But alas! this knowledge of her want of merit was still insufficient to support me under the weight of her dying malediction. Methinks, undeserved as it was by me, her curse still hangs over my head, and sooner or later I shall experience its effects.—My children, I must here break off for a few moments—Dreadful emotions overpower me: I am unable to proceed!
Edith possest still more information respecting Count Ethelbert’s family. She knew, that by some means or other the news of Lucretia’s sufferings had at length reached her son in Italy; but sunk in voluptuousness and totally engrossed by his libertine pursuits, he had delayed from day to day the hastening to succour his imprisoned mother. At length he arrived at Ravenstein, and demanded the liberty of her, whose bones were already mouldering among the ruins of the half-burnt Castle. The reflection—“hadst thou come sooner, she had been saved,”—drove him almost frantic, and in the violence of his despair he committed the most inhuman outrages. The whole garrison of the fortress was sacrificed to the shade of Lucretia; the remaining towers of the Castle were converted into her funeral pile, and were consumed to ashes! He was informed, that the unfortunate Urania (whom he, as well as his mother accused of having caused all these misfortunes) had once been an inmate of those walls; and he foamed with rage at not finding her still there, that he might have sacrificed her also to his hatred and revenge!
The inhabitants of the tranquil vale of Frutiger, to whom I had formerly been indebted for my rescue, did not escape without feeling the weight of his fury. They too suffered for the dilatoriness, with which he had fulfilled his duty to an unfortunate mother; a crime, which he punished in those guiltless people, but of which he could accuse no one justly but himself.
Every one fled before the raging Donat, whose cruelties were supported by a strong army composed of his Italian vassals. He now was advancing towards the place of our abode by rapid marches, though no one yet knew, against whom in particular his fury would be directed. We trembled at his approach, for our feuds with Count Ethelbert had greatly diminished our strength, and we were ill-prepared for encountering troops so fresh and numerous, as those which accompanied our new enemy. Neither was Ethelbert without his fears. He imagined with no small probability, that his son was coming to demand the blood of his mother at his hands; and he was himself already engaged in a contest with the Count Venosta, whose military prowess supplied the deficiency of numbers in his army. Nothing could save both us and him, but an union of our forces against the common enemy; and now it was, that I was compelled to place myself in a situation, than which no other could ever have entailed on me even half such misery.
In the anxiety of his heart Count Ethelbert made proposals, which my uncle (who had scarcely less cause for anxiety) judged it imprudent entirely to reject. A negotiation was entered into; an alliance was concluded against Donat between Ethelbert and Count Leopold; and the wretched Urania was the victim sacrificed to their mutual fears. Almighty Heaven! the man who had deceived my uncle, imprisoned Edith, murdered Lucretia, and branded myself with shame, this man was I obliged for the second time to call by the name of husband.—It was in vain, that I resisted; that I wept, and knelt at the feet of my uncle. He bade me remember, that I had for many years lived with Ethelbert as his wife, and that should I go to my grave without a legal claim to that title, it would leave such a stain upon the family honour, as all the waters of the Rhine and Danube could never wash away.—Nor was this reflection without its weight in my own balance—to be handed down to posterity as the licentious votary of pleasure! “Urania Venosta, the concubine of the Count of Carlsheim!” was such the description, by which I must be known in after ages? As the hateful thought glanced upon my imagination, I recoiled with horror; a crimson blush suffused my cheeks, and the blood as it rushed through my veins, seemed boiling.—And yet to prevent this odious image from being realized, there existed no possible means except the consenting to give the most inhuman of men a second legal claim to torture and insult me!—Yet still did I resist; and still did the dreaded Donat advance towards us. Count Venosta’s persuasions became every hour more urgent. Entreaties, threats, anger, kindness, were employed alternately to obtain my unwilling consent.—Edith felt for me, and aided not her husband; but she felt too for the dangers of her situation, and shuddered involuntarily at the bare mention of Donat’s name. Her silent terrors affected me to the very soul: I was not insensible to apprehensions on my own account: Ethelbert’s arms at least afforded me a refuse from disgrace: I yielded, and with my eyes open doomed myself to a life of wilful suffering.
Yes! I became again the wife of Ethelbert!—Expect not from me a circumstantial account of my first interview with a man, whose crimes had now made him as much the object of my aversion, as he had once been the object of my love. The news of his approach made me shrink with terror! I painted to myself this imperious tyrant in the most frightful colours, which imagination could supply; but in the present instance, as had been the case on many former ones, I was deceived in my expectations. It’s true, the scene which I had to go through was a most painful one, but very different from that for which I had prepared myself.
Three years, which had elapsed since I parted from Count Ethelbert, had produced a change in him, which struck me with astonishment; he was no longer, as in former times, either an object of love, or of terror: his appearance was capable of exciting, even in the bosoms of those whom he had injured, no sentiment but compassion. It seemed, as if the natural consequences of his dissolute life had made a much more wretched creature of himself, than he had been able to make of the victims of his tyranny. Edith and myself had lost that pale and emaciated appearance, which we brought with us from Ravenstein, and were fast resuming our natural bloom and health; while on the contrary our persecutor seemed to have but just escaped from the dungeons of that gloomy Castle. Nor was it only his body’s strength which had suffered; his excessive libertinism, the stings of conscience, and his terror of impending punishment had broken down the fortitude of his mind completely.
No sooner did he enter the room in which I waited for him, than he threw himself at my feet, and entreated me in the most abject manner to pardon what was past. He also bathed Edith’s feet with his tears, and stammered out a long confession of the injuries which he had done her, and of which she was already but too well informed.
This excessive and unmanly degradation of himself was neither what we expected, nor wished from him. My sensations were equally composed of contempt and pity, and I could not decide, which of the two was the more powerful. The latter at length prevailed, and I suffered myself to be drawn by Ethelbert’s entreaties into making a promise, which I found in the end most painful to perform!