Chapter 7.III. Holy Men.—Sagacious Deliberations.—Just Resolves.—And
Sordid Motives to All.
Enamoured of the beauty, and almost equally so of the lofty spirit, of the Signora Cesarini, as was the warlike Cardinal of Spain, love with him was not so master a passion as that ambition of complete success in all the active designs of life, which had hitherto animated his character and signalized his career. Musing, as he left the Signora, on her wish for the restoration of the Roman Tribune, his experienced and profound intellect ran swiftly through whatever advantages to his own political designs might result from that restoration. We have seen that it was the intention of the new Pontiff to attempt the recovery of the patrimonial territories, now torn from him by the gripe of able and disaffected tyrants. With this view, a military force was already in preparation, and the Cardinal was already secretly nominated the chief. But the force was very inadequate to the enterprise; and Albornoz depended much upon the moral strength of the cause in bringing recruits to his standard in his progress through the Italian states. The wonderful rise of Rienzi had excited an extraordinary enthusiasm in his favour through all the free populations of Italy. And this had been yet more kindled and inflamed by the influential eloquence of Petrarch, who, at that time, possessed of a power greater than ever, before or since, (not even excepting the Sage of Ferney,) wielded by a single literary man, had put forth his boldest genius in behalf of the Roman Tribune. Such a companion as Rienzi in the camp of the Cardinal might be a magnet of attraction to the youth and enterprise of Italy. On nearing Rome, he might himself judge how far it would be advisable to reinstate Rienzi as a delegate of the papal power. And, in the meanwhile, the Roman’s influence might be serviceable, whether to awe the rebellious nobles or conciliate the stubborn people. On the other hand, the Cardinal was shrewd enough to perceive that no possible good could arise from Rienzi’s present confinement. With every month it excited deeper and more universal sympathy. To his lonely dungeon turned half the hearts of republican Italy. Literature had leagued its new and sudden, and therefore mighty and even disproportioned, power with his cause; and the Pope, without daring to be his judge, incurred the odium of being his gaoler. “A popular prisoner,” said the sagacious Cardinal to himself, “is the most dangerous of guests. Restore him as your servant, or destroy him as your foe! In this case I see no alternative but acquittal or the knife!” In these reflections that able plotter, deep in the Machiavelism of the age, divorced the lover from the statesman.
Recurring now to the former character, he felt some disagreeable and uneasy forebodings at the earnest interest of his mistress. Fain would he have attributed, either to some fantasy of patriotism or some purpose of revenge, the anxiety of the Cesarini; and there was much in her stern and haughty character which favoured that belief. But he was forced to acknowledge to himself some jealous apprehension of a sinister and latent motive, which touched his vanity and alarmed his love. “Howbeit,” he thought, as he turned from his unwilling fear, “I can play with her at her own weapons; I can obtain the release of Rienzi, and claim my reward. If denied, the hand that opened the dungeon can again rivet the chain. In her anxiety is my power!”
These thoughts the Cardinal was still revolving in his palace, when he was suddenly summoned to attend the Pontiff.
The pontifical palace no longer exhibited the gorgeous yet graceful luxury of Clement VI., and the sarcastic Cardinal smiled to himself at the quiet gloom of the ante-chambers. “He thinks to set an example—this poor native of Limoges!” thought Albornoz; “and has but the mortification of finding himself eclipsed by the poorest bishop. He humbles himself, and fancies that the humility will be contagious.”
His Holiness was seated before a small and rude table bestrewed with papers, his face buried in his hands; the room was simply furnished, and in a small niche beside the casement was an ivory crucifix; below, the death’s head and cross-bones, which most monks then introduced with a purpose similar to that of the ancients by the like ornaments,—mementos of the shortness of life, and therefore admonitions to make the best of it! On the ground lay a map of the Patrimonial Territory, with the fortresses in especial, distinctly and prominently marked. The Pope gently lifted up his head as the Cardinal was announced, and discovered a plain but sensible and somewhat interesting countenance. “My son!” said he, with a kindly courtesy to the lowly salutation of the proud Spaniard, “scarcely wouldst thou imagine, after our long conference this morning, that new cares would so soon demand the assistance of thy counsels. Verily, the wreath of thorns stings sharp under the triple crown; and I sometimes long for the quiet abode of my old professor’s chair in Toulouse: my station is of pain and toil.”
“God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb,” observed the Cardinal, with pious and compassionate gravity.
