Some weeks had been consumed in this way, when one winter night she desired me to read a certain history from a favorite volume of old legends. The history she selected was that of a supernatural appearance that was alleged to have followed a gentleman of Verona with the fidelity of a shadow. The history set forth the arts and devices by which he endeavored to perplex and evade it—how he went into dark and lonely places, and how still his spectral companion stood at his side—how he rushed into crowded scenes, forcing his way violently through the mass, in the hope that he would thus escape; but no matter how dense the multitude, or by what stratagems and confederacy the gentleman sought to bury himself out of sight, the apparition in its human shape was ever standing or moving close beside him. The strangest thing was that it bore an unnatural likeness to him, not only in its face and form, but in its actions, which were always so faithfully and so instantaneously copied after him, that they resembled a reflection in a mirror. He tried the most painful and unexpected contortions, only to see them reproduced with a rapidity that mocked his despair.
The history went on to say how he invented various schemes, and underwent many fearful trials of sorcery, in the hope of banishing or subduing his horrid familiar, but all in vain, for the fiend baffled all his efforts, and was still found at his side, day and night, whether he rode or walked, or threw himself on his couch for repose—how he summoned courage to speak to it at last, and was answered by the echoes of his own voice—how he swam floods with the ghastly thing floating along with him on the surge—how he climbed the highest hills and fled into savage caverns, the familiar still toiling or groveling beside him—how, in a fit of madness, he tried to grapple it on the edge of a precipice with the desperate intent of dragging it down with him into the abyss below, and how the shape wrought in the struggle, impalpable to the touch, but visible to the sight, like painted air—how, after enduring horrible tortures, the man wasted away, and became a mere shadow, the spirit waning and fading in like manner—and how the priests of a holy order, in the solitudes of the Apennines, hearing of these strange events, bethought them of shriving the man, and expelling the incarnate devil that had worked such inexplicable misery upon him.
The history next went on to relate how the monks found the man so weak and emaciated that he could scarcely take food or answer their questions—and how they had him conveyed to their chapel at midnight, amid the glare of torches and the chants of the holy brotherhood, the imperishable fiend lying stretched by his side in the litter, in open spite of the holy water with which they had sprinkled it, and of the care with which they had caused it to be made so small that it was thought impossible for him to find room upon it—and how, when the wretched man was brought to the altar, they placed him upright before it, and began to pray, the fiend all the while being in his usual place next to his mortal fellow—and how, as the prayers proceeded and the voices of the assembled priests, of whom numbers had collected from distant places to witness the scene, ascended to the roof, filling the sanctuary with solemn and blessed music, the man turned a look of deathly fear, and gazed into the eyes of the spirit, the spirit giving back the look with the same thrilling and awful expression—and how the sufferer, when the venerable abbot came to the benediction, and offered to place his hands upon his head, sank gradually down, the fiend sinking with him—and how, as the last word was uttered, they vanished together into the earth, and on the instant the torches were extinguished, as by a sudden gust of wind.
When I came to this point of the story, I lifted my eyes to look upon my mother. She sat upon her great chair opposite to me, looking straight at me with a glassy and vacant stare. Her limbs were rigid, and a spasm sat upon her features.
"Mother!" I exclaimed; "mother!" I could not speak more. I was choking for utterance, my hair coiled out like living fibres, the room seemed to swim round and round. I stretched out my arms and seized her hands—they were cold, cold and clammy. Let me not dwell on it—in that spectral chamber I was alone with the dead!
IV.
For many days afterward the house was like a tomb. My mother was laid out in the state-room, which, never having been used in our time, had a dank, earthy smell, and was wretchedly bleak and naked. She lay upon the old square bed, whose hangings, swept up into a ring over head, were once a bright orange damask, but now an undistinguishable tawny mass, from which tracery and color had long disappeared. There was no other article of furniture in the apartment, which bore dreary evidence of the neglect into which it had fallen. The fire-place was closed up with a screen; and the fragments of arras that hung from the walls were eaten into shreds by the damp. Desolate was the pomp of the poor corpse that lay freezing under its stately coverlid, in the icy air of that room.
The old woman, of whom I have already spoken, undertook the melancholy office of watching the dead. She suffered nobody else to approach the body. The house felt as if it were empty. Wherever a foot trod in the passage it gave out a hollow sound; and the servants, scared by undefined terror, immured themselves in their rooms, where they remained cooped and huddled together till the last rites were over.
Then went forth a scanty procession of ashy faces, winding down the black hills to the church-yard; and when she was laid in the grave, a shudder passed among them, and they whispered one to another, and then their eyes rested upon me. The action was significant of the feeling with which they regarded my situation. I was the last of my race, and my inheritance was little more than the mausoleum of my ancestors.
The old woman had done well to monopolize the tending of the dead, and the management of the funeral. She knew my unfitness, from grief and ignorance of the world, to enter upon such details; and she took them all off my hands, with a most careful watchfulness of my ease—and her own interest. During that brief interval of sorrow—when the whole household had withdrawn into retirement—she collected all the plate, valuables, and moneys, she could find in the house; and when the grave was closed, and the servants had returned home, she was nowhere to be found. She had, in short, made ample provision for the rest of her life out of such spoils as she could secure; for which, I afterward discovered, she had been making industrious preparations long before. Some attempts were made to trace her, but they were fruitless.