“Twisting in bitterness awhile I lingered, then rushed distracted from the spot, and fled hissing with desperation to the mountains.”
The beauties of the Deep Dell produced no soothing effect on the desperate bitterness that twisted the soul of Grabalotti; he issued from the Dell to “soak and steep his heart in blood.”
“The dewy wail of infancy, the piercing zest of female innocence, and the tremulous pleading of piping feebleness, all mocked at the radiance of the crimson steel, have poured their bootless incense o’er my breast.... Ha, ha! The nun, her dove-like innocence devastated, has broiled like a chestnut amid the ashes of her convent,” etc.
More “copy” in the style of the above is imparted to the artist. But an interruption takes place. A brigand enters, and so irritates the monster by the abruptness of his appearance that, had not the pistol with which his impatient master received him missed fire, his brains would have been scattered to the winds of heaven.
“‘Ha! dost thou dare to break in upon my mood?’ roared Grabalotti.
“‘Come to tell you,’ said the robber (speaking in the greatest possible haste), ‘that the nun who escaped the sacking of the convent has been taken.’
“‘Do as you list with her, and chop her head off! Stay, I would fain see it when it is done; and here, take this purse for the risk thou hast encountered.’”
Yet another interruption—this time in the person of a brigand spy disguised as a peasant. The chief anticipates startling and perhaps unpleasant news, and saying: “‘Excuse me, signor, for a few moments,’ he retires with his emissary.”
Grabalotti was absent some little time, during which the artist “added another sketch to his small collection,” when the monster returned, and informed his guest “in a lively tone” that they were about to have “some fun.”
“‘Of what description?’ inquired the artist.