Bathori.”

“Well, sir,” seeing I had finished the perusal, “and what have you now to allege? When I saw you simply as the favored lover of Pandora, however treacherous and dishonorable I might deem your conduct towards me, I quitted the field. I did not trust myself to be a judge in my own cause. I did not confide in my estimate of your unworthiness, when I was myself wholly concerned. I had some time before received an invitation from the duke d’Aumale, who was collecting a number of generous and high-spirited nobles to accompany Mary queen of Scots to the barbarous fields of her native realm. I at first declined, I now accepted, the invitation; I set out for Paris to join him. I found that letter waiting my arrival at Friborg, and I returned. Deeply as Pandora has sunk in my esteem, I determined I would never allow her to be thrown away upon the infamous Chatillon.

“You haunt my steps. I heard of you again and again on my route as I returned from Friborg. I arrive at Presburg, and presently after you again make your appearance. What further villanies have you to act? What new treacheries have you devised against me? This morning I consented to the representations of count Bathori, and agreed that you should be delivered up to justice. Why then are you not in custody?

“When I consider the mystery and inscrutableness of your character, I am lost in conjecture. You are said to be a magician, a dealer in the unhallowed secrets of alchymy and the elixir vitæ. In cases like this, all the ordinary rules of human sagacity and prudence are superseded, the wisest man is a fool, and the noblest spirit feels the very ground he stood on struck from under his feet. How can I know that the seduction of Pandora’s affections is not owing to magical incantations, who in that case is rather an object for compassion than for censure? How can I tell that the fraternal resemblance borne by your features to my own, and the sudden and ardent partiality that rose in my breast when first I saw you, have not been produced by the most detested arts? Magic dissolves the whole principle and arrangement of human action, subverts all generous enthusiasm and dignity, and renders life itself loathsome and intolerable.

“This is to me the most painful of all subjects. I had a father whom I affectionately loved: he became the dupe of these infernal secrets. I had a mother, the paragon of the creation: that father murdered her. All the anguish I ever felt, has derived its source from alchymy and magic. While the infamous Chatillon thus stands before me, I feel all the long-forgotten wounds of my heart new opened, and the blood bursting afresh from every vein. I have rested, and been at peace; and now the red and venomed plague, that tarnished the years of my opening youth, returns to blast me. Begone, infamous, thrice-damned villain! and let me never see thee more!

“Wretch that you are!” continued Charles; for he saw me motioning to withdraw,—I felt that all further expostulation and discussion on my part was useless,—“wretch that you are! what is it that you are about to do? Think no to escape my vengeance! In the midst of all the tumultuous passions you waken in my breast, I still feel in myself the soldier and the man of honor. I am not a thief-taker or a bailiff. You are within my power, and that is your present protection. I will not now deliver you up to the justice of the state, but will hurl against you my personal defiance. I am willing to meet you man to man: I thirst to encounter you as my worst and most mortal foe, who has perpetrated against me the basest injuries, and excited in my bosom the most hateful sensations. Though you were fenced with all the legions of hell, I fear you not; and seeing that, after all that is past, you have once again intruded into my presence, I here bind myself by all that is sacred to pursue you to the death.”

What could I answer to such an attack? I saw at once that the case, as to all future harmony between me and my son was desperate and irremediable. What hope could I entertain further? What had hitherto been the result of our ill-fated intercourse? Every offense and prejudice that can gall the human mind had been brought forward in it in turn. I had wounded Damville in the most sensible point of private life, and had blasted his hopes there where he stored them all. I had offended his most rooted political prepossessions, by aiding the Turk, and feeding a nation that perished with hunger. I was an equivocal character, assuming different names, and wandering over the world with different pretenses. Last of all, I had revived in his mind the images of his father and his mother,—all that had once been most dear, and now was most painful, to his recollection; and had tortured his fancy with nameless horrors. These sentiments could never be removed. All the explanations in the world could never reconcile me to his mind; and I felt that I had that within, which, in what was to come, as it had in what was past, must for ever annihilate all confidence between us. At once therefore I accepted his challenge, arranged with him the terms of a hostile encounter on the following morning, and immediately after bid adieu to Presburg, and to the sight of every soul contained within its walls, for ever.

