Page:Manzoni - The Betrothed, 1834.djvu/257

 The Unknown, who had already heard something of it, listened with much attention to the recital, both because he naturally loved such relations, and because Friar Christopher, that avowed enemy of tyrants, was concerned in it. Don Roderick spoke of the difficulty of the undertaking, the distance of the place, a monastery, the signora,—but the Unknown, as if prompted by the demon in his heart, interrupted him, saying, that he took the charge of the affair on himself. He wrote down the name of the poor Lucy, and dismissed Don Roderick, saying, "In a little while you will receive news from me."

The reader may remember the villain Egidio, who lived near the walls of the monastery into which Lucy had been received; now, he was one of the most intimate colleagues in crime of the Unknown; and this accounts for the promptness with which this lord assumed the charge of the undertaking. However, no sooner was he left alone than he repented of his precipitation. He had for some time experienced, not remorse, but a vague uneasiness on account of his crimes; at every new addition to them, the remembrance of those he had previously committed pressed upon his memory, if not upon his conscience, and loaded it with an intolerable weight. An undefinable repugnance to the commission of crime, such as he had experienced and subdued at the outset of his career, returned with all its force to overwhelm his spirit. The thoughts of the future contributed to render the past more painful. "To grow old! to die! and then?" And the image of death, which he had so often met undaunted, in face of an enemy, and which seemed to inflame his courage and double his energy—this same image now, in the midnight silence of his castle, quelled his spirit, and impressed him with an awe which he in vain endeavoured to resist. Formerly, the frequent spectacle of violence and murder, inspiring him with a ferocious emulation, had served as a kind of authority against his conscience; now the confused but terrible idea arose in his mind of individual responsibility at the bar of God. The idea of having risen above the crowd of vulgar criminals, and of having left them far behind, an idea which once flattered his pride, now impressed him with a sentiment of fearful solitude; and