Gerald Fitzgerald, the Chevalier: A Novel

by Charles James Lever

Gerald was for weeks long a sufferer on a sick-bed. In a small room of the villa, kindly cared for, all his wants supplied by the directions of his wealthy friends, there he lay, pondering over the wayward accident of his life, and insensibly feeding his heart with the conviction that Fate, which had never failed to befriend him in difficulty, had yet some worthy destiny in store for him. He read unceasingly, and of everything. The Marquise constantly sent him her books, and what now interested him no less, the newspapers and pamphlets of the time. It was the first real glimpse he had obtained of the actual world about him; and with avidity he read of the ambitions and rivalries which disturbed Europe—the pretensions of this State, the fears and jealousies of that. Stored as his mind was with poetic images, imbued with a rapturous love for the glowing pictures thus presented, he yet hesitated to decide whether the life of action was not a higher and nobler ambition than the wondrous dreamland of imagination.

In the convent Gerald’s mind had received its first lessons of religion and morality. His sojourn at the Tana had imparted his earliest advances into the world of knowledge through books, and now his captivity at the ‘Camerotto’ opened to him a glance of the real world, its stirring scenes, its deep intrigues, and all the incidents of that stormy sea on which men charter the vessels of their hope. Was it that he forgot Marietta? Had pain and suffering effaced her image; had ambition obliterated it? No; she was ever in his thoughts—the most beautiful and most gifted creature he had ever seen. If he read, it was always with the thought, what would she have said of it? If he sank into a reverie, she was the centre round which his dreams revolved. Her large, mild eyes, her glowing cheek, her full lips, tremulous with feeling, were ever before him; and what would he not have given to be her companion again, wandering the world; blending all that was fascinating in poetic description with scenes wayward enough to have been conjured up by fancy! Why had they deserted him? he asked himself over and over. Had the passing dispute with Marietta determined her to meet him no more? And if so, what influence could she have exercised over the others to induce them to take this step? There was but one of whom he could hope to gain this knowledge—Alfieri himself, whose generosity had succoured them, and in the few and brief moments of the poet’s visit to the villa he had not courage to venture on the question.

The Marquise came frequently to see him, and seemed pleased to talk with him, and lighten the hours of his solitude by engaging him in conversation. Dare he ask her? Could he presume to inquire, from one so high-born and so great what had befallen his humble comrades of the road? How entreat her to trace their steps, or to learn their plans? Had she, indeed, seen Marietta, there would have been no difficulty in the inquiry. Who could have beheld her without feeling an interest in her fate? Brief, however, as had been his intercourse with great people, he had already marked the tone of indolent condescension with which they treated the lives of the very poor. The pity they gave them cost no emotion: if they sorrowed, it was with a grief that had no pang. Their very generosity had more reference to their own sensations than to the feelings of those they befriended. Already, young as he was, did he catch a glimpse of that deep gulf that divides affluence from misery, and in the bitterness of his grief for her who had left him, he exaggerated the callousness of the rich and the sufferings of the poor.

Every comfort was supplied to him, all that care could bestow, or kindness remember, was around him; and yet, why was it his gratitude flowed not in a pure, unsullied stream, but came with uncertain gushes, fitfully, unequally; now sluggish, now turbid; clogged with many a foul weed, eddying with many an uncertain current!

The poison Gabriel had instilled into his heart, if insufficient to kill its nobler influences, was yet enough to render them unsound. The great lesson of that tempter was to ‘distrust,’ never to accept a benefit in life without inquiring what subtle design had prompted it, what deep-laid scheme it might denote. ‘None but a fool bestows without an object,’ was a maxim he had often heard from his lips. Not all the generosity of the youth’s nature—and it was a noble one—could lessen the foul venom of this teaching! To reject it seemed like decrying the wisdom of one who knew life in all its aspects. How could he, a mere boy, ignorant, untravelled, unlettered, place his knowledge of mankind in competition with that of one so universally accomplished as Gabriel? His precepts, too, were uttered so calmly, so dispassionately—a tone of regret even softened them at times, as though he had far rather have spoken well and kindly of the world, if truth would have suffered him. And then he would insidiously add: ‘Don’t accept these opinions, but go out and test them for yourself. The laboratory is before you, experiment at your will.’ As if he had not already put corruption in the crucible, and defiled the vessel wherein the ore should be assayed!

For some days Gerald had seen neither the Count nor the Marquise. A brief note, a few lines, from the latter, once came to say that they continued to take an interest in his welfare, and hoped soon to see him able to move about and leave his room; but that the arrival of a young relative from Rome would probably prevent her being able to visit the Camerotto for some time.

‘They have grown weary of the pleasure of benevolence,’ thought Gerald peevishly; ‘they want some other and more rewarding excitement. The season of the Carnival is drawing nigh, and doubtless fêtes and theatres will be more gratifying resources than the patronage of such as I.’

It was in a spirit resentful and rebellious that he arose and dressed himself. The very clothes he had to wear were given him—the stick he leaned on was an alms; and his indignation scoffed at his mendicancy, as though it were a wrong against himself.

‘After all,’ said he mockingly, ‘if it were not that I chanced to resemble some dear prince or other, they had left me to starve. I wonder who my prototype may be: what would he say if I proposed to change coats with him? Should I have more difficulty in performing the part of prince, or he that of vagabond?’

In resentful reflections like this he showed how the seeds of Gabriel’s teaching matured and ripened in his heart, darkening hope, stifling even gratitude. To impute to mere caprice, a passing whim, the benevolence of the rich was a favourite theory of Gabriel; and if, when Gerald listened first to such maxims, they made little or no impression upon him, now, in the long silent hours of his solitude, they came up to agitate and excite him. One startling illustration Gabriel had employed, that would occur again and again to the boy’s mind, in spite of himself.