Vendetta! | Page 5

What--if the prison to which we have
consigned the deeply regretted one should not have such close doors as
we fondly imagined? What, if the stout coffin should be wrenched apart
by fierce and frenzied fingers--what, if our late dear friend should NOT
be dead, but should, like Lazarus of old, come forth to challenge our
affection anew? Should we not grieve sorely that we had failed to avail
ourselves of the secure and classical method of cremation? Especially if
we had benefited by worldly goods or money left to us by the so
deservedly lamented! For we are self-deceiving hypocrites--few of us
are really sorry for the dead--few of us remember them with any real
tenderness or affection. And yet God knows! they may need more pity
than we dream of!

But let me to my task. I, Fabio Romani, lately deceased, am about to
chronicle the events of one short year--a year in which was compressed
the agony of a long and tortured life-time! One little year!--one sharp
thrust from the dagger of Time! It pierced my heart--the wound still
gapes and bleeds, and every drop of blood is tainted as it falls!
One suffering, common to many, I have never known--that is--poverty.
I was born rich. When my father, Count Filippo Romani, died, leaving
me, then a lad of seventeen, sole heir to his enormous possessions--
sole head of his powerful house--there were many candid friends who,
with their usual kindness, prophesied the worst things of my future.
Nay, there were even some who looked forward to my physical and
mental destruction with a certain degree of malignant expectation-- and
they were estimable persons too. They were respectably
connected--their words carried weight--and for a time I was an object
of their maliciously pious fears. I was destined, according to their
calculations, to be a gambler, a spendthrift, a drunkard, an incurable
roue of the most abandoned character. Yet, strange to say, I became
none of these things. Though a Neapolitan, with all the fiery passions
and hot blood of my race, I had an innate scorn for the contemptible
vices and low desires of the unthinking vulgar. Gambling seemed to me
a delirious folly--drink, a destroyer of health and reason--and licentious
extravagance an outrage on the poor. I chose my own way of life--a
middle course between simplicity and luxury--a judicious mingling of
home-like peace with the gayety of sympathetic social intercourse--an
even tenor of intelligent existence which neither exhausted the mind
nor injured the body.
I dwelt in my father's villa--a miniature palace of white marble, situated
on a wooded height overlooking the Bay of Naples. My
pleasure-grounds were fringed with fragrant groves of orange and
myrtle, where hundreds of full-voiced nightingales warbled their
love-melodies to the golden moon. Sparkling fountains rose and fell in
huge stone basins carved with many a quaint design, and their cool
murmurous splash refreshed the burning silence of the hottest summer
air. In this retreat I lived at peace for some happy years, surrounded by
books and pictures, and visited frequently by friends- -young men

whose tastes were more or less like my own, and who were capable of
equally appreciating the merits of an antique volume, or the flavor of a
rare vintage.
Of women I saw little or nothing. Truth to tell, I instinctively avoided
them. Parents with marriageable daughters invited me frequently to
their houses, but these invitations I generally refused. My best books
warned me against feminine society--and I believed and accepted the
warning. This tendency of mine exposed me to the ridicule of those
among my companions who were amorously inclined, but their gay
jests at what they termed my "weakness" never affected me. I trusted in
friendship rather than love, and I had a friend--one for whom at that
time I would gladly have laid down my life--one who inspired me with
the most profound attachment. He, Guido Ferrari, also joined
occasionally with others in the good- natured mockery I brought down
upon myself by my shrinking dislike of women.
"Fie on thee, Fabio!" he would cry. "Thou wilt not taste life till thou
hast sipped the nectar from a pair of rose-red lips--thou shalt not guess
the riddle of the stars till thou hast gazed deep down into the fathomless
glory of a maiden's eyes--thou canst not know delight till thou hast
clasped eager arms round a coy waist and heard the beating of a
passionate heart against thine own! A truce to thy musty volumes!
Believe it, those ancient and sorrowful philosophers had no manhood in
them--their blood was water--and their slanders against women were
but the pettish utterances of their own deserved disappointments. Those
who miss the chief prize of life would fain persuade others that it is not
worth having. What, man!