Tedious and fearful was the way which conducted me to my destined abode; but the place itself, which I looked upon as my eternal prison, far exceeded all the horrors, which had struck my imagination so forcibly while approaching it. It was an antient fortress, perched high on the brow of a precipice like an eagle’s nest, which now received the unfortunate Urania. The peculiar form of its architecture announced it to have been raised in the time of Charlemagne; and the incessant howling of the storm, and raging of the billows seemed with every moment to threaten its downfall. I saw it from a distance seemingly suspended on the very brink of a steep and barren rock, which overhung the Lake, and I shuddered, when my conductors pointed it out as my future dwelling!
Fool that I was! I flew with rapture into the arms of Ethelbert, where I expected to find an earthly paradise and was deceived: with agony, keen as that of the dying, did I enter Ravenstein Castle ... and was deceived again! Ah! will short-sighted mortals never succeed in comprehending, that that which appears, and that which is, but rarely coincide? Yet, when we have experienced these deceptions twice or thrice, the experience makes us in future calm and resigned; and we acquire from it that indifference which raises us above the frowns and smiles of fortune, and enables us to repress with equal strength groundless apprehensions and unavailing wishes.
During the first days of my confinement I was in truth most wretched. My situation was rendered almost insupportable by the want of every convenience and comfort, and by the tediousness of unbroken solitude. I sighed after society of any kind, even though it had been such as (to judge from its outward appearance) would have promised me but little entertainment.
Some days had thus elapsed, when I observed through the bars of my closely-grated window, that a boy apparently between three and four years old, was sometimes suffered to amuse himself by playing in the neglected garden, which I was myself forbidden to visit. The innocent gaiety of the child made an impression on me, which frequently filled my eyes with tears.
—“Happy unthinking creature!” I exclaimed, wringing my hands in the bitterness of grief, “this garden appears to you a paradise, because you know none better. You are poor, forsaken, perhaps menaced by a thousand dangers which every moment brings nearer; but you see them not! Regret for the past troubles you as little as anxiety for the future; and it were difficult for a monarch with all his power to make you more happy, than you are even now! Oh! that I were like you. Oh! that at least I could clasp you in my arms, and learn from your sweet smile the art of smiling though in prison!”—
My wish to become more intimate with the happy trifler was too ardent to remain concealed. I entreated my jailor to gratify me with a nearer sight of him, and after a few difficulties I was at length permitted to receive the little Ludolf in my gloomy chamber.
—“Ludolf?” I exclaimed, when the child first told me his name—“Ludolf?” I repeated still more anxiously, while I examined his features, and fancied that I could trace a resemblance, which excited hopes in my bosom so sweet that I trembled to indulge them.
What then was my emotion, when the lovely boy convinced me that this was not the first time of our meeting, by naming as his mother, “Edith of Mayenfield!”
Yes! this dear, this long-lost friend was like myself an inmate of this place of terror! I breathed the same air with her; I was allowed to hope, that every succeeding day would afford me an opportunity of beholding her: the pleasure, which I felt from these reflections, was too great to admit of my observing, that Count Ethelbert’s confining me in the same place with a captive, whom he had secured in a manner so treacherous, was a proof that he designed my imprisonment to be eternal. Whatever might have originally been his motives for treating us with such severity, it was at least certain, that he would not permit either to regain her liberty, lest she should discover the mystery of his inhuman conduct, or take measures for rescuing from his power her companion in misfortune.
Considerations of this kind did not at first suggest themselves; I felt nothing but the joy of being once more united to my friend, an event which I now looked forward to with the most eager expectation. Heaven knows, it would have been no trifling comfort to me, had I met with the most insignificant of created beings, would but that being have listened to me with compassion, and endeavoured to soothe me in the paroxisms of my despair; but to dare to hope that Edith would now be my comforter in this dreary prison, oh! who can express the countless sources of satisfaction, which that single thought contained!