And now appeared the criminal. Culprit though he was, his beauty and air of distinction were indisputable.
"Poor young man!" murmured the women, sobbing.
"He will not long survive his disgrace," said the men, sorrowfully. "He looks like a ghost, and the emperor will soon have to bury him by the side of his mother."
No one remembered that this man had committed an infamous crime; no one thanked the emperor for having bestowed upon the Austrian people the inestimable gift of equality before the law. The commoner himself felt aggrieved at the monarch who had treated a nobleman no better than he would have done a serf.
Count Podstadsky was still in the elegant costume of the day. Graceful and distinguished in his bearing, he leaned his weary body, against the stake that supported the scaffold on which he was to suffer the last degree of public infamy. But now the executioner approached, holding a pair of large glistening shears. He gathered the soft brown curls of the count in his rough grasp, and very soon the glossy locks fell, and there remained nothing but the shorn head of the felon. This done, the executioner drew off the gold-embroidered coat which became the young nobleman so well, and threw over his shoulders the coarse smock, which, henceforth, was to designate him as a miscreant.
How changed, alas, was the high-born Carlo! How little this chattering creature, disguised in serge, resembled the cavalier who had enlisted the sympathy of the multitude! He was no longer a man, and name he had none. His number, in scarlet list upon the left sleeve of his smock, was the only mark that distinguished him from his brethren—the other malefactors. But the fearful toilet was not yet at an end. The feet and hands were yet to be manacled. As the handcuffs clicked around those delicate wrists, the executioner looked up in amazement. Heretofore he had been accustomed to hear the jeers and loud mockery of the multitude, as they applauded the completion of the felon's toilet; but today there was not a sound! Nothing to be seen but pale, sorrowful faces—nothing to be heard but sobs and murmurs of sympathy.
Still one more torture! The executioner gave him the broom, the baton of his disgrace, and he grasped its handle for support. He could scarcely stand now!
At this moment, in fiendish contrast with the behavior of the people, a loud, mocking laugh was heard. Shudderingly they looked around, wondering who it was that could add the weight of a sneer to the supreme misery which was rending their hearts. It came from above; and every face, even that of the wretched Podstadsky, as uplifted in horror. He caught at the stake, and his vacant eyes rested upon the house whence the cruel laugh had issued. There, on a balcony, guarded by several men in black, stood a beautiful young woman. She it was who had dealt the blow. In the hour of his agony her rosy lips had mocked him!
"Arabella!" shrieked the despairing man; and with this cry he sank insensible to the earth. [Footnote: Count Podstadsky did not long survive his disgrace. His delicate body soon sank under the hardships of his terrible existence. One day while sweeping the streets he ruptured a blood-vessel and died there, with no mourners save his fellow-criminals.—See Hubner ii., pp. 583-591. "Characteristic and Historical Anecdotes of Joseph II." "Friedel's Letters from Vienna," vol. i., p. 68.]
While all this was transpiring at the market-place, an imperial state-carriage had been hurrying through the streets until it stopped before a gloomy house, of which the doors and window-shutters were all closed. A footman, in the imperial livery, was seen to ring, and then an old man in faded black livery opened the door. A few whispered words passed between them; then a cavalier, in an elegant uniform, sprang from the carriage and entered the house. The old butler went before, and showed him up the creaking staircase, and through a suite of mouldy rooms until they reached one with closed doors.