Innocent could scarcely refrain a smile as he replied, “The lamb that carries the cross must have the strength of the lion. Since we parted, my son, I have had painful intelligence; our couriers have arrived from the Campagna—the heathen rage furiously—the force of John di Vico has augmented fearfully, and the most redoubted adventurer of Europe has enlisted under his banner.”
“Does his Holiness,” cried the Cardinal, anxiously, “speak of Fra Moreale, the Knight of St. John?”
“Of no less a warrior,” returned the Pontiff. “I dread the vast ambition of that wild adventurer.”
“Your Holiness hath cause,” said the Cardinal, drily.
“Some letters of his have fallen into the hands of the servants of the Church; they are here: read them, my son.”
Albornoz received and deliberately scanned the letters; this done, he replaced them on the table, and remained for a few moments silent and absorbed.
“What think you, my son?” said the Pope, at length, with an impatient and even peevish tone.
“I think that, with Montreal’s hot genius and John di Vico’s frigid villany, your Holiness may live to envy, if not the quiet, at least the revenue, of the Professor’s chair.”
“How, Cardinal!” said the Pope, hastily, and with an angry flush on his pale brow. The Cardinal quietly proceeded.
“By these letters it seems that Montreal has written to all the commanders of free lances throughout Italy, offering the highest pay of a soldier to every man who will join his standard, combined with the richest plunder of a brigand. He meditates great schemes then!—I know the man!”
“Well,—and our course?”
“Is plain,” said the Cardinal, loftily, and with an eye that flashed with a soldier’s fire. “Not a moment is to be lost! Thy son should at once take the field. Up with the Banner of the Church!”
“But are we strong enough? our numbers are few. Zeal slackens! the piety of the Baldwins is no more!”
“Your Holiness knows well,” said the Cardinal, “that for the multitude of men there are two watchwords of war—Liberty and Religion. If Religion begins to fail, we must employ the profaner word. ‘Up with the Banner of the Church—and down with the tyrants!’ We will proclaim equal laws and free government; (In correcting the pages of this work, in the year 1847…strange coincidences between the present policy of the Roman Church and that by which in the 14th century it recovered both spiritual and temporal power cannot fail to suggest themselves.) and, God willing, our camp shall prosper better with those promises than the tents of Montreal with the more vulgar shout of ‘Pay and Rapine.’”
“Giles d’Albornoz,” said the Pope, emphatically; and, warmed by the spirit of the Cardinal, he dropped the wonted etiquette of phrase, “I trust implicitly to you. Now the right hand of the Church—hereafter, perhaps, its head. Too well I feel that the lot has fallen on a lowly place. My successor must requite my deficiencies.”
No changing hue, no brightening glance, betrayed to the searching eye of the Pope whatever emotion these words had called up in the breast of the ambitious Cardinal. He bowed his proud head humbly as he answered, “Pray Heaven that Innocent VI. may long live to guide the Church to glory. For Giles d’Albornoz, less priest than soldier, the din of the camp, the breath of the war-steed, suggest the only aspirations which he ever dares indulge. But has your Holiness imparted to your servant all that—”
“Nay,” interrupted Innocent, “I have yet intelligence equally ominous. This John di Vico,—pest go with him!—who still styles himself (the excommunicated ruffian!) Prefect of Rome, has so filled that unhappy city with his emissaries, that we have well-nigh lost the seat of the Apostle. Rome, long in anarchy, seems now in open rebellion. The nobles—sons of Belial!—it is true, are once more humbled; but how?—One Baroncelli, a new demagogue, the fiercest—the most bloody that the fiend ever helped—has arisen—is invested by the mob with power, and uses it to butcher the people and insult the Pontiff. Wearied of the crimes of this man, (which are not even decorated by ability,) the shout of the people day and night along the streets is for ‘Rienzi the Tribune.’”
“Ha!” said the Cardinal, “Rienzi’s faults then are forgotten in Rome, and there is felt for him the same enthusiasm in that city as in the rest of Italy?”
“Alas! It is so.”
“It is well, I have thought of this: Rienzi can accompany my progress—”
“My son! the rebel, the heretic—”
“By your Holiness’s absolution will become quiet subject and orthodox Catholic,” said Albornoz. “Men are good or bad as they suit our purpose. What matters a virtue that is useless, or a crime that is useful, to us? The army of the Church proceeds against tyrants—it proclaims everywhere to the Papal towns the restoration of their popular constitutions. Sees not your Holiness that the acquittal of Rienzi, the popular darling, will be hailed an earnest of your sincerity?—sees not your Holiness that his name will fight for us?—sees not your Holiness that the great demagogue Rienzi must be used to extinguish the little demagogue Baroncelli? We must regain the Romans, whether of the city or whether in the seven towns of John di Vico. When they hear Rienzi is in our camp, trust me, we shall have a multitude of deserters from the tyrants—trust me, we shall hear no more of Baroncelli.”
