I was sorry to learn that the Marquis —— was now at Naples; and, after settling my family in an elegant villa a few miles from modern Rome, I set off in quest of the man for whom I had an antipathy, powerful, incurable; and for what purpose? To request his aid, mysterious, perhaps sinful, to cure me of a disorder, of which the consciousness was part of its calamity. The raving madman, at least, is saved from knowing his own misery.
I had not been an hour at Naples, attended by my favourite servant, the young man who once acted to me as my keeper, when I saw from the window of my hotel the cloaked stranger pass with a lady on his arm. But I hesitated not,—I might lose him for ever; so I ran into the street, and hastily accosted him.
What I said to him I know not, for my words were wild and ambiguous; but he promised that he would dine with me the following day, although his manners were even more reserved than when I spoke to him at the Museum.
Our instincts ought ever to be attended to; the brute creation follow nothing else, and they commit no sin. The first time I saw this stranger, he was looking at an inscription at Athens, and I felt a secret desire to get from his presence; but he entangled me with his talk, his knowledge of everything around, his high bearing, his intelligent eyes, and his superb Spanish cloak.
Again we were seated at the same table, and I again requested him to remove his mantle.
"Not yet," he said significantly; "but after the cloth is removed I will, if you still wish it, take off this upper clothing."
Oh how sarcastically were these words pronounced! My heart beat violently; I could not eat, and became abstracted and melancholy; not a word was said respecting my request to him, nor did he ask me why I sought him. He ate in silence, and seemed to have forgotten he was not alone.
When the table was cleared, the stranger coolly took a book from under his cloak, and began to read; whilst I, pondering on all I had ever known of him, began to feel the most burning desire to see this man once without his cloak, and was determined to do my utmost to effect it.
"The cloth is now removed, signor," said I, "and you promised then you would take off that everlasting garment."
"It displeases you, then?" retorted my companion. "Is it not unsafe to penetrate below the exterior of all things? Is not the surface ever the most safe? Is not the outer clothing of nature ever the most beautiful to the eye? What deformity dwells in mines, in caverns, at the bottom of the ocean! Nature wears a cloak as beautiful as mine: do you wish also to strip off her covering as well as mine?"