The victim of secret enemies and relentless persecutors (even as Laon is the victim of similar enemies and persecutors, and even as Shelley himself suffered from a conspiracy headed by his unnatural father, ever watching for a pretext for locking him up), the Count is torn from Julia di Strabozzi, and carried to a cavern in a darksome forest, even as Laon, after being torn from Cythna, is conveyed in a state of unconsciousness to the cavern of the column-surmounted rock. On entering the cavern in the wood, Verezzi recovers consciousness, even as Laon recovers his powers of observation on approaching the ‘cavern in the hill.’ The darkness of the tortuous way, by which the Count’s enemies lead him to the inmost cell of the cavern, is qualified by no ray of light, but for awhile the cell is illumined by Bernardo’s solitary torch, even as the cavern under the hill, which serves as a passage to Laon’s grated prison, is lit by the solitary torch, carried by one of his captors.
In Zastrozzi, it is said, ‘after winding down the rugged descent for some time, they arrived at an iron door, which at first sight appeared to be part of the rock itself. Everything had till now been obscured by total darkness, and Verezzi, for the first time, saw the faces of his persecutors, which a torch borne by Bernardo rendered visible.’
In Laon and Cythna it is written,
‘They bore me to a cavern in the hill
Beneath the column, and unbound me there;
And one did strip me stark; and one did fill
A vessel from the putrid pool; one bare
A lighted torch, and four with friendless care
Guided my steps the cavern-paths along,
Then up a steep and dark and narrow stair
We wound, until the torch’s fiery tongue
Amid the gushing day beamless and pallid hung.’
After bringing him into his prison, the Count Verezzi’s persecutors put an iron chain about his waist, and leave him fast bound to the cruel rock that cuts his tender flesh, even as Laon is bound with chains in his cage upon the mountain’s top.
In Zastrozzi it is written, ‘His triumphant persecutor bore him into the damp cell, and chained him to the wall. An iron chain encircled his waist; his limbs, which not even a little straw kept from the rock, were fixed by immense staples to the flinty floor; and but one of his hands was at liberty to take the scanty pittance of bread and water which was daily allowed him.’
In Laon and Cythna it is read,
‘They raised me to the platform of the pile,
That column’s dizzy height:—the grate of brass
Thro’ which they thrust me, open stood the while,
As to its ponderous and suspended mass,
With chains which eat into the flesh, alas!
With brazen links, my naked limbs they bound:
*******
I gnawed my brazen chain, and sought to sever
Its adamantine links, that I might die.’
From the fever which results from the barbarities inflicted upon him in the forest cavern, and from the terror consequent on the thunderstorm that shatters the walls of his prison, the Count Verezzi is recovered by the ministrations of a physician, who, after carrying him through the crisis of the malady, prescribes conditions of existence more favourable to mental tranquillity. Very much the same happens to Laon, who is restored to sanity from the sheer madness, that seizes him and preys upon him in the brazen cage, by the wise physician who visits him under the guise of a hermit, and conveys him to the tranquil retreat, where he eventually regains his faculties.
In Zastrozzi it is written,—‘A physician was sent for, who declared that, the crisis of the fever which had attacked him being past, proper care might reinstate him; but, that the disorder having attacked his brain, a tranquillity of mind was absolutely necessary for his recovery. Zastrozzi, to whom the life, though not the happiness, of Verezzi was requisite, saw that his too eager desire for revenge had carried him beyond his point. He saw that some deception was requisite; he accordingly instructed the old woman to inform him, when he recovered, that he was placed in this situation, because the physicians had asserted that the air of this country was necessary for a recovery from the brain-fever, which had attacked him. It was long before Verezzi recovered—long did he languish in torpid sensibility, during which his soul seemed to have winged its way to happier regions. At last, however, he recovered, and the first use he made of his senses was to inquire where he was.’