This is, I powerfully feel, the last adventure that I shall ever have the courage to commit to writing. A few minutes more, and I will lay down my pen, and resolve in the most solemn and sacred manner never to compose another line. Indeed, all other adventures must necessarily be frigid and uninteresting, compared with that which I have now described. Great God, what a fate was mine! Anxious as I had been to prove myself in the most momentous respects the benefactor of my son, dismissing all other thoughts and cares from my mind, journeying with this sole object in view, from Presburg to Venice, and from Venice to Presburg, from Hungary to the banks of the Rhine, and from the banks of the Rhine back again to Hungary,—the whole scene was now terminated by a declaration on his part, that nothing could appease the animosity he cherished against me, short of rioting in the blood of his father’s heart. I was reduced to the necessity either of lifting my sword against my son, of running myself upon the point of his weapon, or of forfeiting the engagement between us, and suffering him to brand me as a coward in the face of Christendom. I mention not this, because the variety of objects of choice produced in me the slightest hesitation. Weary as I was of life, I could cheerfully have consented to die, but not to stain the sword of Charles de Damville with my vital blood. I prevented him from being the assassin of his father’s life; I could not prevent him from being the assassin of his father’s character. He was assiduous and indefatigable in spreading against me the blackest invectives, which he regarded as the most unerring truths. All Hungary has resounded for thirty years with the atrocities of the sieur de Chatillon; what is here recorded contains the whole and unvarnished truth on the subject. This narrative however shall never see the light, till the melancholy hour when Charles de Damville shall be no more.

Yet in the midst of the anguish, the disappointment of every cherished hope, which rends my soul, I have one consolation, and that an invaluable one, in the virtues, the glory, and the happiness of my son. I said I would forget every gratification and sentiment of my own in him; I am now more than ever instigated to do so. When I quitted Presburg, I left Cabriera behind me in that city, and I took care to obtain a parting interview with him. He afterwards gave me the meeting, as we then concerted, at Trieste in the duchy of Carniola. It happened, as I had flattered myself the event would prove, that, the visible source of umbrage being removed, Charles and Pandora in no long time came to a mutual understanding, and were finally made happy in each other. I had been the fortunate means of supplying to this excellent and incomparable creature the only defect under which she labored, a want of fortune; her uncle, having no longer a pretense to oppose their mutual passion, united their hands; and, at the time of which I am speaking, they were regarded as the most graceful and accomplished couple in the whole Hungarian dominions. The chevalier de Damville is considered in that country as the great bulwark of the Christian frontier, and the most generous and illustrious pupil in the school of the Bayards and the Scanderbegs. Cabriera, worn out with years and fatigues, but still grasping and avaricious to his latest hour, expired in my arms in the city of Trieste; and by his death yielded me this contentment, that henceforth the only obvious means for detecting my beneficent fraud in securing the dower of Pandora was for ever removed.

That the reader may enter the more fully into my sentiment of congratulation upon the happiness of my son, and rise from the perusal of my narrative with a more soothing and pleasurable sensation, I will here shortly recapitulate the good qualities that had been unfolded in this truly extraordinary young man from his earliest infancy. He was a child, only nine years of age, at the period of the truly affecting and exemplary behavior the reader may remember him to have displayed, while I was at Paris squandering the property of my family at the gaming-table. In the alienation of mind produced in me by that dreadful catastrophe, he was my constant attendant, my careful nurse, and my affectionate friend. When, twelve months after, we were driven by our calamities out of Switzerland, and I lay extended to all human appearance on the bed of death, Charles was the comforter of his mother, the friend of his sisters, and even, young as he was, contributed to the maintenance of my starving family by the labor of his infant hands. At Dresden, as yet no more than seventeen years of age, he was assailed by one of the severest trials with which the mind of man can in any case be beset. But he hesitated not a moment. Obliged to choose between poverty and innocence, with the sacrifice of all his habitudes, and the loss of every friend, on the one side, and wealth, new to his enjoyment, with ignominy or an equivocal character, on the other, his determination was instant and unalterable. Cast, at so immature an age, alone and portionless, upon the world, he almost immediately, by his gallantry, his winning qualities, and his virtues, gained to himself a friend in one of the greatest captains of the age. Unaided by the brilliancy of family or fortune, he acquired the character of the bravest soldier in Hungary, where all were brave. This last trial, to which I had been the undesigning means of subjecting him, was none of the least arduous. Love often entails imbecility on the noblest of mankind: but Charles surmounted the most perilous attacks of this all-conquering passion. When he thought Pandora unworthy, he tore himself from her, and would not admit a struggle. When he believed she loved another, he disdained to claim a heart that seemed alienated from him, and himself joined the hands of his mistress and his rival. He might have died; he could not disgrace himself. I was the hero’s father!—but no! I am not blinded by paternal partiality;—but no! he was indeed what I thought him, as near the climax of dignity and virtue as the frailty of our nature will admit. His virtue was at length crowned with the most enviable reward the earth has to boast,—the faithful attachment of a noble-minded and accomplished woman. I am happy to close my eventful and somewhat melancholy story with so pleasing a termination. Whatever may have been the result of my personal experience of human life, I can never recollect the fate of Charles and Pandora without confessing with exultation, that this busy and anxious world of ours yet contains something in its stores that is worth living for.

THE END.