“Ever sagacious,” said the Pope, musingly; “it is true, we can use this man: but with caution. His genius is formidable—”
“And therefore must be conciliated; if we acquit, we must make him ours. My experience has taught me this, when you cannot slay a demagogue by law, crush him with honours. He must be no longer Tribune of the People. Give him the Patrician title of Senator, and he is then the Lieutenant of the Pope!”
“I will see to this, my son—your suggestions please, but alarm me: he shall at least be examined;—but if found a heretic—”
“Should, I humbly advise, be declared a saint.”
The Pope bent his brow for a moment, but the effort was too much for him, and after a moment’s struggle, he fairly laughed aloud.
“Go to, my son,” said he, affectionately patting the Cardinal’s sallow cheek. “Go to.—If the world heard thee, what would it say?”
“That Giles d’Albornoz had just enough religion to remember that the State is a Church, but not too much to forget that the Church is a State.”
With these words the conference ended. That very evening the Pope decreed that Rienzi should be permitted the trial he had demanded.
Chapter 7.IV. The Lady and the Page
It wanted three hours of midnight, when Albornoz, resuming his character of gallant, despatched to the Signora Cesarini the following billet.
“Your commands are obeyed. Rienzi will receive an examination on his faith. It is well that he should be prepared. It may suit your purpose, as to which I am so faintly enlightened, to appear to the prisoner what you are—the obtainer of this grace. See how implicitly one noble heart can trust another! I send by the bearer an order that will admit one of your servitors to the prisoner’s cell. Be it, if you will, your task to announce to him the new crisis of his fate. Ah! madam, may fortune be as favourable to me, and grant me the same intercessor—from thy lips my sentence is to come.”
As Albornoz finished this epistle, he summoned his confidential attendant, a Spanish gentleman, who saw nothing in his noble birth that should prevent his fulfilling the various hests of the Cardinal.
“Alvarez,” said he, “these to the Signora Cesarini by another hand; thou art unknown to her household. Repair to the state tower; this to the Governor admits thee. Mark who is admitted to the prisoner Cola di Rienzi: Know his name, examine whence he comes. Be keen, Alvarez. Learn by what motive the Cesarini interests herself in the prisoner’s fate. All too of herself, birth, fortunes, lineage, would be welcome intelligence. Thou comprehendest me? It is well. One caution—thou hast no mission from, no connexion with, me. Thou art an officer of the prison, or of the Pope,—what thou wilt. Give me the rosary; light the lamp before the crucifix; place yon hair-shirt beneath those arms. I would have it appear as if meant to be hidden! Tell Gomez that the Dominican preacher is to be admitted.”
“Those friars have zeal,” continued the Cardinal to himself, as, after executing his orders, Alvarez withdrew. “They would burn a man—but only on the Bible? They are worth conciliating, if the triple crown be really worth the winning; were it mine, I would add the eagle’s plume to it.”
And plunged into the aspiring future, this bold man forgot even the object of his passion. In real life, after a certain age, ambitious men love indeed; but it is only as an interlude. And indeed with most men, life has more absorbing though not more frequent concerns than those of love. Love is the business of the idle, but the idleness of the busy.
The Cesarini was alone when the Cardinal’s messenger arrived, and he was scarcely dismissed with a few lines, expressive of a gratitude which seemed to bear down all those guards with which the coldness of the Signora usually fenced her pride, before the page Angelo was summoned to her presence.
The room was dark with the shades of the gathering night when the youth entered, and he discerned but dimly the outline of the Signora’s stately form; but by the tone of her voice, he perceived that she was deeply agitated.
“Angelo,” said she, as he approached, “Angelo—” and her voice failed her. She paused as for breath and again proceeded. “You alone have served us faithfully; you alone shared our escape, our wanderings, our exile—you alone know my secret—you of my train alone are Roman!—Roman! it was once a great name. Angelo, the name has fallen; but it is only because the nature of the Roman Race fell first. Haughty they are, but fickle; fierce, but dastard; vehement in promise, but rotten in their faith. You are a Roman, and though I have proved your truth, your very birth makes me afraid of falsehood.”
