Dangerous Letters

Chapter Twelve

Letter XXVIII

November 22, 17—

Dear Mother and Father,

A weak sort of misery has hung about my heart all evening, a shade of sadness that I cannot dissipate for all my mediations and prayers. I am certain the Master hates the sight of me; I have fallen irrevocably from his graces and surely it shall not be long before I – like much of the staff – am asked to leave this residence and my dear pupil.

All was well enough when I rose early this morning for a stroll at sunrise. The cool and balmy air was reviving, and the clearness of the morning sky permitted me to discriminate the minute through very distant features of the landscape and on that mountainous eminence rising from the plains of a valley opening to the west. How softened, yet how distinct, was every near object; how sweetly dubious the more removed ones; while the mountains beyond character themselves sat sublimely upon the still glowing horizon.

I walked beneath the soothing shade of one of the ruined walls the crowned the ancient castle, lost in private imaginings that thought of the high crumbling towers as the prison and tomb of many a Prince, who, "fallen from his high estate," was sent from Imperial Rome to finish here the sad reverse of his days; to gaze from the bars of his tower upon solitudes where beauty or grandeur administered no assuaging feelings to him, whose life had passed amidst the intrigues of the world, and the feverish contentions of disappointed ambition; to him, with whom reflection brought only remorse, and anticipation despair; whom "no horizontal beam enlivened in the crimson evening of life's dusty day."

So caught up was in this scene that I had painted, that I was startled to when Duc de B------, climbing through a place where the brick had fallen away, hailed me from behind. Ah, but I should explain – the Duke is visiting from his estate in --------, and I had not seen him since the first night he arrived here on Monday. We exchanged greetings, commented on the beauty of the sunrise and, when I might have parted ways, he asked to join my walk.

Finding him unexpectedly easy to converse with, our discourse turned to the local climate and I divulged a little of my secret imaginings. "And to such a scene as this," he agreed, "a Roman Emperor came, only for the purpose of witnessing the most barbarous exhibition; to indulge the most savage delights! Here, Claudius celebrated the accomplishment of his arduous work, an aqueduct to carry the overflowing waters of the Celano to Rome, by a naval fight, in which hundreds of wretched slaves perished for his amusement! It's pure and polished surface was stained with human blood, and roughened by the plunging bodies of the slain, while the gilded gallies of the Emperor floated gaily around, and these beautiful shores were made to echo with applauding yells, worthy of the furies!"

We continued on, the Duc making more grand observations as to the exalted scene. "Observe, too," he said, "how those broken summits, tipt with the beams that have set to our lower region, exhibit the portraiture of towers and castles, and embattled ramparts, which seemed designed to guard them against the enemies, that may come by those gathering clouds."

"Yes," I agreed, "these mountains themselves display a sublimity, that seems to belong to a higher world; their besiegers ought not to be of this earth; they can be only spirits of the air."

"They can be nothing else, Madamselle," said the Duc, "for nothing of this earth can reach them. See! lady, they have some of the qualities of your spirits, too; see! how they change their shapes and colours, as the sun−beams sink. And now, how gray and dim they grow! See but how fast they vanish!"

"Everything reposes – " I started to agree, but was halted by the sight of a figure in the distance as we turned the corner of the wall. Someone stood some on the edge of a rocky precipice with his back to us, looking out into the vista that had become obscured by a thickening fog that had rolled in with the sunrise. He was wrapped in a dark green overcoat and gripped a thin, elegant walking stick in his right hand. His hair was tussled by the wind. Behind him, through the wreaths of fog, the forests of trees atop the escarpments were still visible; in the distance, the faded mountains gently levelled into lowland plains. Beyond here, the pervading fog stretched out indefinitely, eventually commingling with the horizon and becoming indistinguishable from the cloud-filled sky.