If, the next time, he passed by in a manner that prevented my seeing him, or took no notice of me, I felt as much mortified as some poor lover, when he finds that the beloved object wholly neglects him.
CHAPTER LXXXV.
In the adjoining prison, once occupied by Oroboni, D. Marco Fortini and Antonio Villa were now confined. The latter, once as strong as Hercules, was nearly famished the first year, and when a better allowance was granted he had wholly lost the power of digestion. He lingered a long time, and when reduced almost to the last extremity, he was removed into a somewhat more airy prison. The pestilential atmosphere of these narrow receptacles, so much resembling real tombs, was doubtless very injurious to others as well as to him. But the remedy sought for was too late or insufficient to remove the cause of his sufferings. He had scarcely been a month in this spacious prison, when, in consequence of bursting several blood-vessels, and his previously broken health, he died.
He was attended by his fellow-prisoner, D. Fortini, and by the Abate Paulowich, who hastened from Vienna upon hearing that he was dying. Although I had not been on the same intimate terms with him as with Count Oroboni, his death a good deal affected me. He had parents and a wife, all most tenderly attached to him. He, indeed, was more to be envied than regretted; but, alas, for the unhappy survivors to whom he was everything! He had, moreover, been my neighbour when under the Piombi. Tremerello had brought me several of his poetical pieces, and had conveyed to him some lines from me in return. There was sometimes a depth of sentiment and pathos in his poems which interested me. I seemed to become still more attached to him after he was gone; learning, as I did from the guards, how dreadfully he had suffered. It was with difficulty, though truly religious, that he could resign himself to die. He experienced to the utmost the horror of that final step, while he blessed the name of the Lord, and called upon His name with tears streaming from his eyes. “Alas,” he said, “I cannot conform my will unto thine, yet how willingly would I do it; do thou work this happy change in me!” He did not possess the same courage as Oroboni, but followed his example in forgiving all his enemies.
At the close of the year (1826) we one evening heard a suppressed noise in the gallery, as if persons were stealing along. Our hearing had become amazingly acute in distinguishing different kinds of noises. A door was opened; and we knew it to be that of the advocate Solera. Another! it was that of Fortini! There followed a whispering, but we could tell the voice of the police director, suppressed as it was. What could it be? a search at so late an hour! and for what reason?
In a brief space, we heard steps again in the gallery; and ah! more plainly we recognised the voice of our excellent Fortini: “Unfortunate as I am! excuse it? go out! I have forgotten a volume of my breviary!” And we then heard him run back to fetch the book mentioned, and rejoin the police. The door of the staircase opened, and we heard them go down. In the midst of our alarm we learnt that our two good friends had just received a pardon; and although we regretted we could not follow them, we rejoiced in their unexpected good fortune.
CHAPTER LXXXVI.
The liberation of our two companions brought no alteration in the discipline observed towards us. Why, we asked ourselves, were they set at liberty, condemned as they had been, like us, the one to twenty, the other to fifteen years’ imprisonment, while no sort of favour was shown to the rest?
Were the suspicions against those who were still consigned to captivity more strong, or did the disposition to pardon the whole, at brief intervals of time, and two together, really exist? We continued in suspense for some time. Upwards of three months elapsed, and we heard of no fresh instances of pardon. Towards the end of 1827, we considered that December might be fixed on as the anniversary of some new liberations; but the month expired, and nothing of the kind occurred.
Still we indulged the expectation until the summer of 1828, when I had gone through seven years and a half of my punishment—equivalent, according to the Emperor’s declaration, to the fifteen, if the infliction of it were to be dated from the term of my arrest. If, on the other hand, it were to be calculated, not from the period of my trial, as was most probable, but from that of the publication of my sentence, the seven years and a half would only be completed in 1829.