“Madam,” said the page; “I was but a child when you admitted me of your service, and I am yet only on the verge of manhood. But boy though I yet be, I would brave the stoutest lance of knight, or freebooter, in defence of the faith of Angelo Villani, to his liege Lady and his native land.”
“Alas! alas!” said the Signora, bitterly, “such have been the words of thousands of thy race. What have been their deeds? But I will trust thee, as I have trusted ever. I know that thou art covetous of honour, that thou hast youth’s comely and bright ambition.”
“I am an orphan and a bastard,” said Angelo, bluntly! “And circumstance stings me sharply on to action; I would win my own name.”
“Thou shalt,” said the Signora. “We shall live yet to reward thee. And now be quick. Bring hither one of thy page’s suits,—mantle and head-gear. Quick, I say, and whisper not to a soul what I have asked of thee.”
Chapter 7.V. The Inmate of the Tower
The night slowly advanced, and in the highest chamber of that dark and rugged tower which fronted the windows of the Cesarini’s palace sate a solitary prisoner. A single lamp burned before him on a table of stone, and threw its rays over an open Bible; and those stern but fantastic legends of the prowess of ancient Rome, which the genius of Livy has dignified into history. (“Avea libri assai, suo Tito Livio, sue storie di Roma, la Bibbia et altri libri assai, non finava di studiare.”—“Vita di Cola di Rienzi”, lib. ii. cap. 13. See translation to motto to Book VII. page 202.) A chain hung pendent from the vault of the tower, and confined the captive; but so as to leave his limbs at sufficient liberty to measure at will the greater part of the cell. Green and damp were the mighty stones of the walls, and through a narrow aperture, high out of reach, came the moonlight, and slept in long shadow over the rude floor. A bed at one corner completed the furniture of the room. Such for months had been the abode of the conqueror of the haughtiest Barons, and the luxurious dictator of the stateliest city of the world!
Care, and travel, and time, and adversity, had wrought their change in the person of Rienzi. The proportions of his frame had enlarged from the compact strength of earlier manhood, the clear paleness of his cheek was bespread with a hectic and deceitful glow. Even in his present studies, intent as they seemed, and genial though the lecture to a mind enthusiastic even to fanaticism, his eyes could not rivet themselves as of yore steadily to the page. The charm was gone from the letters. Every now and then he moved restlessly, started, re-settled himself, and muttered broken exclamations like a man in an anxious dream. Anon, his gaze impatiently turned upward, about, around, and there was a strange and wandering fire in those large deep eyes, which might have thrilled the beholder with a vague and unaccountable awe.
Angelo had in the main correctly narrated the more recent adventures of Rienzi after his fall. He had first with Nina and Angelo betaken himself to Naples, and found a fallacious and brief favour with Louis, king of Hungary; that harsh but honourable monarch had refused to yield his illustrious guest to the demands of Clement, but had plainly declared his inability to shelter him in safety. Maintaining secret intercourse with his partisans at Rome, the fugitive then sought a refuge with the Eremites, sequestered in the lone recesses of the Monte Maiella, where in solitude and thought he had passed a whole year, save the time consumed in his visit to and return from Florence. Taking advantage of the Jubilee in Rome, he had then, disguised as a pilgrim, traversed the vales and mountains still rich in the melancholy ruins of ancient Rome, and entering the city, his restless and ambitious spirit indulged in new but vain conspiracies! (Rainald, Ann. 1350, N. 4, E. 5.) Excommunicated a second time by the Cardinal di Ceccano, and again a fugitive, he shook the dust from his feet as he left the city, and raising his hands towards those walls, in which are yet traced the witness of the Tarquins, cried aloud—“Honoured as thy prince—persecuted as thy victim—Rome, Rome, thou shalt yet receive me as thy conqueror!”
Still disguised as a pilgrim, he passed unmolested through Italy into the Court of the Emperor Charles of Bohemia, where the page, who had probably witnessed, had rightly narrated, his reception. It is doubtful, however, whether the conduct of the Emperor had been as chivalrous as appears by Angelo’s relation, or whether he had not delivered Rienzi to the Pontiff’s emissaries. At all events it is certain, that from Prague to Avignon, the path of the fallen Tribune had been as one triumph. His strange adventures—his unbroken spirit—the new power that Intellect daily and wonderfully excited over the minds of the rising generation—the eloquence of Petrarch, and the common sympathy of the vulgar for fallen greatness,—all conspired to make Rienzi the hero of the age. Not a town through which he passed which would not have risked a siege for his protection—not a house that would not have sheltered him—not a hand that would not have struck in his defence. Refusing all offers of aid, disdaining all occasion of escape, inspired by his indomitable hope, and his unalloyed belief in the brightness of his own destinies, the Tribune sought Avignon—and found a dungeon!
