Chapter ii.
Travelling, whatever may be said of it, is one of the saddest pleasures of life. When you find yourself comfortable in some foreign city it begins to feel, in some degree, like your own country; but to traverse unknown realms, to hear a language spoken which you hardly comprehend, to see human countenances which have no connection either with your past recollections or future prospects, is solitude and isolation, without dignity and without repose; for that eagerness, that haste to arrive where nobody expects us, that agitation, of which curiosity is the only cause, inspires us with very little esteem for ourselves, till the moment when new objects become a little old, and create around us some soft ties of sentiment and habit.
The grief of Oswald was, then, redoubled in traversing Germany in order to repair to Italy. On account of the war it was necessary to avoid France and its environs; it was also necessary to keep aloof from the armies who rendered the roads impracticable. This necessity of occupying his mind with particulars material to the journey, of adopting, every day, and almost every instant, some new resolution, was quite insupportable to Lord Nelville. His health, far from becoming better, often obliged him to stop, when he felt the strongest desire to hasten to his journey's end or at least to make a start. He spat blood, and took scarcely any care of himself; for he believed himself guilty, and became his own accuser with too great a degree of severity. He no longer wished for life but as it might become instrumental to the defence of his country. "Has not our country," said he, "some paternal claims upon us? But we should have the power to serve it usefully: we must not offer it such a debilitated existence as I drag along to ask of the sun some principle of life to enable me to struggle against my miseries. None but a father would receive me to his bosom, under such circumstances, with affection increased in proportion as I was abandoned by nature and by destiny."
Lord Nelville had flattered himself that the continual variety of external objects would distract his imagination a little from those ideas by which it was habitually occupied; but that circumstance was far from producing, at first, this happy effect. After any great misfortune we must become familiarised anew with everything that surrounds us; accustom ourselves to the faces that we behold again, to the house in which we dwell, to the daily habits that we resume; each of these efforts is a painful shock, and nothing multiplies them like a journey.
The only pleasure of Lord Nelville was to traverse the Tirolese Mountains upon a Scotch horse which he had brought with him, and which like the horses of that country ascended heights at a gallop: he quitted the high road in order to proceed by the most steep paths. The astonished peasants cried out at first with terror at beholding him thus upon the very brink of precipices, then clapped their hands in admiration of his address, his agility, and his courage. Oswald was fond of this sensation of danger; it supports the weight of affliction, it reconciles us, for a moment, with that life which we have reconquered, and which it so easy to lose.
Chapter iii.
In the town of Inspruck, before entering Italy, Oswald heard a merchant at whose house he had stopped some time, relate the story of a French emigré called the Count d'Erfeuil, which greatly interested him in his favour. This man had suffered the entire loss of a very large fortune with the most perfect serenity; he had, by his talent for music, supported himself and an old uncle, whom he had taken care of until his death; he had constantly refused to accept offers of pecuniary assistance pressingly made to him; he had manifested the most brilliant valour—a French valour—during the war, and the most invincible gaiety in the midst of reverses. He was desirous of going to Rome to see a relation, whose heir he was to be, and wished for a companion, or rather a friend, in order to render the journey more agreeable to both.
The most bitter recollections of Lord Nelville were connected with France; nevertheless he was exempt from those prejudices which divide the two nations; for a Frenchman had been his intimate friend, and he had found in this friend the most admirable union of all the qualities of the soul. He, therefore, offered to the merchant who related to him the story of the Count d'Erfeuil, to take this noble and unfortunate young man to Italy; and at the end of an hour the merchant came to inform Lord Nelville that his proposition was accepted with gratitude. Oswald was happy in being able to perform this service, but it cost him much to renounce his solitude; and his timidity was wounded at finding himself, all of a sudden, in an habitual relation with a man whom he did not know.
The Count d'Erfeuil came to pay a visit to Lord Nelville, in order to thank him. He possessed elegant manners, an easy politeness, good taste, and appeared, from the very first introduction, perfectly at his ease. In his company one would feel astonished at all that he had suffered, for he supported his fate with a courage approaching to oblivion; and there was in his conversation a facility truly admirable when he spoke of his own reverses; but less admirable, it must be confessed, when it extended to other subjects.