These, his external adventures, are briefly and easily told; but who shall tell what passed within?—who narrate the fearful history of the heart?—who paint the rapid changes of emotion and of thought—the indignant grief—the stern dejection—the haughty disappointment that saddened while it never destroyed the resolve of that great soul? Who can say what must have been endured, what meditated, in the hermitage of Maiella;—on the lonely hills of the perished empire it had been his dream to restore;—in the Courts of Barbarian Kings;—and above all, on returning obscure and disguised, amidst the crowds of the Christian world, to the seat of his former power? What elements of memory, and in what a wild and fiery brain! What reflections to be conned in the dungeons of Avignon, by a man who had pushed into all the fervour of fanaticism—four passions, a single one of which has, in excess, sufficed to wreck the strongest reason—passions, which in themselves it is most difficult to combine,—the dreamer—the aspirant—the very nympholept of Freedom, yet of Power—of Knowledge, yet of Religion!
“Ay,” muttered the prisoner, “ay, these texts are comforting—comforting. The righteous are not alway oppressed.” With a long sigh he deliberately put aside the Bible, kissed it with great reverence, remained silent, and musing for some minutes; and then as a slight noise was heard at one corner of the cell, said softly, “Ah, my friends, my comrades, the rats! it is their hour—I am glad I put aside the bread for them!” His eye brightened as it now detected those strange and unsocial animals venturing forth through a hole in the wall, and, darkening the moonshine on the floor, steal fearlessly towards him. He flung some fragments of bread to them, and for some moments watched their gambols with a smile. “Manchino, the white-faced rascal! he beats all the rest—ha, ha! he is a superior wretch—he commands the tribe, and will venture the first into the trap. How will he bite against the steel, the fine fellow! while all the ignobler herd will gaze at him afar off, and quake and fear, and never help. Yet if united, they might gnaw the trap and release their leader! Ah, ye are base vermin, ye eat my bread, yet if death came upon me, ye would riot on my carcass. Away!” and clapping his hands, the chain round him clanked harshly, and the noisome co-mates of his dungeon vanished in an instant.
That singular and eccentric humour which marked Rienzi, and which had seemed a buffoonery to the stolid sullenness of the Roman nobles, still retained its old expression in his countenance, and he laughed loud as he saw the vermin hurry back to their hiding-place.
“A little noise and the clank of a chain—fie, how ye imitate mankind!” Again he sank into silence, and then heavily and listlessly drawing towards him the animated tales of Livy, said, “An hour to midnight!—waking dreams are better than sleep. Well, history tells us how men have risen—ay, and nations too—after sadder falls than that of Rienzi or of Rome!”
In a few minutes, he was apparently absorbed in the lecture; so intent indeed, was he in the task, that he did not hear the steps which wound the spiral stairs that conducted to his cell, and it was not till the wards harshly grated beneath the huge key, and the door creaked on its hinges, that Rienzi, in amaze at intrusion at so unwonted an hour, lifted his eyes. The door had reclosed on the dungeon, and by the lonely and pale lamp he beheld a figure leaning, as for support, against the wall. The figure was wrapped from head to foot in the long cloak of the day, which, aided by a broad hat, shaded by plumes, concealed even the features of the visitor.
Rienzi gazed long and wistfully.
“Speak,” he said at length, putting his hand to his brow. “Methinks either long solitude has bewildered me, or, sweet sir, your apparition dazzles. I know you not—am I sure?—” and Rienzi’s hair bristled while he slowly rose—“Am I sure that it is living man who stands before me? Angels have entered the prison-house before now. Alas! an angel’s comfort never was more needed.”
The stranger answered not, but the captive saw that his heart heaved even beneath his cloak; loud sobs choked his voice; at length, as by a violent effort, he sprung forward, and sunk at the Tribune’s feet. The disguising hat, the long mantle fell to the ground—it was the face of a woman that looked upward through passionate and glazing tears—the arms of a woman that clasped the prisoner’s knees! Rienzi gazed mute and motionless as stone. “Powers and Saints of Heaven!” he murmured at last, “do ye tempt me further!—is it?—no, no—yet speak!”
“Beloved—adored!—do you not know me?”
“It is—it is!” shrieked Rienzi wildly, “it is my Nina—my wife—my—” His voice forsook him. Clasped in each other’s arms, the unfortunates for some moments seemed to have lost even the sense of delight at their reunion. It was as an unconscious and deep trance, through which something like a dream only faintly and indistinctively stirs.
At length recovered—at length restored, the first broken exclamations, the first wild caresses of joy over—Nina lifted her head from her husband’s bosom, and gazed sadly on his countenance—“Oh, what thou hast known since we parted!—what, since that hour when, borne on by thy bold heart and wild destiny, thou didst leave me in the Imperial Court, to seek again the diadem and find the chain! Ah! why did I heed thy commands?—why suffer thee to depart alone? How often in thy progress hitherward, in doubt, in danger, might this bosom have been thy resting-place, and this voice have whispered comfort to thy soul? Thou art well, my Lord—my Cola! Thy pulse beats quicker than of old—thy brow is furrowed. Ah! tell me thou art well!”
“Well,” said Rienzi, mechanically. “Methinks so!—the mind diseased blunts all sense of bodily decay. Well—yes! And thou—thou, at least, art not changed, save to maturer beauty. The glory of the laurel-wreath has not faded from thy brow. Thou shalt yet—” then breaking off abruptly—“Rome—tell me of Rome! And thou—how camest thou hither? Ah! perhaps my doom is sealed, and in their mercy they have vouchsafed that I should see thee once more before the deathsman blinds me. I remember, it is the grace vouchsafed to malefactors. When I was a lord of life and death, I too permitted the meanest criminal to say farewell to those he loved.”
“No—not so, Cola!” exclaimed Nina, putting her hand before his mouth. “I bring thee more auspicious tidings. Tomorrow thou art to be heard. The favour of the Court is propitiated. Thou wilt be acquitted.”
“Ha! speak again.”
“Thou wilt be heard, my Cola—thou must be acquitted!”
“And Rome be free!—Great God, I thank Thee!”
The Tribune sank on his knees, and never had his heart, in his youngest and purest hour, poured forth thanksgiving more fervent, yet less selfish. When he rose again, the whole man seemed changed. His eye had resumed its earlier expressions of deep and serene command. Majesty sate upon his brow. The sorrows of the exile were forgotten. In his sanguine and rapid thoughts, he stood once more the guardian of his country,—and its sovereign!
Nina gazed upon him with that intense and devoted worship, which steeped her vainer and her harder qualities in all the fondness of the softest woman. “Such,” thought she, “was his look eight years ago, when he left my maiden chamber, full of the mighty schemes which liberated Rome—such his look, when at the dawning sun he towered amidst the crouching Barons, and the kneeling population of the city he had made his throne!”
“Yes, Nina!” said Rienzi, as he turned and caught her eye. “My soul tells me that my hour is at hand. If they try me openly, they dare not convict—if they acquit me, they dare not but restore. Tomorrow, saidst thou, tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow, Rienzi; be prepared!”
“I am—for triumph! But tell me what happy chance brought thee to Avignon?”
“Chance, Cola!” said Nina, with reproachful tenderness. “Could I know that thou wert in the dungeons of the Pontiff, and linger in idle security at Prague? Even at the Emperor’s Court thou hadst thy partisans and favourers. Gold was easily procured. I repaired to Florence—disguised my name—and came hither to plot, to scheme, to win thy liberty, or to die with thee. Ah! did not thy heart tell thee that morning and night the eyes of thy faithful Nina gazed upon this gloomy tower; and that one friend, humble though she be, never could forsake thee!”
“Sweet Nina! Yet—yet—at Avignon power yields not to beauty without reward. Remember, there is a worse death than the pause of life.”
Nina turned pale. “Fear not,” she said, with a low but determined voice; “fear not, that men’s lips should say Rienzi’s wife delivered him. None in this corrupted Court know that I am thy wife.”
“Woman,” said the Tribune, sternly; “thy lips elude the answer I would seek. In our degenerate time and land, thy sex and ours forget too basely what foulness writes a leprosy in the smallest stain upon a matron’s honour. That thy heart would never wrong me, I believe; but if thy weakness, thy fear of my death should wrong me, thou art a bitterer foe to Rienzi than the swords of the Colonna. Nina, speak!”
“Oh, that my soul could speak,” answered Nina. “Thy words are music to me, and not a thought of mine but echoes them. Could I touch this hand, could I meet that eye, and not know that death were dearer to thee than shame? Rienzi, when last we parted, in sadness, yet in hope, what were thy words to me?”